I purchased AssetForge yesterday to specifically create simple isometric blocks.
I thought I'd list some features I'd love to see to aid this purpose (I think some have been mentioned, or are in development, but I'll list them anyway). Some of these may already be in the software, and I may have missed them - Any feedback would be appreciated.
- "New" menu item, when clicked should show a confirmation before clearing the stage
- Exporting to a sprite always defaults to the same option (45' isometric)... very annoying when I wish to convert multiple items to 35' isometric.. Maybe add custom profiles, or better yet remember the last export settings and use those (with a button to reset them)
- Exporting a sprite in small, medium or large only increases the detail, not the amount of the sprite shown -- I.E. If I create a large model and export it, most of it gets cut off. Maybe allow the user to choose to cut it off, or resize the sprite to fit in.
- Small/ Medium/ large when exporting have no real meaning - It would be great to know what size these are actually exporting to.
- It would be great if we could set a specific sprite size - At the moment the system optimises by removing all white space around the rendered sprite... But I'd like the option to keep it .. This way when rendering multiple sprites, I know they'll all line up correctly in my game engine of choice, regardless of the original model size, with out too much hassle
- Advanced custom colour picker - I'd love to be able to to specify a colour in RGBA or HEX - At the moment, I'm having to open the ".model" file in notepad and manually alter it.
- Custom texture import
- Alpha-transparency.. If I'm creating an isometric tile with a river on it, It'd be great if I could set the transparency level of that block/ layer.
- Dropdown menus - Clicking the folder icon to scroll through block categories is annoying. Same for the "Workspace" option in settings. It would be better if the available options showed in a drop down box, so we can easily click the option we want with a single action.
- Cut/ Copy/ Paste blocks
- Advanced block scaling.. Allow me to scale up the entire block at once, not just one side at a time.
- Allow me to distort a block by pulling/ pushing the vertices - I don't always want a rectangle, I want to slightly smaller at one end, but not enough to justify a brand new block.
- Advanced rotation & movement - let us rotate freely, and move objects without the use of a grid.. maybe while holding down Shift.
- Symmetry mode? If I'm adding a wheel to a car, I'd like the exact same wheel, the same size on the other side.