Now that surface types are removed, you can no longer go into the properties window and click on a surface to highlight it on a part. (You didn’t have to change the surface, only click on the property) This negatively impacts developer workflows because we have many cases where knowing the Front / Up surface of a part is necessary.
You now have to resort to lenghly workarounds to view the FrontSurface of a part, such as using the command line to set it to a hinge and then set it back. Another workaround is to place a decal on the part and set the surface to the one you wish to highlight.
Example:
This functionality used to be immediately available but was removed from studio with the latest update. Please add it back!
Although this change is a little annoying and I feel the frustration as a builder, I believe the solution would not be to revert this change but instead to introduce a better way to see the orientation of an object. Having to select the surface type in a widget to view the orientation of an object does not feel intuitive after all. I think it would be more intuitive and a better workflow if you could immediately see the way an object is facing when you select it.
For example, when you select the rotate tool with the rotate mode set to ‘global’ a little indicator pops up at the world origin. Something similar could be useful for the ‘Select’ and ‘Move’ tool. For example if you were to hover over one of your selected objects it would display the orientation of the object.
But until then, temporarily reverting this change would be great.
I agree, I was thinking some sort of indicator when using the dragger or etc would suffice, as you suggested.
this^
It’s counterproductive to impact our workflows for something that wasn’t having a negative impact on anyone. An alternative should be prepared before removing the functionality
I just noticed that they removed this, and just like many others I used this to view what direction my objects are facing… I find it hard to believe that there isn’t any simple way to check this anymore! I’m also in favor of temporarily reverting this change until there’s a solution… This is frustrating!
They did mention on the announcement thread that it would be coming to the Lua draggers in some form of local orientation indication.
Though I fully agree they should’ve had that prepared or at least a quick temporary version of it ready before getting rid of surfaces from the properties.
Recategorized to Studio Features because this is obviously not an engine level thing.
Support a feature request like this instead. The argument in this topic is to bring back an old feature that’s on its way out to support a dumb hack that never should have been a workflow in the first place. As a feature request this topic is completely ineffective.
Further, many plugins have already been developed that add similar functionality back into Studio that you can use in the meantime.
e.g. my own:
