Smart Weld update

[DVN]

Great update Avgar, thanks for improving the tool for everyone's benefit.

[TheCasanova]

Awesome job, Avgar! Big thanks!

[Ali]

Good job avgar, looks great.

[Cox]

Thanks Avgar! Great job.

[TheMJ]

This is great Avgar!

[Falc]

Looks great Avgar! Thanks!

[Kahjo]

Tested it, gr8 m8 I would r8 it 8/8

[WorldWideCoffee]

Although minor, still a seriously helpful update. Thank you Avgar

[goigle!]

Currently, when smart welding it removes all prior welds, regardless of the type (simple, hydraulics, motors, etc.). That is to have the minimal possible amount of welds. Any machinery you have with hydraulics and such you'll have to unselect and weld normally. If you have any ideas of a method for keeping the hydraulics and motors I'd like to hear it.

You could remove all non-desirable constraints (anything besides hydraulics and other things the user would want to keep) on all the props that are detected. Then begin welding props together and stop when you reach a prop that has a hydraulic or anything else like that. Make it start flashing or something to catch the user's attention and have them perform an action (maybe shooting the toolgun at the correct prop) to specify which prop should get the weld and which should only have the hydraulic/other constraint. If a prop has multiple moving constraints (like an axis and a hydraulic), do not weld it and do not ask the user for help.

[Avgar]

-snip-

You could remove all non-desirable constraints (anything besides hydraulics and other things the user would want to keep) on all the props that are detected. Then begin welding props together and stop when you reach a prop that has a hydraulic or anything else like that. Make it start flashing or something to catch the user's attention and have them perform an action (maybe shooting the toolgun at the correct prop) to specify which prop should get the weld and which should only have the hydraulic/other constraint. If a prop has multiple moving constraints (like an axis and a hydraulic), do not weld it and do not ask the user for help.

The logic outlined in your post could be severely difficult to implement and I am not too sure that it would work as intended. As for choosing props with the tool gun - it is an imperfect solution as some props may be hidden or impossible to shoot in their position. If I implement keeping constraints I want the user to have as much power over the types of constraints to keep and/or remove as possible while keeping the tool relatively easy to use.

There are other considerations that need to be taken into account. For example what if a prop that belongs to you gets constrained to a prop that does NOT belong to you? This was a problem before I made the smart weld rework. The old smart weld tool would NOT remove ANY constraints. People would end up welding their dupes together and in order to separate them again would have to go around un-welding each and every one of their props.

What I'm thinking of is:

1. Adding the option to select which types of constraints to remove, default being all;
   
2. Adding the option to select whether or not constraints that link YOUR props and props not belonging to you should be removed, default being yes.
   

That should cover the constraint issue and would require no interaction from the user apart from checking a few checkboxes. I am not sure about the performance hit that smart welding would take from this updated functionality, but I am willing to try.