Official Overlays Public Build Available

The new overlays in Alpha 19 look much better now, I never really realized that such a minor tweak could make it look so much more integrated with unity

 

I have a suggestion for the snapping system overlay, which is to add support for different orientations.

Right now we have the option for changing the pivot to a given handle's position,
But with support for different orientations, it would be helpful for cases like I have a model parented to another transform or maybe a space game, then I can simply position the objects on the grid according to local parent transform rather than global axes

One area where I thought it would be really useful was in character rigs as I was trying to align multiple objects on the grid, it would have been really helpful to have some gridlines present in that situation as a visual reference

 

Also, realized these button don't work right now:


Clicking on X,Y, Z currently doesn't do anything

 

Please, can we have a DEFINE Symbol for these?
So we can write scripts that can adapt to pre-overlay and post-overlay. I think this would be very handy for every already existing tool that draws something in the scene view GUI.

 

You can check for the unity version as it's included by default in the engine. (not a optional package)

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. #if UNITY_2021_2_OR_NEWER
3. //code
4. #else
5. //other code
6. #endif
7.  

 

Can we have a base Overlays system / API as a package that supports 2019.4+?
So that it'll work in all existing projects, instead of forcing us to switch to 2021.2 (which won't happen in next 3 years), because of small changes in IMGUI windows required to customize Scene view and main toolbar.

I would live perfectly fine without new default toolbars - just give me the base system / API, so I can use it in my own tools!!
And so I don't have to reinvent my own wheel :\

My usecase: Draggable tabs, overlays and multiple-side bars - which you guys can easily offer!
Here's my Sub-Windows prototype that will definitely benefit from this:

Can give a repo access at a request. Would love to hear the team thoughts on it, @gabrielw_unity

 

Please make it available on AssetStore
This is exactly what we need "Sub-Windows prototype"

 

Can you explain how you made it? maybe a small sample?

 

We discuss those things in-depth on our Discord channel - feel free to join!

 

Discord link?

 

There you go, I thought it's visible enough in my signature

 

Hm, possibly a bug or wierd interaction and I can't find a solution:
I can't open the Overlay Menu in my project.

On a clean project, it opens fine with the Space key, but in my main project (a lot of assets such as: Gameplay ingredients, Odin, Curvy (...)), the Overlay Menu window just flashes and does not stay active.

I've changed the shortcut from Space, to different keys, and get the same result. Sometimes nothing, sometimes a quick flash of it turning on/off. Is there different way to open this window?

Otherwise, I can't access the menu in any way, no errors in console, not even a hint, of what might be instantly closing the window.

 

Here's a simple history navigator experiment using the Overlays feature in 2021.2 (ie. back/forward buttons as in internet browsers):
https://github.com/kronnect/HistoryNavigator

https://i.imgur.com/IQXVli2.gif

 

Not quite clear to me, although I probably didn’t go deep enough, do these overlays also work in game view?
I would totally find an use for that today by drawing overlays, info and more to what the camera is currently rendering…
I know ‘OnGUI’ was the default way to go but if it can be done via explicit editor tools, I’m game for that!

 

adding to the pile: don't use a popup when there are only two options, only add popup when it's 3 or more
https://forum.unity.com/threads/dont-use-popups-when-you-can-use-buttons.1323507/

 

Not necessarily. In that case, sure, it's a button that you expect to click a lot so it can be expected that users learn what the symbols mean.

For things that you click seldom, having either a label + checkbox, or a symbol that's pressed or not can be confusing. Having two options that clearly spell out to the user what the two choices are can help a bunch.

 

Its always been a toggle; this change adds more clicks for the exact same action

 

Good point. It depends on context. You don't want your 2 values enums turn into toggle buttons in your inspector, at least not automatically because that's confusing, however [ToggleButton] in front of the enum would be rad.

Exactly, Baste was just adding more context to my rule. In this case we have a front and center piece of UI that's used often with a clear choice so toggle button is the much better representation.

I was mulling over these regressions I'm stumbling on and I think I figured out what happened: during the mass UI cleanup, rules had to be enforced because there was a lot of spaghetti code to untangle. It just turns out that some rules were made without thinking about the subtle aspects of a UI such as speed, click count etc...

In any case, there is an extension to popups that improves interaction but a lot: left click = chose / right or middle click = toggle with last choice. That was in Softimage and XSI.

 

@gabrielw_unity Apologies for the tag, but we are now more than a year further. I am using an LTS version of Unity, and every single time i startup the scene view tools are reset to a default state, and i have to dock them back to what is least obtrusive to me.

I hope you can understand why i asked if its possible to revert, i like to avoid issues like these.

 

Thanks for your response. I'm not closing any window, i'm closing and re-opening Unity.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/q6b833b232fitie/explorer_FyeLkVdTC2.mp4 Here is a demonstration, as you can see i dont close the Scene view at all. Saving/loading layout is unrelated, doesnt change anything.

 

Layout is buggy since 2021.

 

Thanks!

I'm sorry but i'm still quite salty about this change. I just feel like its a case of; you can customise it how you want, except for how i want it.



Currently working on a smaller screen and i need to have game and scene side by side, and as you can see the scene view tools just dont fit. And yet just above there is ample space. Before the scene view tools were moved this wouldnt have been an issue, so i really think this new UI is a regression.

I just find it very hard to understand why i cant drag them to a global bar on top, i understand the design vision was that the tools have context and shouldnt be visible if a window isnt. But thats simply not what i'm used to, or how i would like to work.
If i could drag them to where the play buttons are (and remove whatever sign in and that cloud is, that ive literally never used), users have the option to use any approach they want. You could even disable buttons if their window isnt active!

 

Man, do I feel your pain. Keeping the game and scene views side-by-side has always been a pain. That's why I suggested a different approach waaay back in the Workflow Improvement thread that would allow them to toggle between one another, while keeping (or not) a thumbnail-sized version of the other in-screen and swap the windows out if you click on it. This would probably fix or eliminate much of your issue.

See the bottom-right portion of the SceneView here:




That being said -- being able to drag out toolbars and whatnot to other windows/parts of the screen would be nice too. However, my gut feeling is that they'd have to redo a lot of the internals and guts to manage that -- and to hell with any kind of a workspace concept. They totally abandoned that notion apparently.

I don't know how overlays would work (at least internally) with a multi-window approach. I'm sure it'd take another couple of years to get there if they started today. But something tells me they won't.

Anyway, I don't know why Unity had to innovate with the custom toolbar thing, but then wall it off like they did, but a more "global" context for toolbars and custom shortcuts (i.e. Global Workspaces) would be a much better solution than simple overlays that are tied to a particular editor window. AND this is kind of standard in some of the better interfaces of more modern 3d software. A lot of people tout other software for their modular interfaces -- I have no clue why it wasn't something Unity wanted to do, but here we are.

I complained about this early-on, but apparently nobody listened aside from one person at Unity. And apparently what I asked was too much work, so by telling me they're considering Workspaces in the future, I didn't bother them anymore about it. I wish I knew this was just the "hey, we're probably not going to do this for 10 years" line of crap, but at the time, it seemed like they had a solid plan going forward.

Not so much anymore. : /

 

Been looking for a solution for this for a week, as well as being able to auto display the toolbar overlay in an undocked form. Any more on when this might be available?