symmetry?

[Luke]

this seems like a bit of a hidden features, but I'm glad I found it via a little searching. It does seem a little buggy though.

I made a SV with latteral symmetry.. but mutliple times there were strange bugs introduced where a wrong block was placed or a block was placed in the wrong orientation.

I wasnt doing anything fancy, just one axis of lateral symmetry and I never moved the plane after first placing it. I did get into the SV a couple times and fly it without turning the symmetry off, so maybe that caused problems?

Does anyone have tips for avoiding glitches when building in symmetry mode, or do you always have to expect to do some cleanup afterwards?

[Calagan]

Symmetry place the exact same block symmetrically, turning it if necessary. Then having a wrong block as you said is weird, and I never experienced this.

Note that some blocks are "oriented" like left-hand rails or walls or windows. Then, as symmetry places the exact same block, you'll have left-hand block on the left and on the...right. So these blocks are to be set up manually.

Also the painting scheme of block are often not symmetrical, which can bother you if you need some symmetrical painting.

[Luke]

I had some sloped steel blocks placed sloped in the wrong direction, an extra engine on one side (like it didnt keep track of an engine that should have been removed), and generally a ton of errors after each edit.

all in all, using symmetry was better than not using it. but it was a hassle to go back and fix all the random problems and glitches.

It might work better starting from a fresh vehicle rather than from an existing one, I dont know.

[Calagan]

Well, to remove blocks with symmetry, always use shift+click, and double check your symmetry line placement (on edge or centered on a block line). And be super careful when placing block you hear the sound, but that seems not placed, IT MAY be placed out of sight. You sometimes aim in a tiny hole without noticing it.
And if you work on existing ship, it may be possible this isn't a truly symmetrical ship at the beginning, or that symmetry has been changed afterward.

Appart of these traps I noticed using symmetry, I can't help more, I use a lot the lateral symmetry, and never experienced more than a couple of issues, even on very large buildings

[Notanyriedel]

Originally posted by Calagan:

Note that some blocks are "oriented" like left-hand rails or walls or windows. Then, as symmetry places the exact same block, you'll have left-hand block on the left and on the...right. So these blocks are to be set up manually.

Not exactly true. While using symmetry feature, most asymmetrical blocks have their mirrored counterpart automatically placed correctly. This applies to most steel/concrete shapes, railings and most other blocks. But I get a feeling that for these asymmetrical blocks, the counterpart is manually coded by the devs somewhere. So for some rare variants it appears this connection isn't set or set incorrectly, cause I've met some blocks (can't remember which ones exactly) that were placed incorectly, and I had to manually place their symmetrical counterpart. But that applies only to very few block types, for the most part symmetry feature works perfectly.

That said, for the paint jobs symmetry doesn't work as good. Most of the time I had to manually paint complex shaped blocks, as symmetry works flawlessly only for painting basic shapes like cubes and simple slopes.

All in all, the symmetry is a great, time-saving feature. I only wish that they fix it for painting, and it would be absolutely amazing if Creative tools for Selection also had Mirror button, in addition to move and rotate.

[Luke]

So, I think my confusion came from the fact that symmetry isnt deleting blocks.

There are still a few random mis-rotated things, but most of the trouble I've had is down to the fact that you have to delete blocks on both sides of the symmetry plane yourself.

[Calagan]

Originally posted by Calagan:

Well, to remove blocks with symmetry, always use shift+click

If you delete with multitool, you'll delete 1 block, whatever the symmetry applied.
With Shift+Rclick, you'll delete both side

[Luke]

Originally posted by Calagan:

If you delete with multitool, you'll delete 1 block, whatever the symmetry applied.
With Shift+Rclick, you'll delete both side

how do you do this? when I do shift+rclick with multitool, it brings up the tool menu. when i do it with open hands (0 on quickbar) it does nothing.

[Calagan]

Not with multitool, but with a block selected
Any block

[Luke]

oh wow, thats amazing. it only works with another block in your hand. How did you ever figure that out?

[Calagan]

Well, I don't really remember if I read it on forum or discovered by accident, but that's the magic of Empyrion, you learn anyhow anytime, a never ending story.

I hope this will help you to enjoy even more !

[DocRabbit]

Originally posted by Luke:

oh wow, thats amazing. it only works with another block in your hand. How did you ever figure that out?

The multitool has it purpose, just a different one. When you are texturing a full block, and you can't get the texture to go in the right direction, use the multitool's rotate function with the correct axis and you can spin the bock till the texture lines up correctly. I'm also curious, was your symmetry aligned middle of a block or along an edge when you had these issues? I find keeping it along a spine centerline block makes symmetry less buggy.

[Luke]

middle.