Whhaaats with the "Dont ever turn off snapping" thing???

[MrCookie]

Yo gals and boys! - I hazzaa question! :D

Ive been told quite a few times by quite a lot of ppl that: "Dont ever turn off the snapping check!! - Evver!!!"

So whats with that anyways? - I heard it to on the UT3ED tuts by 3Dbuzz.
but no explanaition were given...

So 50% of why im asking is just out of curiosity.
the other 50% is because i have these meshes that i want to allign, meaning i want them to be like:

one is facing right, other one is facing left. - The backs of the two are completly up against eachother, and thats what i want! :D

But i cant get to to snap no matter what the grid settings, BUT if i turn off the snapping then i get the result i want :D

But should i be worried to turn off snapping??

The person who answers this question shall receive 23907023 cookies of his/her choice!

Sincerely MrCookie (DaHookieMookieCookieRookie)

[tidu]

I've had 100 times more experience with the previous Editor and only maybe a month of experience with the new one, so I can base my answer on the previous editor and hopefully it's the same. BSP should always be snapped to the grid, and you want to keep it at least 16 uu, maybe smaller in certain places. But try to keep all the BSP aligned or else BSP cuts will appear, errors, hall of mirrors, etc. But static meshes don't need to be on the grid. No errors are caused by unsnapped meshes. It's a good idea to keep snapping on at all times and disable it for a second when lining up a mesh. But don't forget that it's off, or else you'll move a vertex or something and be unable to get it back without recreating the BSP brush...

[Orion2sirius]

Don't be worried at all about turning off snapping for precise aligning of meshes etc.! It's perfectly safe to do so just as long as YOU REMEMBER TO TURN IT BACK ON once you're done aligning your object! ;)

EDIT: Dang! Beaten to it by tidu! :P

[Setheran]

Disabling snapping is fine for things like fogsheets, foliage, litter, or similar meshes that don't need to fit together and usually have collision disabled, but if you disable it for architectural meshes you're likely to create a lot more work for yourself.

Entropy explains it well here: http://utforums.epicgames.com/showpost.php?p=26047926&postcount=25

[Angel_Mapper]

Yeah, that snapping rule really only applies to bsp, but keep it turned on unless you need special case things like exact alignment of meshes.

[DGUnreal]

No, always leave snap on even for meshes. There is no reason to turn it off for any content, and dragging meshes off-grid will give them a non-grid-located origin if you decide to duplicate it and use it elsewhere, perform rotations, etc.
To adjust the location of meshes by a finer sub-grid amount, use the Display.PrePivot.X, .Y, .Z to fine adjust its location in the three axis.
Then if you need to duplicate it and reset its pivot back to default, simply clear all of the PrePivot values to 0.0.

[musilowski]

And I thought the 1UU grid was enough for fine tuning! :D

Thanks for the tip DGUnreal. :)

[Angel_Mapper]

Pff, real mappers know when to break the rules. ;)

[Lord_PorkSword]

Admittidly I start on 16 and shortly end up working purely on the grid set to 1.. :o
..But I make sure that any BSP conforms to that grid....

[Godsbane]

There are a few issues that are avoided by using the grid. Two main ones are leaks in your maps and overlaping.

Now, leaks are no longer really a problem, based on the way UE3 handles BSP, but it's still good practice for other engines I guess - plus without using the grid you can get gaps.

Overlapping is still a problem and a really good reason to always use the grid. Basically, if you have two surfaces that take up pretty much the same place in your map, like two sheets of paper that overlap, they are close enough that the computer tries to draw both surfaces and both display in a sort of stripey, scan-liney, mish-mash of both textures. This is called Z-Fighting.

So if you're using BSP or static meshes that have to but up against one another, say a sectional mesh of a wall that you've duplicated - if you turn off your grid you will either have gaps between them, or overlapping. You will have one or the other, you just can't get that fine a control that you'll manage to line them up spot on, and the closer the player gets to it, the more obvious it'll be. Plus, if you have to put like five or so wall meshes one after the other, it's an utter pain in the arse. With the grid on, it's alt-drag... done!

So, I guess, in short. If you don't snap to the grid (for meshes that are tiling, or for BSP and other stuff that it matters for) then your map will look like crap and people will laugh at you. Okay, maybe they won't, but it won't be as good a result than if you'd just use the grid.