My opinion of art workflow in sbox

[NotGaylien]

I have lots of annoyances and complaints with sbox in the past year especially,
I work with my mind on efficiency and ease, i notice when stuff takes more clicks, or more effort and time, thats been the case working on art in sbox over the past year and a bit.

Instead of complaining about it to Ubre or trying to make issues but getting overwhelmed i will list them here for now.
i can create issues later on if they dont exist / are needed. but there is just alot, im just trying to make stuff, not constantly make issues that will not be touched for a long time ;_;

Projects

• Asset Project: I can't have a simple assets project, no code just assets—it has to be a game project. This is bad for artists who want to upload assets. We had it before, i used it alot, i loved that, now i use the game stuff but its annoying and just blegh.
• Code Dependency: I can't view assets in browser if there are code errors in the game. I have to fix or delete the code, and re-open the project for them to be accessible, which is terrible for artists. ( this probably would make the above problem less of an issue imo )

Asset Browser

The new Asset Browsers have been frustrating and slower compared to the old one to me,
Im getting tired of being told to give it time or it will get better, or the new one is objectively better,
the stuff thats different from the old one in the new ones, is the stuff i actually preferred and made it better, easier and quicker to work with for me.

• Unable to have it as its own standalone window, instead of a floating dock window.
  • meaning i can hide the main editor WITHOUT the asset browser closing, and i can Alt+Tab into the browser without opening the editor
  • I cant place the editor window ontop of the asset browser when i want to
  • I have tried using it docked, or floating dock window, but both just suck and have their own things that annoy me.
• Flat View Problems ( personally ):
  • Flat view randomly can set to a folder within my project instead of staying at the root. This is annoying and time-wasting, i have to keep going back to the root.
  • Folder navigation still works in flat view, which I dislike. A forced root folder only option would be amazing. i know this is subjective, an option for it is preferred though since hate the folder view
• Cloud Browser: It’s now a separate window, i have to switch between it and the main browser adding extra steps to use cloud assets and my own. I dislike that a lot.
• As of now i cant seem to access any core assets, citizen, materials, particles and so on? ( apparently this was fixed but doesn't seem to be the case )
• Accessing Other Projects: Viewing assets from other projects requires opening the other project in a new sbox editor window, which is much slower than before. i might need to reference how i did something in a single asset in another project, now i have wasted a few minutes waiting for it to open to do that.
  I know we had this before, but it was removed, but as an artist i think it should be back since it was fucking amazing, and its removal was one of the most annoying and worst things for workflow and asset creation speed.
  • With this i cant lets say, show only Deathcard and Blocks & Bullets assets, while not showing My Summer Cottage assets and such,
    which was EXTREMELY MASSIVE SUPER useful in the old asset browser and i used A TON.
• Thumbnails and Inspector:
  • There is a lack of easy to understand scale in model thumbnails / preview, the grid in old thumbnails / inspector was amazing for that, no spawning a model thinking its human sized and its actually 3 inches tall.
  • The inspector preview still feels like its missing alot on assets ( its a bit better but still pretty shit rn )—previously, it could quickly show / allow you to preview animations, attachment points, bodygroups, material groups and so on which was useful, we can partially do some of this now, but not fully, some of them only show names, but nothing displayed in preview window,
    i could also set the preview lighting, skybox, grid, and so on so fourth, them settings were saved. then i could quickly click through models to find what i need in the correct lighting (
    I know there is the argument of just opening each model in modeldoc and viewing them like that, but if you expect me to do that over and over, or open 10 at a time and almost crash sbox, its not nice, and genuinely is horrid )
  • Preview window options should be extended to be more useful like the OG inspector preview window, i used them a fuckton.

Modeldoc

Modeldoc is mostly unchanged, but has had a few useful features, especially in regards to physics testing. However, it needs improvements:

• Node Issues:
  • Too many broken or useless nodes confuse new users. all the useless nodes should be removed, and just overall cleanup on nodes
  • Important nodes like cloth have been broken for a long time without fixes.
  • Features on some nodes (e.g. markup nodes) for the most part should be on the main node, not their own node.
• Node Organization:
  • The node window needs categories to make it easier to navigate and learn. instead of a massive list.

Material Editor

The material editor is decent but could use improvements:

• Clarity for New Users:
  • The Texture settings options should have descriptions on some for better clarity.
  • Some terms (e.g., "Rectangle Definition") could be renamed to "Hotspot Definition" for better understanding.
  • World Scale Visibility: Hammer/world scale settings are easy to miss in attributes window.
  • The user material attributes section takes up too much space, i only have ever needed 1 attribute here in some rare cases, and it lacks explanation on what its for.

Animgraph

Animgraph has improved a lot but still has issues:

• Unused Features:
  • Main inputs, motors, and activity settings seem unnecessary as far as i can tell.
  • The console window feels redundant—I always close it.
• Documentation: a few random things lack proper or clear documentation, making them hard to learn. ( thats on valve )

Particles

The old particle editor was powerful but messy and unstable. The current system feels restrictive:

• Scene Component Particles:
  • While quick and simple, i generally just dislike how they feel to work with, missing better more advance setting on emitter position bias and such like old particles.
  • Prefab variables lack the flexibility of control points in the old system.
  • Sprite rendering is limited, no normals and so on
• Sprite Textures:
  • no options for filtering can be super annoying, give me my pixelated sprites!!!

Prefabs

Prefabs will be more and more important but have critical issues:

• Lighting: Lighting in prefabs is fixed and fucks up prefabs that need their own lighting.
• Broken Variables: Prefab variables can break entirely if a linked component property is removed.
• Variables not flexible: Again look at the name float/vector / control points in particle editor, i could use them on a property except multiply them, add 2 values with a bias curve, or use the Y component from a named Vector3 on my property! This was sexy amazing handsome cool, will be amazing overall for any purpose to have!
• Prefab Variables should be accessible in the inspector, so you can preview what they do quickly, amazing for prefab particles, would make prefab variables alot better.

[handsomematt]

Asset Project: I can't have a simple assets project, no code just assets—it has to be a game project. This is bad for artists who want to upload assets. We had it before, i used it alot, i loved that, now i use the game stuff but its annoying and just blegh.

what do you think makes it a game project? it's just a project, a workspace, I have no idea what you'd want different

Code Dependency: I can't view assets in browser if there are code errors in the game. I have to fix or delete the code, and re-open the project for them to be accessible, which is terrible for artists. ( this probably would make the above problem less of an issue imo )

don't push broken code

[NotGaylien]

ahh i see i just defaulted to thinking it was a game project because of the templates. sorry about the confusion there.

and the 2nd one, thats with stuff breaking in sbox over time which i know wont happen as much. but i still think assets should show up even if the code isnt compiling, since its generally sucks if something like that happens blocking them from doing much.

[trundlr]

How come you have a giant list of issues thrown up all together instead of just making individual issues as you come across things?

[NotGaylien]

A large portion of them already have issues and discussions around them,
just they have stayed stagnant for awhile and i dont wanna mass bump them all.

i want this stuff to be reconsidered as we get closer to release, since if im sitting there thinking "this sucks, this was better before, i hate this", i think that opinion should be known and why. just general workflow stuff in sbox, so newbies can have a easier time once the real floodgates are open.

some might not have their own issues though will i will check later on once i got the free time to do so.

[Jammie3d]

As of now i cant seem to access any core assets, citizen, materials, particles and so on? ( apparently this was fixed but doesn't seem to be the case )

You have to right click the list on the left and enable Show Base Content, I do think that could be made clearer, or moved to where the other Asset Browser options are.

[NotGaylien]

thank you jammie, i was bashing my head against a wall trying to figure out where they were