Yes, the first thing to learn is to master the controls in 3D. But I think 3D interface and 3D IDE is the future of software development.
Dreams : create, share & play [PS4, PS5]
- Thread starter TEEDA
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There are far better 3D interfaces on PC apps, using a mouse and keyboard.
You can pin stuff into a "paper" that "sticks to the screen"
Sorry I can't remember what are the correct terms and where the features are.
Did you do the basic navigation tutorial? This shows a lot of ways of dealing with this.
Perhaps Dreams needs to have grids enabled by default until you’ve done enough tutorials.
If I would be targeting this at kids, I would probably throw in a Minecraft mode. Start with blocks on a grid, and then slowly start adding all the freedom that Dreams provides from there.
Your ‘far better tools on PC’ comment is, imho, a bit out there.
[Of course! And there are lots of movement options, and to get good at them will require time and practice, same as Blender. I did not come away from the tutes with a Dreams Mindset. In revisiting, I was all over the shop fumbling around with opening and closing the wrong things. It's an interface that has no intuitiveness and has to be learnt, plain and simple. There are no intrinsic ergonomics to pressing L1+O or R2 then L2.
What? How do you get from "far better 3D interfaces" to "far better tools"? I've yet to encounter a 3D modeller yet on PC where my cursor wobbles around as I try to place objects... Seriously, trying to cut a hole with the cutter waving around is just frustrating and cannot be classed as a 'comparatively good interface'. It's at best passable and functional. And nothing comes close to the physicality of LBP where you'd move objects until they collide, and then glue them together.
Maybe true if you’re using Dual Shock only - I don’t really have that issue much with the move controls. But the precision modifier button and/or using a grid does solve most of that? Will be interesting to see how far they get with implementing buttons only controls.
I currently have more issues with making a Gliffy diagram with mouse and keyboard than with Dreams through and I’ve used flip by a whole lot more [emoji16]
But yes, some aspects of the sticky stuff and collisions could be useful. Right now you can just do too much I think, it does take a while to get to grips with it. But in a sense if you compare it to LBP, that forces you into a very coarse grid at least in the z-axis.
It's not so much the controls as learning the interface. You get told what to precision monitor is, which is a shoulder button (I imagine). Then you try to use it and use a wrong shoulder button and do something else instead. There are snap-to-face buttons and IIRC an extrude of sorts, but they are higher-tier skills. Even then, 3D positioning isn't at all easy. In a 3D modelling app, you won't be constantly holding an object. If you want to cut one solid from another, you'll position the solid where you want it and then remove it. In Dreams, you're holding this wobbling cutter. As you move your fingers to press the action buttons, the alignment moves. I did the log-bridge tutorial, and they show this fabulous looking log. I spent a good while trying to get a decent clean cut and just couldn't.
Will be interesting to see how far they get with implementing buttons only controls.
Locking to a plane would be useful. You can be extruding XY as far as you know, but end up moving slightly inwards/outwards with the controller and the end result isn't straight.But yes, some aspects of the sticky stuff and collisions could be useful. Right now you can just do too much I think, it does take a while to get to grips with it. But in a sense if you compare it to LBP, that forces you into a very coarse grid at least in the z-axis.
Note I haven't a camera either, so this is all sixaxis, the same as most potential users will experience.
That's not Sonic. That's Sanic!And now look at this amazing Sonic: The Movie game made in Dreams, too:
everyone making awesome stuff and im still stalled in making simple music beat thingy -___-
- Everything is in 3D and you can navigate everywhere you want in your limitless (AFAIK) 3D map (scene).
- A Dream can have any number of scenes you want, you can load any scene from anywhere, always loaded from Internet for a published dream.
- First tutorials teach you how to navigate and use your tools, with DS4 (with motion controls) or move controllers, that's not easy for some. What you can do is very powerful, but you can get quickly lost in your own 3D scene.
- Your scene (3D map) has a thermos that is the limit of things you can put into the scene: there are 3 categories of stuff in your thermos: graphics, logic and sound.
- You can clone anything you want: scene, graphic element, logic stuff and sounds which is essential if you want to put more things into your scene. Cloning costs basically nothing to your thermos.
- Graphics stuff are mostly what you see in your scene, but some can be hidden behind logic panels.
- You can either create your scene by placing elements approximately using the (very precise) motion controllers or use a (configurable) grid in order to stick stuff in straight lines.
- Almost everything in dreams is configurable.
- Logic is the heart of dreams and the basis to make anything you want, the only limit I have seen so far is your thermos (but by cloning stuff you can save a lot of space). Any logic you want is like a switch that has inputs and outputs and options in which you tweak the parameters. Logic stuff are small panels that you can close (you still see some kind of small switch) or open (it can be expanded as big as you want and placed anywhere in your scene).
- There are several categories of specialized logic switches.
- All logic panels are linked by strings using the inputs / outputs of each panels. You can add any logic panels inside another logic panels with any connection you want inside and outside the panels, etc.
- You can use logic to dynamically generate your graphics, logic can be connected to graphic (or sound). You can record any action you make in a logic recording switch that can be used in your dream to replay the thing you just recorded. Here things can get hairy fast as it's a very powerful way to create animations (but not only).
- Logic is really the most impressive aspect of Dreams for me.
- From the Internet you can import any content (dreams, scenes, complete character/stuff with its own logic, graphics elements, logic elements, sound stuff etc.) that has being made on dreams (if the author has authorized it) and freely and quickly use it in your own dream.
- There are already TONS of available content.
- I never even used once the powerful sound tools, I was too busy in the logic part.
That is just what I have seen using Dreams for like about 20 or 30 hours. But I am sure there is plenty other stuff I haven't seen.
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Thanks Globalisateur for the very detailed post but not understanbding really, eg how is the spaceship in the following picture created (No idea but then again I have no idea how to stop this text from being blue , select text 'click remove formating', select text 'text color=black' both no dice)
or are the models just imported from the internet where they have been made with 3dmax,blender etc, i.e. the more complicated stuff is created in a seperate program
You can only import objects created by Dreams (by users or Media molecule developers who provide plenty of content).
- You can start by making simple 3D shapes. You can start by a predefined very simple 3D object like a cube or a slab (or import any object from Internet) then you can modify the shape using your controller by grabbing it, you turn around the object and modify the shape / enlarge / reduce it. Then you can apply on the shape any kind of 'textures' (predefined), add color(s) by using different paint tools and then you apply on it any physical property you want (shiny, mat, metallic, reflexive etc.).
- To modify any 3D object you have plenty of ways, you grab it to make larger depending of how you are placed around it, you can erase some parts with a virtual eraser and many more ways to modify the object to make round shapes etc.
- By cloning it while moving in the direction you want using the motion controls you can make a complex object sum of plenty of clones merged into one final (and often bizarre) object (here the move controller are better than the DS4, but you can do anything with DS4 too, the motion controls are just less confortable).
- Once you have this object you save it in order to be useable several times in your dream. Each time you modify it, it'll be updated and updated in your general scene (which will be another scene). Each object saved that way has basic versioning (as well as anything published privately or publicly).
- Any object you create can be enlarged or reduced, as much as you want and everything can be easily moved around in the scene.
- Objects can be grouped to be moved (or modified) easily and then ungrouped.
- For the wings you can do one and clone it with a mirror function to make the second wing.
- Then you can add lighting by physically placing predefined and configurable lighting objects around it.
- Then you add a camera (or more) than can also be configurated.
And of course you can start working on an object you have imported. For instance if you need a chair, house or bridge or even a wall with an effect, texture you like in your game, you simply import one of the many available.
And there are plenty of others ways to create and modifiy 3D objects. Some of them are very creative: remember, you can record anything you do in a scene...which is really powerful.
I hope I answered your question.
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