Snapping issues?

[Iris]

Hello! Newbie here, I've been playing for a while and I've noticed that even if I set Grid Size and Scale Step to the same value, eventually I run into issues in which blocks don't snap together properly. I've found that sometimes it's easy to get around this by setting Grid Size to half the amount Scale Step is set to, but when both are too small to reduce it further (0.05) I don't know how to get around this issue whatsoever.

 

What might help?

[Fox]

things that helped me alot with pieces not going where ME want them to go, not the grid:

 

- your mentioned scaling down was good until some point, as you pointed out alrdy. But in the process i learned something i'd like to call "helper-block"... like trying to place a 0.25x0.3 thick block onto a size 3x3 block and just cant get it to allign to the edge? place another full 3x3 block onto the surface, then... well, pictures say more than thousand words they say, no? ^,.,^

 

if you try to allgin on top...

 

 

... or on the side...

 

 

...just place a little helper block:

 

 

 

...oh, and what if the helper block dont allign? get a helper for the helper:

 

 

just delete the little goblins after they did their job and there you go! ^,.,^

works fine for every scale as long as you have something near to get "your grid" from... if not, make something, you can always delete it afterwards... basically the editor allows for any thinkable shape, which is great, isnt it? (...yes folks, i know about the pyramid-problem-thingy, i said "basically"! ^,.,^)

oh, and yes, 0.25 is the smallest grid i consider "reasonable", everything else is freeroam IMO!

mirroring and especially the build modes like Local/Global Grid and Place-to-middle-Thingy (nicknamed "Lazy-Mode" by me ^,.,^) helped alot also, we had another talk about that topic here: Click me hard!

 

i guess others can add more, and this forum itself is plentyful of info, just take a look around yourself, i especially love the Creative Subforum, tons of beautiful .xml's to learn from and lots of helpful ppl around to ask stuff!

[MetalX]

I would say the method Fox shows here is 'the' method.  "Helper blocks", that is an excellent name for them!

[neospud]

Also i've found if you copy groups of blocks and do any rescaling to them it'll throw the block ratios off.  Adding 1 scale step when pasting two 1x1x1 blocks gives you 1.25x1x1 blocks which no longer match your scaling.  For this reason when i build a ship I'm trying to make changes to the original save in it's original scale.

[Fox]

Another thing i guess worth noting:

 

You all know this scene, try to allign a ramp on a corner block or similar diagonal side... it will always try to "allow you to place within the block, kinda overlap", which basically is a good thing to place stuff on said diagonal sides, but can really mess with my nerves sometimes when i try to "snap to edge"...

 

... until i found out the following: Rotate your camara so that you dont see said diagonal side but the side you want to place on... can sometimes be a bit tricky and need to zoom in very close, but it never again will try this overlap thingy with ya! NEVER AGIAN! \o/

 

Oh, and yes, i know about the erratic "Adjust Blocksize"(?)-Checkbox, but i dont like it for being, well, erratic, always trying to snap to the faces i didnt mean, or come up with tiny, tiny decimals (which 2 hours later mess something up and allow me to rip of 3/4 of my last work to find where things went wrong...), maybe the Checkbox and me have conflicting views here, but thats ok, with time i figured out an own way...

[Ohm is Futile]

Building nice stuff is tricky. There were some good tips in here. Snapping to middle and using a grid step that's half of your scaling are among your best bets. Otherwise I'd say it's mostly about getting into good building habits and avoiding X.X5 scale steps as they will inevitably result in fractions you can't deal with. Sadly that makes building at a small scale much harder.

 

Anyways, this is most likely the topic of my next YouTube video now that my semester is over and I've got time to record again.

 

EDIT: my video is live, you can watch it here:

[Warrax]

Agreed.  I appreciate Ohm's ideas and exoeriences.

 

When building small, i like to use "centering" snaps, and also use 0.10.

Almost always, using 0.05 winds up being a problem.

 

I will only use 0.05 for veneers and edge finishes, and NEVER for core components.

[TrixX]

I must admit I've moved away from straight snaps and mostly use framework parts to layer together to make groups I can copy paste into the recesses I want. Much more efficient time wise (make 1 part, paste 5 times accurately and boom). Still hard to get the most out of some spaces within a ship though.