alexmasse
patreon
Advanced Object Placement Tool + Get an Exclusive Signed Postcard
🕑 Added 2022-11-25 18:01:19 +0000 UTCHello there,
Hope you had a great week! We sure did and we are making good progress on many different aspects of Paralives, many of which will make for great Patreon posts in the near future! That’s starting today with a look at a cool new feature for expert players and master builders.
Get an Exclusive Paralives Postcard
On December 1st, 2022 everyone who is pledging on the Hero or Legend tier will be sent a Paralives postcard signed by the whole team! The postcard will feature an exclusive Paralives artwork that will get you into the holiday vibes so don’t miss it! If you would like to change your pledge tier, you can do so here. It’s also possible to upgrade your tier just to get the postcard and then downgrade again after a month. If you are already on the Hero or Legend tier and are eager to receive your postcard, don’t forget to check if your address is up to date on your Patreon profile!
We send postcards every 6 months and here’s what the last one looked like!
Mario Miravalles is the one who illustrated this postcard and he also did the next one that I can’t wait for you to see!
Advanced Object Placement Tool
In Paralives, it’s pretty easy to move, rotate and scale objects by using simple drag and drop controls.
You can also hold the shift key of the keyboard to raise objects or even sink them into the ground.
Now, we wanted a way for advanced players and expert builders to get even more controls on how they can place objects. The tools shown above are already pretty flexible and they are easy to use but they have two limitations:
- It is only possible to rotate objects on 1 axis. This means you cannot turn a rock upside down or rotate a tree sideways to make it seem like it fell down.
- Objects can only be rescaled uniformly and it’s not possible to stretch them on one axis only. This means that I cannot make the rock longer, I can only make it bigger. Please note that we have a system to stretch objects like tables, beds and chairs on one axis only but it doesn’t work on objects like rocks who have a less straightforward shape that couldn’t be resized with that system.
Our solution to these two limitations was to create an optional advanced translation, rotation and scale widget. You might have seen something like it in 3D software before as it is a pretty common tool they usually have.
To use this advanced tool, simple shift+click an object while you are in build mode. Please note that the look of this tool is not final.
This gives expert players complete control over their object placement! Here’s some examples I quickly came up with:
A single rock object was duplicated, scaled, stretched and rotated.
I rotated this tree to make it look like it fell down.
Forget the pillow fort, couch fort is the new thing.
We tried to add the advanced translation, rotation and scale tool to characters and scaling down Maggie on one axis only creates a nice paper thin effect!
Beware, giant Maggie!
That’s it for today, I hope you liked this new tool! Jérémie started it during our hack week for moving characters in the photo mode and Étienne improved it recently as well as bringing it to the build mode. I’m looking forward to seeing what people will do with it! It was a relatively simple and quick feature for us to do but it will allow people to get really creative.
Have a great weekend!
Alex
Edit - March 2, 2023: This post in now public, feel free to share it!
Comments
Desirée Eriksson
If these advanced scaling tools are usable with commands, I can imagine some absolutely CRAZY creative machinimas. Paper Mairo, A Link Between Worlds and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman comes to mind....
aza
Barely found out patreon didn't go through in December - only month since 2020 that I wasn't a patreon and I missed the postcard gahh I'm numb to suffering at this point
SketalDaz
Maggie still look thicc with that paper thin effect lol. The flat earth theory needs to move aside because Maggie is packing the new definition LUL. Edit: Now Maggie can finally meet that 2D googglee eye girl. (referring to a previous comment)
SketalDaz
When Maggie is tryna conquered the world.
Lovely Lori
honestly i'm digging the overall shot vs the alternate color one. The alt color one seems prettyyy drab when the original looks full of color~!
Giant Maggie? Quick! everyone to the shelter!
Constance Keller
So basically my Sims is just a way to kill time while waiting for paralives. Can hardly wait! It's going to be an epic game. 😎 🤩🥰
Britnee Janowski
I can't wait to play this game! The more I see the more excited I get!
Alex Robitaille
H A I L G I A N T M A G G I E
risssa
I would like to see the key map change to a different key than the one used to raise/lower objects in the normal object placement mode as I can see it being fiddly as far as accidentally engaging the advanced placement when you meant to just raise or lower the object.
Ben Jervis
Holy shit guys
Megaira
I mean at this point I'd be okay with an early release of just building and character creation, there's so much of both to do that it would keep me busy for a long time XD
emryspaperart
god im so excited for these placement tools
Joy Kennedy
I wonder if could you make it possible for paras to climb on the sofa fort. I feel I could see para children climbing on top of it.
Lovely Lori
Oh wow having something like this in the base game opens up a whole world of possibilities! getting more and more excited each week
Hannah Moody-Goo
This is so cool!
V
Looks amazing Alex!! Thank you for the update!
I JONES
Looks great - thanks Alex!
Glassheart
This is awesome!! I can't wait to build something with this!!❤️
Sabine B
Yes please include some basic shapes! I immediately thought of Planet Coaster/Zoo and all the incredible things people make with the simplest objects. An extreme example is Silvarret's "I Built a House in Planet Coaster Using Just a Wooden Plank Piece" video (also his Parkitect builds are perfect examples of using basic 3D shapes to add detail). It's all purely decorative of course, I wouldn't expect it to function in Paralives :)
RavenShadow
I'm going to build forts out of books/bookshelves
Kiiiwiii
Thanks for the response! So happy about the possibilities you guys are giving us! To build in this game will be my main thing and I can't wait. I hope you can solve whatever it is that you guys are trying to solve :)
ladyteruki
Ok first of all that postcard is mighty cute. Nice balloon placement, too ;) But the advanced placement tool ? PERFECT. Exactly what I was hoping for. Especially if in the basegame, a few basic shapes were to be released as part of the catalog : it is the possible to get pretty creative. You can customize objects or spaces without even needing a huge lot of modded content (I love modders, I also love to keep my sanity when it comes to loading, updating and so forth XD ). In a lot of games, this alone expands considerably the options for building. And, relative to clutter which we talked about not long ago, it also expands the possibilities when it comes to decorating, because you can arrange items in tons of ways instead of all your builds looking similar with the exact same object in the exact same position. Combined with the recoloring tool, and the option to add textures (although I'm not sure if something like a stone could be retextured ? maybe for some objects it's just recolor still ?), you have an incredibly powerful tool for builders. We'll be a bunch of lucky little Pararchitects with things like that.
Victoria van der Linden
Will you be able to group certain items for duplication/later use?
Maxx
That postcard looks like a cover for the game!! I love it. That lighthouse is so iconic
Alex Massé
Thank you for your kind words and suggestions! The profile picture with the dog is not being updated because we haven't revealed the new dog to the public yet because it still needs some work and we will be resuming the work on pets at a later time because it's not top priority right now since pets will only come out during the early access phase I often link the Notion roadmap but I could do it more frequently, true! Here it is! paralives.com/roadmap
Alex Massé
Thank you!!!
Alex Massé
Thank you Sarah!!
Alex Massé
Yes, there might be some of these things hidden behind cheat codes, like changing the scale of the character for instance
Alex Massé
<3 <3
Alex Massé
Thank you :)
Alex Massé
Thank you Jess!
Alex Massé
Hi Mario!!
Alex Massé
Hehe, thank you!
Alex Massé
Thank you!! It's true that usability will be affected if the position or rotation is invalid. That's still something that we are working out though so more on that later!
Alex Massé
:D
Alex Massé
Thank you Trinity!
Alex Massé
Totally agree! I was thinking the same
Alex Massé
Thank you!!
Alex Massé
Yes, me too!
Alex Massé
<3
Alex Massé
Oh, sorry about that! Can you send me a private message here on Patreon as well as your address? Thank you!
Lane Brettschneider
Dude this is SO freaking cool!!
Sarah Rodrigues
Amazing job Alex and crew! I get so excited every Friday!!
Timothy
Love the small details i.e. small animation and effect when a new item is purchased. I’m not sure if it’s me but the graphics are looking great recently. The objects look high quality even when resized. Quick suggestion - during one of the previous “hack weeks” a new dog graphic was designed, why don’t you guys make it the new profile picture? Or even updating all current marketing material? Perhaps it is also time to rename the page to just “Paralives”? And a link to the notion chart would be great to keep everyone updated with what is being worked on currently. Anyway, I’m loving the progress being made recently - I hope the team keeps it up! :-)
Zedef
A feature I didn't know I needed! This is gonna add an extra dimension to the lived-in feel of the paras' surroundings. And it's great for story telling as well!
tey711
Love it all 💕
Hoff Fondue
oh no.. Giant Maggie.. I already see some peeps in the community going nuts xD Great Work so far, amazing to have a tool like that for build, and not limiting builders creativity, I do think some of those should be locked behind a cheat code. edit: also would be great to be able to rotate by dragging the faces of the "Transforming object Sphere"
Mario Miravalles
🌝🌝🌝
I kinda forGoT
I wish this game was out for Xmas. Lol I want to play it SO badly.
Jess S
I love the advanced build mode controls! I had to get a mod to do a similar thing in TS4 so I'm excited to have it built in!
Kiiiwiii
Yes, thank you!! With the sofa fort, how usable will that be for the paras? Can they scootch in on the sofa to the right that has one above it as well? Or are they more restricted than that? Can't wait to see more showcasing. Please consider making a video to show us all of it as well :)
Synthia Hubbard
Sooooo I know it's a small detail, but I LOVE the little bounce when you let go of the objects. It's the little things for me.
Trinity Smith
I can’t wait for this game to come out. Building is going to be AMAZING!
Elias Derry
This looks great! Maybe an extra tool for ease of use could be the ability to swap between the object’s local axis and the world/lot axis.. This exists in the game Planet Coaster, and it makes it so that once you’ve rotated an object the way you want it, you can still move it on the lot’s x,y,z axis, instead of in the axis of the object once it’s been rotated!
anna
the scaling and placement capabilities with items is one of the things that first got me so geeked about this game that I decided to support on patreon. still looking great, still super geeked lol.
Amber Rodriguez
Oooh! I’m really excited to futz around with this, especially with household clutter objects!
Christie Black
Oh. Almost like an easier to use T.O.O.L mod built in!
Pedro Lima
Oh no! I didn't get the last postcard ☹ I was sure I pledged the right amount for it. Did I do something wrong?
