ShapeEditor
The Shape Editor is used to view and edit the shapes that can be placed into your levels using the Object Editor. The Shape Editor can view and manipulate files in both the DTS (.dts) and COLLADA (.dae) formats. It can be used to quickly preview shapes before they are added to a level, and provides an easy way to add, edit and delete animation sequences, skeleton nodes, and rendering detail levels. (click to enlarge)  The Shape Editor can be activated from the main menu by selecting Editors > Shape Editor.
(click to enlarge) 
To start using the Shape Editor, first you need to select a shape. There are three ways to do this:
The Force DAE option checkbox at the top of the Shapes panel forces Torque to load the COLLADA file, even if an up-to-date cached.dts file is present. Note that if the model is already present in the scene (and thus already loaded into the Torque Resource Manager), the Force DAE option will have no effect, as the shape will be opened from memory instead of from disk. This option is also available in the Editor Settings panel when working in the World Editor. You will be prompted to save if there are unsaved changes in the current shape when a new shape is selected.
The selected shape will appear in the View window, and listings of its sequences, nodes and materials will be displayed in the Properties window. The Hints tab in the Shape Selection window shows you which nodes and sequences are required for a particular type of shape to work with Torque.
Simply select the desired object type from the dropdown menu and the list of required nodes and sequences will be displayed underneath. Items that are present in the selected shape will be marked with a tick mark. Hovering the mouse cursor over an item will display a short description of the item. Double-click the item to add it to the current shape. Most items are optional - the shape will still load and run without a particular node or sequence, but the object may not perform correctly in-game. A Player object for example uses a node called cam as the 3rd person camera position. If this node does not exist, the shape origin is used instead, which will probably not be correct for most character shapes. It is easy to extend the Shape Editor hints for custom object types by adding to the list in: tools/shapeEditor/scripts/shapeEditorHints.ed.cs. The Shape View window displays the shape as it would be seen in-game, and also provides helpful rendering modes such as transparent, wireframe and visible nodes. (click to enlarge)  The camera can be rotated by dragging the right mouse button, translated by dragging the middle mouse button (drag left+right buttons if your mouse does not have a middle button), and zoomed using the mouse wheel. Use the Camera->View menu (or the dropdown list in the bottom right corner) to switch between the Standard/Perspective view and the orthographic views (Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Front, Back). Hovering the mouse over a shape node will display the node name, and left clicking a node in the view will select it in the Node Properties panel (and vice versa). Once a node is selected, its transform can be modified by dragging the 3D gizmo similar to how objects are positioned in the World Editor. At the bottom of the Shape View window are the animation playback controls:
As well as allowing the selected sequence to be scrubbed with the slider, stepped one frame at a time, or played normally, the start and end frames of the sequence can be easily modified to facilitate sequence splitting or to correct off-by-one-frame looping errors. Sequence triggers appear as thin, vertical bars at the appropriate frame (as shown in the image above). Pressing the in or out button, or modifying the text box directly (remember to hit Return to apply the change), will set the start or end frame of the sequence to the current slider position. The Properties window is where you can view and edit the sequences, nodes, detail levels and materials in the shape. The top right corner has three buttons, which do the following:
The Sequences tab (displayed as "Seq" onscreen) lists the sequences available in the shape, as well as a number of different properties about the selected sequence. In addition, the 'root' (non-animated) pose can be selected for display in the Shape View window.
The sequence properties available to view and edit are:
An important feature of the Shape Editor is the ability to add new sequences to a shape from external animation files (DSQ or DAE). This allows animations to be shared by shapes that have a common skeleton (such as character models). To add a new sequence click the New Sequence button. If a sequence is currently selected when the button is clicked, the new sequence will use that selected sequence as its initial source for animation keyframes. You can change the Source using the dropdown menu to select a different sequence, or to Browse for an external DSQ or DAE file. If the <rootpose is selected, pressing the
New Sequence (
Once the sequence has been created, you can edit its properties - including the start and end frames - using the Sequence Properties panel. Currently, very few 3D modeling packages support the COLLADA <animation_clip element, which means a model with several animations will appear to have only a single sequence (or 'clip') when loaded into Torque. The Shape Editor allows you to split this single animation into multiple sequences by specifying different start and end frames for each sequence. The procedure for splitting animations is as follows:
A blend animation is special in that it stores node transforms relative to a reference keyframe, instead of absolute transforms like other animations. This allows the sequence to be played on top of another sequence without forcing the animated nodes to a particular position. The Shape Editor allows you to set and clear the blend flag for a sequence, as well as change the reference keyframe if desired. Each of these operations requires that a valid reference sequence and reference frame number is specified. For example, most Player characters will have a blended look animation. The animation is a blend so that the character's head can be made to look around while also doing something else (like running or swimming). To make the look animation a blend, first we set the reference sequence (e.g. root) and frame (e.g. 0), then we can set the blend flag. The nodes tab shows the node hierarchy and various properties of the selected node.
The node properties available to view and edit are:
The Shape Editor allows shape nodes to be added, moved, renamed and deleted. To add a node, simply press the New Node
There are two ways to edit node transforms: The first way is to manually edit the position and rotation values in the Node Property panel. This method is most useful when trying to set an explicit value. For example, you may require that a node be offset by exactly 2 units in the X direction from its parent node. Node transforms can be specified as either relative-to-parent (Object mode) or relative-to-origin (World mode). The second way to edit node transforms is in the 3D Shape View. Simply select the desired node in the 3D view or in the node tree then drag the axis gizmo to the correct position and orientation.
It should be noted that the Shape Editor tool is not intended as a replacement for a fully-functional 3D modeling application, and as such, it only allows the non-animated transforms of the shape nodes to be edited. That is, the node transforms when the shape is in the root pose. You cannot use the Shape Editor tool to define new animation keyframes. For this reason, it is recommended to edit node transforms only when the <rootpose is selected in the Sequence Properties list. Node transforms can be edited when any sequence is selected, but the results may not be as expected, since animated parent nodes will affect the node transform as seen in the Shape View. To delete a node, simply select it in the 3D Shape View or the node tree and press the
Delete The Detail tab of the Properties pane lists the detail levels and associated geometry (meshes) in the shape, as well as allowing certain properties to be edited.
The Shape Editor also allows meshes to be hidden inside the 3D view (equivalent to the ShapeBase::setMeshHidden script method). Simply right-click a mesh in the detail tree to toggle the hidden state. Note that all detail-level meshes for that object share the same hidden state, so hiding the Head 2 mesh will also hide any other meshes for the Head object.
The Shape Editor allows you to import geometry from another DAE or DTS file into the current shape via the "Import Shape into..." button. Geometry in the external file may be added to the currently selected detail level or to a new, automatically created detail level. The size of the new detail level can be edited after the geometry has been added.
The Materials tab (labelled as "Mat" in the window) shows the materials specified in the shape, as well as the Material each one is mapped to.
(click to enlarge)  Selecting a material while the Highlight selected Material option is set will highlight all of the primitives that use the material in the shape view. Pressing
Edit the selected Material will open the Material Editor dialog, allowing you to modify the Material properties and view the results in real-time in the Shape Editor view window. Hit the Back to Previous Editor The detail size and mesh characteristics for each LOD need to be carefully determined in order to reduce the visual artifacts associated with switching and rendering detail levels. The Details Tab of the Advanced Properties window provides a convenient way to view and edit detail levels without having to re-export the model. It also allows non-rendered collision and LOS-collision detail levels to be visualised.
The detail level properties available to view and edit are:
The Details Tab of the Advanced Properties window allows imposter detail levels to be added and edited. Imposters are a series of snapshots of the object from various camera angles which are rendered instead of the object when this detail level is selected. An imposter detail level is usually the last visible detail level (smallest positive size value). The Mounting Tab of the Advanced Properties window allows you to attach other models to the main shape to visualise how they would look in-game, or to fine tune the position and rotation of mount nodes. When a model is mounted, it inherits the position and rotation of the node it is mounted to and will animate along with it.
Press the Mount New Shape
The Threads Tab of the Advanced Properties window allows you to set up threads to play multiple sequences simultaneously, and to view transitions between sequences. A set of animation sequence playback controls that mirror the main animation controls are provided as a convenience so you don't have to mouse too far to test out a new thread. The mini-timeline slider is also used to indicate sequence transition information.
(click to enlarge)  The Shape Editor can auto-fit geometry to a part or the whole of the shape for use in collision checking. Each time the settings are changed, the geometry in detail size -1 is replaced with the new auto-fit geometry. The node Col-1 (and any child nodes) may also be modified.
The following types of geometry can be generated. The Box, Sphere and Capsule types are generally the most CPU efficient, and are converted to true collision primitives when the shape is loaded. The other types are treated as convex triangular meshes - the more triangles, the more expensive it is to test for collision against the mesh.
The k-DOP (K Discrete Oriented Polytope) types push 'k' axis-aligned planes as close to the mesh as possible, then form a convex hull from the resulting points as shown below. 
The Convex Hull fit type performs a convex decomposition of the target geometry to generate a set of convex hulls. The basic algorithm is described here. For each hull that is produced, the hull volume is compared to the volume of a box, sphere and capsule that would enclose the hull. The hull is replaced with the primitive type that is closest in volume to the hull with volume % difference less than Box, Sphere or Capsule % respectively. If none of the primitive volumes are less than their respective error setting, the hull will be retained as a triangular mesh. The Shape Editor displays the following buttons on the World Editor Tool Settings Bar:
The Shape Editor Palette is similar to that in the World Editor, and allows you to select, translate and rotate nodes in the Shape View window.
The Shape Editor Palette also includes a mode allowing the sun in the view window to be rotated by dragging the left mouse button.
The Shape Editor settings dialog can be accessed from the main menu by selecting Edit Editor Settings, and allows the appearance of the editor to be customized. These settings are persistent and will be automatically saved and restored between sessions.
The Shape Editor does not modify the DTS or COLLADA asset file directly. Instead, changes made in the editor are saved to a TSShapeConstructor object in a separate TorqueScript file. This file is automatically read by Torque before the asset is loaded, meaning you can safely re-export the DTS or COLLADA model without overwriting changes made in the Shape Editor tool. The change set will be re-applied to the shape when it is next loaded by Torque.
If needed, you can also re-edit the generated TSShapeConstructor object, either manually with a text editor, or by using the Shape Editor tool again. To save changes to the current shape, simply press the save button The Shape Editor TSShapeConstructor object may also be accessed directly from the console. For example:
|
) button will open the Browse window automatically.
button in the top right corner of the Properties panel. Note that deleting a node will also delete all of its children.
button on the toolbar. To view all collision geometry (as wireframe) no matter which detail level is selected, use the
Toggle Collision Mesh 
button on the toolbar.
button in the upper-left corner of the Material Properties pane to return to the Shape Editor. Do not forget to save any changes you make before returning to the Shape Editor.
Toggles display of the grid
Centers the shape, and zooms the camera so that the shape extents fit into the view
Toggles orbit node camera mode. When enabled, selecting a node will center the camera orbit on the node.
Toggles display of shape nodes
Toggles shape transparent rendering mode
Toggles shape wireframe rendering mode
Toggles display of the shape bounding box
Toggles display of Advanced Properties window
in the top right corner of the Properties window. The script filename is the same as the DTS or COLLADA asset filename, only with a .cs extension. For example, saving changes to ForgeSoldier.dts would save to the file ForgeSoldier.cs in the same folder.var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
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