Flavor Object limits

[sttp]

Is there a limit to the number of flavor objects you can insert into a map? Or the number you can have within some set number of square meters?

I keep having crates turn into fountains and things like that, in between saves or edits. I'm guessing that exceeding some kind of limit might be the reason? Also -- and I assume this is related, but maybe not -- the slanted shelters won't stay precisely where I put them. They sometimes move a few feet on their own. And they can look really horrible if they stray just 6 inches from their intended position.

I do try to save frequently, and I know I've seen barrels inside buildings before and things like that, so I think that means it's not an object overlap issue? I'm stumped.

 

[Combatintman]

AFAIK flavour objects are resource heavy and standard advice for scenario designers is not to go mad with them. Otherwise I'm sure somebody more knowledgeable than I will be along presently.

[A Canadian Cat]

Sorry I'm still not the somebody... I just want to add that there definitely are collision and overlapping rules at play.  I don't push any limits on numbers or density of flavour objects but I have seen them move from one 3D preview to another - sometimes to resolve collisions with buildings other times just with terrain features (move off the edge of a sharp elevation change). They don't keep moving after each save or preview just after the first time I place them and the game feels the need to adjust them.

I have not seen them change from one thing to another.  Is it possible that one might have been moved to resolve a collision and that made you think it changed from one thing to another?

[Bulletpoint]

In my experience, there are overlapping issues. But it's only an issue if you have two flavour objects very close to each other - a flavour object has no problem being overlapped with a building, because a building is a different type of object.

What usually happens to me is that I place objects too close and some of them disappear. I've never had any turn into other types of objects.

[Splinty]

As I understand things. The maps are broken down into 8 meter squares, and the 8 meter squares are broken down into 1 meter grids. You can only put one flavor object on a one meter grid space.

[sttp]

I'm certain that most veteran map makers already knew everything below, but I wasn't able to find this kind of info when I did a forum search. Maybe it'll be useful to anyone delving into the editor for the first time....

So, after lots of testing (by creating grids of 64 water spigots per 8x8 meter action square, lol), I've now made more sense of how to accurately place flavor objects and keep them where I want them. Or at least predict where they'll end up after a reload of the 3D environment. The logic is apparently pretty straightforward:

It seems that flavor objects just snap to the southwest corner of whichever 1 x 1 meter grid spot you place them on. So it's just that both grid coordinates are truncated, i.e. the decimal portion is just stripped away. A crate placed at, say, x=7.88 y=23.88, will just eventually migrate itself over to (7,23)... not to (8,24), even though (8,24) was much, much closer.

If there's already another flavor object at (7,23), the new object will replace it. Which goes to what Bulletpoint said. (Thanks.)

Also, predicting which part of a given flavor object will snap to that lower left / southwest corner of the 1x1 map grid spot seemed weird at first. But I think it just depends on the particular object -- specifically, where the (0,0) point is on its 3D model. It's usually the upper left corner of the object -- whichever corner is northwesternmost when the object is oriented in its default position. So it may not be the pole of a telephone pole, for example, that'll snap to that southwest grid position, but instead it'll be the upper left/northwest corner of its particular 3D model. It may be more complicated than all of that, but this rule has held true for about a dozen objects I've tested so far, plus it just makes sense from a programming perspective....

Hope this helps someone. I like adding lots of flavor objects to maps, and things are much easier in the editor after being armed with this knowledge.

 

Edited October 31, 2016 by sttp

[A Canadian Cat]

Thanks @sttp that feels like it explains things pretty well.