FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Currently I am suffered by the problem that stairs don’t allow me to place them in positions which I desire. It seems as if they always want to turn themselves in another direction. Although it is possible to adjust them with the screwdriver tool, it would be nice if this could be done during placing them.
e.g. it is impossible to place a upside down stair below your own position. As far as I know it is only possible from a lower position.

I want a feature/mod which allows me to place stairs in every direction independent from my position and my viewing angle. I think it would be handy if this would be possible by holding the right mouse button and pressing W/A/S/D.
Currently holding the right mouse button constantly places blocks, but this is only useful in creative mode if you are flying.

I hope this picture helps you to understand what I mean.
I’m looking forward to read your opinions/ideas and hope that this feature becomes true. ^^

+9001

I'm looking for something like this since i've build my first house in minetest

If I remember correctly, there's a command like "/st" which allows to build stairs at walls.
Screwdrivers are surely helpful too.
The problem with WASD is, they're already used for movements..

RHR wrote:I want a feature/mod which allows me to place stairs in every direction independent from my position and my viewing angle. I think it would be handy if this would be possible by holding the right mouse button and pressing W/A/S/D.

The screwdriver annoys me quite a lot sometimes as well. It is a very useful tool - except that lag in combination with many clicks necessary to rotate into the desired position and not very intuitive rotations make it painful to use often. The automatic placement is at least helpful in most situations, while it's not always possible to place from the right angle.

Your suggestion of combining mouse buttons and movement keys most likely would not be possible with the current interface. What we can do would be to offer a tool with which you could click on a stair or other nodebox and would be presented with a formspec where you could select that one of the possible 24 rotations that you desire. Problem there: How to present the diffrent options to the player? We can't have pictures for each rotation stage...Ideas are welcome!

Also, if you love to build with stairs or other stairsplus nodes, take a look at my replacer mod. It does not help much with the first stair you want to rotate - only with all subsequent ones :-) If you want to, you can place the stair in the desired rotation somewhere else, store the pattern and orientation with the replacer, and put another stair with the same rotation in the inaccessible position.

what about ctrl+w/a/s/d. using ctrl could disable the movement associated with WASD, and give the same effect as above.

RHR wrote:e.g. it is impossible to place a upside down stair below your own position. As far as I know it is only possible from a lower position.

--> nodetest

I use the replace mod for this. Then i have to place one stair the way i want, and then i use right click with replacer to place new stairs in the orientation of the first stair.

https://github.com/Sokomine/replacer

That is a brilliant idea. Using rightclick and using the W/A/S/D keys would be amazing. This would rid of the screwdriver mod which I find quite a pain to use.

There are more than 8 orientations. Depending on the way the nodebox is defined, it may be up to 24. The old facedir nodes could point north, east, south and west (4 directions) - with the 6d facedir, the groundplate can be moved to any of the 6 sides of the cube. Doing it with a tool like the replacer and selecting the desired orientation directly from a formspec would be possible (=2 clicks instead of key combination) - the only thing preventing that is that I have no idea of how to display the 24 possible choices so that people can imagine how it will look like.

Sokomine wrote:There are more than 8 orientations. Depending on the way the nodebox is defined, it may be up to 24. The old facedir nodes could point north, east, south and west (4 directions) - with the 6d facedir, the groundplate can be moved to any of the 6 sides of the cube. Doing it with a tool like the replacer and selecting the desired orientation directly from a formspec would be possible (=2 clicks instead of key combination) - the only thing preventing that is that I have no idea of how to display the 24 possible choices so that people can imagine how it will look like.

if you examine the first post, that has four different positions one each side. 4*6 is 24. the suggestion here could actually work.

thx for feedback! I'm glad to read that you like my idea!

Novacain wrote:what about ctrl+w/a/s/d. using ctrl could disable the movement associated with WASD, and give the same effect as above.

That would be fine too. I think holding the right mouse button and WASD would be better, because you don’t have to move your fingers from keys and buttons which you already use, but every other key combination would be fine too as long as you could use it during placing the stair.

Casimir wrote:--> nodetest

I tried nodetest, but the placement isn’t different to MT default. Maybe I didn’t found the feature what you mean…

lightonflux wrote:I use the replace mod for this. Then i have to place one stair the way i want, and then i use right click with replacer to place new stairs in the orientation of the first stair.

Yes replacer mod is useful for many things, but I want to adjust the stair during placing and not though complex ways.

Sokomine wrote:Your suggestion of combining mouse buttons and movement keys most likely would not be possible with the current interface. What we can do would be to offer a tool with which you could click on a stair or other nodebox and would be presented with a formspec where you could select that one of the possible 24 rotations that you desire.

I’m sorry, but you misunderstood me. First I’m only talking about stairs (no other blocks!) and I don’t need all 24 directions! I only need 4 (north/east/south/west) and the rotation axis should go through the top and the ground plate of the stair and the player should be able to rotate the stair while placing. The groundplate of the stair should always stick on the wall or ground (where the player want to place the stair) and it shouldn‘t change. I hope that this is possible with the current interface and my suggestion (= holding the right mouse button and using WASD.) I changed the picture a bit, maybe it is now better to understand. ^^

Krock wrote:The problem with WASD is, they're already used for movements..

I thought about holding right mouse button while pressing WASD. It should be posible, because climbing (shift+WASD) works the same way. RMC+WASD would be easiest way for users, but if it is to difficult to progamm, every other key combination would be fine too.

RHR wrote:I thought about holding right mouse button while pressing WASD.

the problem is that that currently keeps laying blocks. I know I use that feature a lot.

Novacain wrote:

RHR wrote:I thought about holding right mouse button while pressing WASD.

the problem is that that currently keeps laying blocks. I know I use that feature a lot.

The idea is that this key combination is used when you are placing stairs... the placement of other blocks should not be changed. (maybe we find a way for all kinds of blocks later) I can't imagine that you are using that keep-laying-blocks feature for stairs, because as soon as your viewing angle changes the stairs start to turn ...

If it is impossible to seperate the stair placement and the placement of other blocks then another key combination might be better, of course.

RHR wrote:

Novacain wrote:

RHR wrote:I thought about holding right mouse button while pressing WASD.

the problem is that that currently keeps laying blocks. I know I use that feature a lot.

The idea is that this key combination is used when you are placing stairs... the placement of other blocks should not be changed. (maybe we find a way for all kinds of blocks later) I can't imagine that you are using that keep-laying-blocks feature for stairs, because as soon as your viewing angle changes the stairs start to turn ...

If it is impossible to seperate the stair placement and the placement of other blocks then another key combination might be better, of course.

well, it just seems like an aweful lot of code for a single node exclusion. By utilizing a new function that applies to all blocks that have facedir, it would be simpler, and could be applied to more nodes, and would over-all be more useful and appreciated.

RHR wrote: I thought about holding right mouse button while pressing WASD.

You are moving while placing blocks? That is something I don't really enjoy doing.

philipbenr wrote:You are moving while placing blocks? That is something I don't really enjoy doing.

the whole idea is that you hold right click, press a direction key, and instead of moving you, it places the block in a specific way.

Novacain wrote:

philipbenr wrote:You are moving while placing blocks? That is something I don't really enjoy doing.

the whole idea is that you hold right click, press a direction key, and instead of moving you, it places the block in a specific way.

Oh. I guess I didn't really read the whole thing, but still I would think that require more engine work. Not something for the devs. I don't really know if this would be added...

philipbenr wrote:

Novacain wrote:

philipbenr wrote:You are moving while placing blocks? That is something I don't really enjoy doing.

the whole idea is that you hold right click, press a direction key, and instead of moving you, it places the block in a specific way.

Oh. I guess I didn't really read the whole thing, but still I would think that require more engine work. Not something for the devs. I don't really know if this would be added...

if you read my post above your first, I say something very similar.