How to group and link objects in CRYENGINE | Getting Started Video Lecture | Cry Engine Tutorial:Getting Started - Game Development

for this lesson we're going to talk
about grouping and linking and then
added on to that we're gonna cover
hiding and freezing because those are
also two important topics that trip
users up so let's get to it
at the beginning we have basic linking
and linking is something that is kind of
like a parent-child relationship if I
were to just move this around it's
independent and let's go ahead and turn
on snapping just so I can see the grid
but if I come down here and move this
pyramid I have a link which is denoted
by this blue line so if we go right down
here we can see that there's a blue line
that links this object to this object
so if I move this pyramid let's see what
happens we have a parent-child
relationship that moves the child with
the parent but I can also still move the
child in relation to the parent and it
keeps the same distance
so let's step back to here and link this
object to this object
so we don't have to have anything
selected we just have to come to the top
here and click the link icon and what
I'm going to do is I'm going to drag
this down to this object
what we'll do is pressing the one key
I'll go back out and I'll move this
upward and you can see that we've now
successfully created this link that we
talked about before where it's
completely independent so just to make
this really really Illustrated let's go
ahead and go on the x-axis
so now we've changed this quite a bit
one key we can see that
very transformative you can do whatever
you want regarding the object even
scaling so it's respects all axes in all
types of manipulation
back on this
and we can move to the next and this is
grouping of objects so this right here
is actually an object group I were to
move it around you would see that it
sticks with itself
and I can also open it so if I open the
group I can go in and I can change
something inside of it
while all still still moving the group
so it's just a way that you're able to
select objects quickly inside of the
group manipulate it and you can see even
the bounding box changes so it's very
very powerful for you to group objects
together to make little iterations or
derivative works of the original object
so let's go ahead and close that group
and what we can do is actually ungroup
the objects so I'm gonna click ungroup
and this would be technically what you
start with if you have nothing you need
to group something and this is what this
is all about so if I hold down the
control key and click I can select these
objects and what I want to do is go to
level group group and now we can do
something like tutorial
underscore group
okay we now have the ability
by the group
so let's go ahead and ahead and move
this over and we're actually on press
control-d and copy it real quick
so we're going to do is we're going to
ungroup this object
simple group will ungroup that let's go
ahead and remove these two I don't want
them I just want this one little pyramid
and if I click in here I can see that
there is an attached so if I click this
and actually select the group you can
see that we've attached that piece of
geometry to the group moving the
bounding box out as well so this is a
little setup or a little introduction to
grouping I use a lot in many many things
like in this level you would see
multiple things that are grouped like
these steps so it's quite valuable and I
encourage you to use it inside of your
own development
next we have freezing and freezing is
something that trips people up all the
time because what they'll do is they'll
select our object and maybe they'll
press the F key and now they can't
select it anymore
and you get this common questions like I
have an object in the middle of scene
but I can't select it I can select
everything around it but I can't select
that object and if I press ctrl-z
I'm able to select it again and the
likewise the other object is shift F if
you freeze it and you want to bring it
back let's say we freeze both of these I
press shift F it will unfreeze all the
objects and I can click yes which would
freeze everything I'm not going to do so
so it's just a quick way to unfreeze the
objects and freeze the objects and
that's why maybe something in your level
you can't select
for this final example we have hiding
and it's something that goes along quite
well with freezing in the sense that it
will basically make an object
unselectable but unlike freezing this
makes your object hide and a lot of new
users question why is my object
disappearing or where did it go and how
do I get it back so if I select this
primitive which is an object and press
the H key you'll notice that we're able
to just hide it likewise if I press
shift H I can unhide all the other
objects and bring it right back so this
is something that you just need to be
aware of regarding your objects and the
biggest biggest thing to remember are
the freezing and hiding so it's F and H
then if you want to bring them back you
need to press the shift + F or H key to
undo or bring back all of your things
that maybe you mistakenly hid or froze