Is is possible to create groups of entities?

[Skaruts]

Apart from Layers, is there a way to group entities together? I see that NRC has built-in support for func_groups, but I can't find a way to create func_groups.

I'm a Godot user, so I'm not using any pre-made quake definitions. I tried defining a func_group entity (tried both point and solid), but NRC doesn't seem able to create groups with that.

Layers are nice and I use them a lot, but they're not suited for quick-grouping/ungrouping of entities.

[Skaruts]

Actually, I just found that the way to create func_groups is a bit hidden in right-clicking the "func_groups" filter button...

Still this doesn't seem to create groups. It's just a solid entity like any other. I'm looking for a way to group different entities together. Something like layers, but quicker and simpler.

There's nothing in the keyboard shortcuts about creating groups, so I'm guessing this feature doesn't exist.

[ensiform]

There are no methods to group entities together besides layers. func_group is an entity that moves into the world during compile. But you can't group other entities with it

[Skaruts]

Yea it seemed like that. :(

Thanks for replying.

[Garux]

func_group containts primitives, like e.g. a door does. Not entities, it's entity itself.
Quickest layers methods are move-to and select kb shortcuts.

[Skaruts]

Quickest layers methods are move-to and select kb shortcuts.

Indeed. And I make extensive use of that. But the problem is that first you have to open the layers panel, create a layer, give it a name, and then you can move things into it. And you can't really have 20 or 30 layers with copies of the same three entities that you want to keep grouped up. Layers are not suited for frequent quick-grouping/ungrouping.

Layers are good for separating bigger parts of your maps so you can select them all at once if you need to edit/move them, or if you need to hide them to clear out the 2D view, etc. You can keep whole areas in separate layers. Maybe all the trees in a layer, all the fog entities in their own layer, the first and second floor of a building in separate layers, etc.

But if you need to keep a few entities grouped for quick selecting and copy/pasting, layers are not good for this.

A streetlight would be a good example of this. A streetlight can include:

• the lamp model
• a light
• a couple weed/bush models around the base of the lamp model
• a patch of dirt also at the base of the lamp model.

The light and the lamp model could actually be a single entity, but not the bushes and the dirt. So that's at least 3 or 4 entities per streetlight. Having to manually select all those entities every time you need to adjust or copy a streetlight is tedious, error-prone, time consuming, and it creates an amount of friction that prevents people from easily iterating over their map's layouts.

Having used other editors, like Hammer, DarkRadiant and Trenchbroom, I'm really missing this feature in NRC, tbh.

[ensiform]

Hammer is a whole other beast entirely, grouping of entities together is a native feature of source/goldsrc engines with visgroups etc and vmf format has support built into the file structure. TB last I checked was just layers. Idk about DR.

There unfortunately are zero methods to work with this without resorting to bastardizing the map format that becomes not compatible elsewhere short of injecting comments or comment editor only key pairs (begin with _) and that becomes an ugly mess IMHO.

[Garux]

Ic, thanks for extended explanation. There is no way to naturally group like that in .map format, but i will consider this requirement when adding hacks.

[Skaruts]

DR saves an extra .darkradiant file, which I think is where it stores information about layers, groups and probably other stuff.

TB uses func_groups as a special entity, and special properties (they're intended to be used by the map compiler and the game never sees them):

// entity 17
{
"classname" "func_group"
"_tb_type" "_tb_group"
"_tb_name" "Unnamed"
"_tb_id" "2"
"_tb_linked_group_id" "{a841bda8-e2ef-4b54-bc03-930a1a2d81de}"
}

// entity 18
{
"classname" "trigger_multi"
"_tb_group" "2"
// brush 0
{
...