Hello,
I have created this asset and recently I was thinking about adding a mesh editor to the tool that could easily edit the transform of the verts/edges/faces of the mesh. But I’m a bit hesitant since there is already a good mesh editor on the market: QuickEdit
Do you think I should add it in, or just say the tool is compatible with QuickEdit?
Alex
I wouldn’t bother making a mesh editor, unless you find working with this particular problem very fun.
Making a mesh editor can be surprisingly time consuming, if you want to support normal expected set of operations (slice, cut, extrude, inset, merge) undo, etc.
The editor I made for the wip thread had set of operations comparable to normal 3d editing, and some of them can be quite complex.
Of course, if you only want to move vertices around, without actually adjusting geometry, this one is easy. For anything above that, it might be a good idea to reconsider.
Personally, I think it’s best to integrate other assets - but make sure that even without the integrations, your asset still functions well for what it is intended for.
I just decided the other day to drop the behaviour tree editor I was making for my space combat kit. Although I found it very fun I was starting to get to a point where it felt like I was implementing all the functionality for a visual scripting editor (exposing/setting properties of scripts on nodes etc) and it was taking a lot of time to get right.
At that point I thought about it and realised that it kind of defeats the purpose of the asset store if you try to make an asset completely stand-alone - because people who are shopping for your asset are probably shopping for (or have bought already) a lot of other assets as well. If they happen to like someone else’s mesh editor better, they’ll have to rip out yours or work around it, which can be very difficult especially for beginners who are probably the ones buying it up anyway. It creates frustration and probably difficult customer support issues.
You might think that integrating other assets takes attention away from your asset but I don’t think so - most of the top assets are integrated with tons of others and I think it just makes them more attractive. In any case, it frees you up to spend time hitting niches on the asset store that haven’t been done already, and increasing the quality of the whole ecosystem, rather than wasting your time trying to force customers away from better implementations of that functionality.
But the key thing is that your asset should still provide enough value without the integrations that they are not an absolute necessity.
I currently have this, I wouldn’t need much more to be honest. Just edge/face selection basically. I don’t really need more complex operations for now.
I think some basic mesh editing will come in very handy in my asset. The other day I wanted to create something with my asset, and for a particular thing I wanted to do, I needed to move some vertices, so that means I should add it in right? And then for more advanced features I should point user to something like QuickEdit. thank you for your input!
If you only want to move vertices around, sure.
Things get complicated when you decide to delete/create/extrude faces, because you’ll need more complex structure for maintaining mesh geometry.
I see, I might not make it that complicated then but just add in the basic stuff. Thanks!
Yeah as neginfinity said, if you only need to shift vertices then it’s probably best to add it yourself, it’s fairly easy. The thing is that if you wanted a full-blown mesh editor with a lot of Blender-type functionality, that’s where you’d ask yourself if the cost is outweighing the benefit, and whether you can integrate something that already exists.
In my case, behaviour trees are completely separable from the space kit, the architecture and UI can get quite complex and time-consuming, and there are already some very good and very advanced solutions on the store, so it’s just not worth it - better for me to integrate the best of what’s out there. But I will of course add a good stand-alone state machine AI that will serve well for most uses.