Experience Feedback: Release 0.8.0 Sculpting Update

[AbbottMc]

This week quite a few new tools were updated, thanks to the Editor Team! Great job!
I’ve had the chance to try out some of the new additions, but due to time constraints, I’ve only been able to experience a small portion of them. I’ll take my time to explore the rest when I have more time (XD).

Here are my initial impressions and feedback:

Extrude Tool

The Extrude tool is fantastic, it’s very convenient and relaxing to use. It’s already quite well-developed, but I think there are still a few areas that could be slightly improved:

1. Currently, we can only expand or contract by face. It would be great if we could set a specific width for blocks to expand or contract, allowing for more flexible shaping.

2. Hope that can add a feature to hollow out blocks of specified length and width from completely solid block structures. This would work well with the Fill/Brush tool, enabling us to achieve the following workflow: [Use the Fill/Brush tool to quickly shape the exterior -> Use the Extrude tool to quickly shape the interior].

Smooth Terrain Tool

This is an incredibly exciting and surprising tool. It’s wonderful that the official team supports terrain editing features—it’s a boon for map creators. Hope to see even more terrain tools in the future (I suggest taking inspiration from the terrain editing features in Cities: Skylines, which are really powerful!). The current Smooth tool provides a good experience, although it has a slightly higher learning curve compared to other tools. During my personal testing, I encountered a few issues:

1. I’m not sure if this is a bug, but when I click the smooth button at a relatively fast speed, the console outputs an error:
   

Additionally, there’s a certain probability that the yellow box will disappear (this issue isn’t always reproducible).

2. When performing large-scale smoothing operations, the final result sometimes has more noise than expected in certain scenarios. In some cases, we need a smoother and more regular shape. It would be great if you guys could provide an option to adjust the smoothing parameters, allowing us to set our own smoothing coefficients to achieve different levels of smoothness.

3. When using only the keyboard, it’s not possible to move the selection box by holding down the keys; instead, I have to repeatedly press the arrow keys to move one step at a time. I hope you can add the function to move the selection box by holding down the keys and allow us to adjust the speed at which the box moves during this process.

4. Once the features are more complete, I hope the official team can provide more detailed tutorials (preferably built into the editor) to help creators understand how to use this tool more intuitively and clearly explain the parameter details under different modes, assisting creators in more precisely controlling terrain shaping.

Flatten Tool

Very useful for the initial work of reshaping terrain! My overall experience with it has been great: watching the terrain get flattened directly is very satisfying and liberating, and as a small tool, it does its job well. However, there are still a few areas for improvement:

1. After flattening the terrain at a lower height setting, floating blocks left behind cannot be "flattened" when you increase the height parameter of the tool (for example, the tree leaves in the under picture). This seems to be because the block removal function only triggers when it detects blocks on the side of the cursor. Ideally, when performing a "Flatten" operation, all blocks within the specified height range should be removed, regardless of whether there are higher blocks around the selected plane.

2. Currently, when there are fluids (such as water sources) within the selected area, these fluid blocks cannot be removed. I hope you can add the ability to handle fluids and allow us to choose whether to penetrate through the fluid during the operation.

I've only tried these tools so far, and it's been a fantastic update. Looking forward to more useful features in the future!