BBSW: Better Block Shapes Window After many hours of building and many hours of watching others build, I have created what I feel is a more appropriate layout for the block shapes window. It is, for the most part, very different. The layout offers an alternate concept for grouping blocks based on how they are often used during building. I tried to follow a few basic principles: Shape discoverability The default block shape window groups most blocks based on shape similarity (ex: all cut corner blocks are in a line together). This is good for sort of exploring what variations of a particular shape are possible, but lousy for answering the question "what block fits here?". The BBSW instead groups blocks by compatibility. Wherever possible the blocks are organized into rows based on compatible face shapes, which allows you to quickly see which blocks will attach cleanly to a block you just placed down. Blocks that have multiple faces that are compatible with different shapes are similarly co-located so you don't have to scan far to find the next match. And blocks are aligned by column based on similar usage: inside concave corners, outside convex corners, shape transition blocks, etc. If there is an empty tile where you expect a specific block to be, then it likely doesn't exist. Minimize tab switching Most rough and detailing blockwork tend to use the same groups of shapes at a time: flat angles, curved blocks, thin blocks, half blocks, etc. The current block shape window has these groups spread out across multiple tabs. The BBSW co-locates all similar block types onto the same tabs where possible. Shapes should be where you expect them to be. Improved ergonomics Commonly paired blocks are grouped close together so there is less hunting for matching blocks. Spacing is used to separate blocks into logical groups. The block tiles are also pulled closer to the center of the page to minimize the amount of mouse movement when the window is brought up. And tiles are roughly organized the same way on each tab, meaning that variants of shapes (full, thin, edged) will appear at the same mouse location as you flip through the tabs with your 'W' and 'S' keys. There are of course exceptions to this as not all blocks fit within these parameters, but this should still be a massive improvement over the default. If you are still new to building and are having trouble understanding how the blocks are related to each other then I encourage you to give this layout a shot. If you have thousands of hours of building in EGS the idea of a new shape window may be a tough pill to swallow, especially as this is a total conversion and removes the original pages. I can't argue against the speed of ingrained muscle memory, but I do believe that after a transition period you would find this layout much more intuitive. The BBSW splits the blocks into six distinct pages, as detailed below. Page 1: Flat Slopes (Full & Half) This page contains all of the full and half blocks that use flat or sloped faces. It is organized around the common 1x1 and 1x2 slope variant block sets which appear just to the left of the cursor when you bring the window up. The green bars in the picture show that blocks that are typically used together to form long flat surfaces are co-located. Overall this means much less mouse movement and block hunting during rough shaping. Blocks that fit together horizontally are arranged in rows. When you place a block down and want to know what connects to it most of your choices are to the left or right of it, or within a row or two vertically. The inside and outside corner blocks are also column-aligned by type: inside concave corners, inside convex corners, then outside convex corners plus variants. This pattern is repeated through the other shape windows. Blocks that transition between face shapes are located on the right edge, and grouped in their left/right pairs. Page 2: Flat Slopes w/ Thin Edge This page contains variants of the flat slope blocks that have a face that transitions to the thin block set. These blocks are located at the same mouse position as their non-edged version on page 1, meaning that if you use the 'W' and 'S' keys to flip back and forth between these two pages you will see if there is a thin-edged variant of a specific block. Some blocks have a few different variants with the thin edge on different parts of the parent block. These are all co-located so you can quickly see what options you have. Page 3: Flat Slopes (Thin) The thin block page follows the layout of the previous two pages. The concept here is that once you learn the location of the shapes on the first page then you can easily locate the thin-block variants on this page (blocks with matching locations are highlighted in red here). Again you can use the 'W' and 'S' keys to flip between pages and see the thin variants of blocks appear right under your mouse cursor. Page 4: Curved (Full & Half) Curved blocks are again laid out similarly to the flat slope blocks. The inside and outside corner sections follow a similar convex/concave column alignment, though the variations are different. Pipe blocks are arranged at the bottom, and the small pipes are column-aligned based on the number of connectors they have. This makes it a little bit easier to understand the 4x-6x variants. The transition block columns are all the curved blocks that interface cleanly with the 1x1 and 1x2 slope blocks. Page 5: Curved (Thin) Like the Flat Slopes (Thin) page, this page contains the thin variants of the curved blocks on the previous page. The thin pipe blocks are similarly column-aligned based on the 2x/3x/4x connectors. Page 6: Corridor Elements All of the corridor wall and ceiling blocks have been reorganized based on compatible sides, both vertically and horizontally. This makes it much easier to pick the correct block for a given situation: the thin-corner ceiling block is above the thin-corner wall piece, the asymmetrical pattern corner wall is next to its flat wall variant, etc. No more picking the round corner ceiling block when you needed the angled version. --- Installation: Download the attached zip file and place it in your "[EGS_Install_Folder]\Content\Configuration" folder. You can easily find your EGS install folder by using the following methods based on where you purchased Empyrion: Steam Right-click on your game in the games list and select the the "Browse local files" menu option shown in the image below. Epic Games Store Right-click on your game tile in the library and select the Manage option, then click on the "Open Install Location" button in the Installation section as shown in the images below. Once you have located your install folder, extract the zip file into to this folder and overwrite the default "BlockShapesWindow.ecf" file. Restart the game and you're good to go, or you can type "shapeswdw r" into the in-game console to reload the shape window in your running game. Unfortunately this file will get overwritten every time there is a patch or you manually verify your files through Steam, so you will have to re-extract the file each time this happens. Uninstalling: The zip file contains a backup copy of the original BlockShapesWindow.ecf file in a folder called "BlockShapesWindow_backup_1.11". Just copy that file back into Content\Configuration to restore the old block shapes. Alternately you can just re-verify your files through Steam and it will overwrite it with the current default file. I still may make slight tweaks to the layout as I continue to use it or as others provide feedback. If so I will post the changes to this thread.
Thank you, I'm gonna give it a try. These things always confuse the hell outta' me, often I just give up because I simply can't find the right block shape while being sure it should be there!
A nice try for a change. But if you think our Block Shape Pages are confusing... try 7D2D and take a look on their BSP with 1200+ shapes!
Nice! I missed that post. That would help a lot, because I don't like learning a hundred blocks shapes catalogue by heart and I stick to basic shapes to avoid using some that may miss the other parts...
Updated for Empyrion 1.10. Please download the new zip file on the original post (BBSW Version 1.1.1). Changelog (1.1.0): Added 23 new block shapes from the EGS 1.10 release. This required a slight rearrangement of a few existing blocks, but they should still be in reasonable places. The major change was to the "Curved (Half and Full)" page to make room for all the new curved block shapes. "Corridor Elements" tab enabled for SV/HV blocks Changelog (1.1.1): Moved Edge Round Medium Half Double back to its old column (inside concave corners) The following images show the new EGS 1.10 blocks highlighted in red: Page 1: Flat Slopes (Full & Half) Page 2: Flat Slopes w/ Thin Edge Page 4: Curved (Full & Half) Page 5: Curved (Thin)
Updated for Empyrion 1.10.2. Please download the new zip file on the original post (BBSW Version 1.2.0). Changelog (1.2.0): Added new mirror block for Cut Corner B. This new block "Cut Corner B Left" is identical to the old block "Cut Corner B Right" except for which adjacent face is colored and textured with the sliced face. Re-ordered half-cylinder blocks in lower-left of "Curved (Full & Half)" page to be more consistent with inside corner -> outside corner ordering of other block sets The following image shows the new EGS 1.10.2 block highlighted in red: Page 1: Flat Slopes (Full & Half)
Finally gonna get around to looking at this. Since this goes in the configuration folder, does this mean it would be or could be part of a scenario? More specifically, this wouldn't affect you if you played on a server unless the server itself had this file instead of the default?
I don't know if it can be included as part of a scenario, since I don't know which files are able to be overridden on a per-scenario basis. This file replaces your local copy and applies to all scenarios and servers you play on, but I don't know what would happen if a server provided a custom file. My hope is that it can't, so that you as the user have full control over which shape window you choose to use.
It has no effect, only the default location is used. Clients can only override it by modifying the default file. If a server changes it on the default location then it won't have any effect either as its a client file
Thanks guys. Yeah, this looks really interesting, but I wouldn't want to get used to using it in creative if I go on server and everything is back to default. (I play almost exclusively on Official servers) I just assumed that all files in /content/configuration/ can be defined or overwritten if included in a scenario, since that same folder path exists in every scenario.
Updated for Empyrion 1.10.5. Please download the new zip file on the original post (BBSW Version 1.3.0). Changelog (1.3.0): Added 6 new transition blocks. Several blocks in the transition blocks column were re-ordered to make room, with Cut Corner F L/R moving just to the left one column. The top two new blocks (Corner Half D L/R) I consider alternate variants of the Ramp Connector B blocks below them. The remaining 4 I placed at the bottom of the column since they also interface with Cube Half Ramp and Cube Quarter Edge on the bottom row. The following image shows the new EGS 1.10.5 blocks highlighted in red: Page 1: Flat Slopes (Full & Half)
I used the file with your layouts a little bit today. I like the fact that every shape is categorized. Once the players/builders get accustomed with it, (muscle memory is a thing) they will spend more time worrying about other creative stuff. It is quality improvement I think and it should be included in the default game. Good job @Garaman and thank you for sharing this with us.
Dark Faction DLC users: Here is a beta version of the BBSW that contains the "Organic Walls" page that was added for the Dark Faction DLC's Symelite Armor Blocks. I am assuming that this file works correctly for those without the DLC also but I need to test before I post it as final. The shapes are too new for me to organize yet so I'm just going to leave the page as Eleon created it. Update 2024/10/10: After testing on the Epic Games version without the DLC it appears this works correctly, so I have promoted it to full 1.4.0 release. Again this just adds the page with the Symelite blocks for DLC owners with its default organization.
