Assets panel
The Assets panel is one of the workhorse panels of HeroBlade. In this panel, you can:
- Open the Asset Library
- View, add, or remove assets in the area
- View, add, or remove instances of any asset
- Clone instances
- Copy/paste instance properties
- Move to the position of any instance in the area
- Associate any selected instance with one of the area's room
- Modify the snap grid for placing assets
- Create and copy particle effects
- Perform various cleanup tasks:
- Remove assets which have not been instanced in the current area
- Locate any duplicated instances, by room or by area
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Assets
- See also: Exploring an area
The top line of the panel displays the name of the current room, followed by the assets that have currently been loaded into the area. If an asset is greyed out, it means that a particular asset has been loaded into the area, but there are no instances of that asset in the current room (though there may or may not still be instances in other rooms of the same area).
To see if other instances of a greyed-out asset may exist in other rooms, select a different room name either via the Rooms Toolbar or the Area panel. The name of the room at the top of the Assets Panel will change, along with the greyed-out status of the various Asset types, as appropriate.
Assets Menu
Clicking on "Assets Menu" in the Assets Panel will display a Popup Menu with the following options:
- Asset Library
- Opens the Asset Library. This is the same as clicking on "Library" in the Transform Toolbar
- Add Asset
- Opens a File Selector to load an asset from the Repository into the current area (note: This just loads the asset, and does not actually create any instances of the asset)
- Remove Selected Asset
- Unloads the asset and deletes all instances of the asset that are in the area
- Remove Assets With No Instances
- A special cleanup option, this unloads any assets which do not have current instances in the area
- New Particle Spec(s)
- Creates a new particle effect
- Copy Particle Spec Chain
- Copies an existing particle effect, allowing you to modify a new one. See Copying particle effects.
Instances
Clicking on an asset name, will display the instances of that asset which exist in the current room. Note that there may be other instances in the area, in different rooms.
Clicking on an instance number, will select that instance. Your viewpoint will not change, and the instance may be in a completely different part of the area, but its properties will still be displayed in the Properties Panel
To go to a selected instance, choose Go to Position in the Instances Menu.
To select multiple instances, Shift-click
- See also: Duplicated instances
Instances Menu
Snap
The Snap Grid allows you to move or place assets at specific grid locations. Since snapping is used so often, there are multiple ways to turn it on and off:
- Via the assets panel
- Via the Snap menu in the Transform toolbar
- Via keyboard shortcuts
Each method has its pros and cons. Via the Assets panel, you can:
- Specify the size of the grid
- Manually snap a selection to the grid
- Opt whether to use the area settings or the asset settings to judge location
- Turn the grid on and off
Move to Room
This subpanel is not really a way to "move" anything, but does allow you to associate any instance with a different room.
Each area has at least one room. Each instance is associated with one room. An instance's room governs not its physical location, but its visibility from one or more other rooms. Each room has settings, via the Room toolbar, which specify which other rooms it can see into, and which other rooms can see into it.
Example
If an instance is in one room (for example, dungeon), and you wish to have it be associated with a different room (for example, dungeon_doorway), this could be done in a few different ways:
- Really long way
- Delete the instance, change the room that you're in, and re-create the instance
- Relatively long way
- Select the instance, open its Properties panel, and change its room
- Short and easy eay
- Select the instance, and in the "Move to room" section of the Assets panel, choose the new room in the dropdown menu, and click "Move to".
- Note that this method will also work with multiple instances. Whatever is currently selected, will be moved.
