Layout tool (AtomsUnreal)

Layout tool and Points layout module

You have several modes for editing your agents: Select, Placement, TimeOffset and SocialLayout.

In Select mode, you can move, rotate and scale agents using Unreal manipulators.

Placement mode

Left Click to add agents in the viewport.
Ctrl+Left click and drag to edit the direction for the agents.
Shift+Left click and drag to rotate the layout (grid and poisson).
Right click in the viewport to change the agent type of the agents you are going to place (only when the "Random Agent Type" options is on).

There are different layout types for placing your agents: point, grid, poisson, polygon, curve and mesh scatter.
All placement modes except "Point" have options that can be tweaked in the UI.

When you place your agents Atoms will automatically try to find the intersection with any mesh in scene.

In the Agent Types list, you can select the agent types you will be adding to your agent group. If the "Random Agent Type" checkbox is ticked, Atoms will pick an agent from the selected list items randomly. 
You can provide a percentage distribution for your agents types with the given sliders. The percentage only works when the "Random Agent Type" option is on. If no element of the "Agent Types" list is selected, all agent types will be used.

When the "Show Agent Preview" option is on, a preview of the agents will be shown on top the arrow indicator before you place them. Although this option is very useful, it might slow down the user experience when you have a large number of agents in your agent group. Please turn it off if you experience a slow down when placing agents or editing the UI parameters.

When the "Use Clamp Up Vector" option is on, the tool will not place any agents where the angle between the "Clamp Up Vector" and the normal of the mesh location under the cursor is more than the "Clamp Up Angle". In this case the arrow pointer color will turn to red as a warning to the user.

Select mode

Left click and drag to select agents with the marquee tool.
Shift+Left click and drag to add agents to the selection.
Ctrl+Left click and drag to toggle agents.

You can erase agents by pressing the "delete agents" button in the GUI.
You can also change their agent types by pressing the "Change Agent Type" button (this only works for agent groups with pointsLayout and cacheReader modules).

Select agents and press the "Separate Agents" button to move the selected agents into a new agent group.

In Select mode, you can also use the move, rotate and scale Unreal widgets as you would do with any other Unreal object.

For rotating and scaling agents, users can select the space (local/global) and its type.

Rotation types are:  "Position and Rotation" and "Position Only."

Scale types are: "Position and Agent" and "Position Only".

You can also search agents with the "Selection Search". Selection works with one or more filters combined with each other. Filters are:

• Radius: selects agents closer to each other than the specified distance 
• Agent type: selects agents of a specified agent type
• Metadata: select agents with based on the value of a given metadata

Time Offset Mode

The retime mode works only on agent groups with cacheReader modules.

The current time offset value will be displayed on top of each agent. 

Users can use the UI for modifying/randomizing the time offset for the selected agents.

Finally, you have the option of setting the time offset to be in place or standard.
Please make sure you set this before editing your agents as the time offset modes evaluate the translation and rotation offsets in different ways.

Social Layout Mode

The social layout mode allows you to perform actions on the selected agents.
Available actions are:

• Average orientation: align the agents to their average orientation
• Average position: pulls the agents towards their average position
• Look at center: makes the agent point towards the center of the selection
• Look at actor: makes the agent point towards an actor
• Distance Noise: adds a noise to the agent positions
• Orientation Noise: adds a noise to the agent directions
• Agent Separation: push the agents apart taking into account the the closest agents

Points Layout module

You can use the layout tool in conjunction with the pointsLayout module to:

• add agents
• offset, rotate and scale agents
• delete agents
• separate agents

Layout tool and other layouts

You can still use the layout tool with other layouts (gridLayout, meshScatterLayout, etc). Any additional behaviour module needed by the layout tool to work will be added automatically. You can:

• offset, rotate and scale agents
• delete agents
• separate agents

CacheReader module

You can use the layout tool with the cache reader module to:

• offset, rotate and scale agents
• delete agents
• separate agents
• time offset agents