Knightmare Texture Nudge [Plugin] - Quickly Visually Align Object Textures via OffsetStuds

This plugin will allow you to quickly align selected textures on objects in various fine degrees down to the thousandth of a stud. You can adjust both the current selected texture or the same texture “un-selected” to remove the selection lines around it for better visual control. Fully compatible with Studio Undo and Redo actions. The plugin window can be resized while floating or docked to any part of Studio in any size that you want.

Stop burning development time manually inputting settings and hoping that you guess the magic numbers needed to align your textures. Get all that lost time back today!

Feedback always welcome! :grinning:

Free Version to Demo or Purchase Full Version via Gamepass (Regional Pricing Compatible):

Full Version Plugin purchase via USD:

9 Likes

This looks like it would be better as a slider with a custom increment.

1 Like

it looks good but the ui definitely needs some work

2 Likes

I did try that at first, but their was some precision issues because if you want to move the texture by the hundredths or thousandths of a stud, it’s nearly impossible to keep the mouse steady enough to do this with the slider unless it was giant (like the entire screen) size. I found the simple arrows and break down of the decimal positions much more precise and faster. No reason why a slider couldn’t be an option, but I feel it would not get much use once someone encounters the same precision issue I did while testing and using it. :thinking:

Always open to suggestions, what would you suggest? :grinning:

I’d personally suggest:

Offset (studs) 1 0.1 0.01 0.001
U: [value] +
-
+
-
+
-
+
-
V: [value] +
-
+
-
+
-
+
-

Right-justify all the elements in the first column. Center-justify all elements in the subsequent columns. I think Single to ^ or v arrows representing the increment/decrement might be less intuitive and more (trivial) visual work for the user than seeing 1 to + or -, etc… I also like saving space, so…

I’m not sure if the texture image in the UI is necessary because they can:

  1. See the texture in the workspace, and
  2. Will probably view the texture in the workspace if they’re trying to fix an offset issue

The “Texture” text could go because it takes up space without providing a significant function for your plugin–I’d instead keep the current title of your plugin in the above window name for this purpose.

I’m not a UI/UX expert, but that’s what I’d do. :slight_smile:

4 Likes

I’ve updated the GUI and screenshots above with the feedback given. The new GUI is hopefully more intuitive and smaller now to take up less screen space.

  1. I looked into having sliders, but because some textures require something like a 7.395 offset for example, that means I would be making sliders with over 7,000 ticks. The precision is too difficult with sliders that have thousands of ticks, so functionally, the manual buttons work much better and more precisely. It may not look as pretty as sliders, but trying to align textures when you need to nudge them so slightly is very difficult without sliders that are just way too big.
  2. The top part of the GUI has static information such as the name of the texture you selected and a small image of it. While it may seem redundant being that you are already going to be looking at the texture you are working on, it does have some practical use when you “un-select” a texture to work on it without the highlight lines when doing some very close up, fine tuning of the texture alignment and want to move around the object that has multiple textures to change. That way, selecting the textures from the explorer window is easier to visually track which one you are working on if zoomed in really close to an object.
  3. Great feedback about the buttons. Simplified to use just + and - buttons to increment the offset. Changed the live values on the left to simplify what values they show and you can even manually input numbers into those boxes if you want.
  4. Because most of us probably have more horizontal space than vertical space on our monitors, I left the increment buttons in that orientation so that space could still exist between the horizontal and vertical offset settings. I found in testing that I was less likely hit the wrong buttons by accident when aligning the textures or accidentally increment the wrong orientation (U vs. V). Luckily, it’s easy to Undo, but the space helped focus me on the orientation I was working on, Vertical vs. Horizontal for example. The window is also easy to resize if you want to spread out or squish all the buttons together too. The buttons also change color so you know which one your mouse is on, just another visual aid to help mentally track what you are changing on the texture.
  5. Finally, I do wish that was some easy “shortcut” to just have Studio perfectly align two object textures next to each other, but I do understand the technical challenges of “how is it suppose to know when they are aligned”, so maybe that is a future Ai thing, but for now we gotta do the human way. :grinning:
2 Likes

I’ve added a link to the free version on the first topic post. This will allow anyone to demo the plugin or purchase it via gamepass (Regional pricing compatible) if they prefer that method. The demo mode basically gives you 5 minutes to select and work with as many textures as you like. When the timer expires, you can’t select any new textures, but can continue on the last texture you were working with. The timer resets everytime you start Studio, so if you just need this tool as a one-off then you may never need to purchase it, but if you need to do a lot of tedious texture alignments on a continual basis, it might be worth your time to purchase it then. :wink:

Thanks for all the feedback here and via Direct Messages from other members. :grin: