You and anyone with similar issues. I'm not trying to be argumentative, nor negate the usefulness of your ideas for C3. My intent was suggestive and I'm only trying offer some helpful advise. You don't know what you don't know. If you had never worked for a studio before, maybe you are unaware most studios have development workflows that would help you avoid the issues you are having now. Best practice is doing all the planning, pre-production like design and prototyping before moving into the production phase. If you already know this, great! If not, I hope it helps.

fedca I mostly agree, but not what I meant.

No need for all the apologizing, it's ok. I do disagree tho, it is a big process of trial and error. There is a reason software like these are called "editors" not "creators" tbh.

The usual workflow, as you said, is to prototype first. You make a barebones version of everything you imagined and then you slowly develop all the things to a more and more finished state. But that means a lot of editing, not less editing.

As for skymen's take, I just think an engine's interface is all about you not having to do everything from scratch in a text editor.

Why not allow us to add layer effects at runtime? This would be a lot easier, I've done engine hacks in the past that let me do it, and it would completely skip the whole problem if we can just setup all the layers at runtime manually.

Oh please no, that is still very convoluted, we need better. This would maybe be nice for other cases but not as a solution for this.

Ashley I'm not sure exactly what is meant by batch changes, but could that still work in combination with the templates idea?

I could be wrong, but it sounds like they're asking for something like this:

I had imagined this per layer not per layout but that actually makes a lot of sense for solving my original problem.

having the option to just make the changes at runtime means we can just generate all the layers on startup which is also a good option and completely eliminates the problem.

It isn't? It would be very odd to work with.

Somehow including layer order/structure with an error if it can't be done?

I think that that is not needed, the same way layer hierarchy doesn't affect global layers. BUT you've just reminded me that I originally created this thread not only because editing layer properties across layouts was getting bad but also because editing the entire layer hierarchy was, so that is important too.

I'm not concerned about layout exclusions though, fwiw.

That was just an alternative for getting the same results of a "template layer" but going by Ashley's "name-based" proposal.

yea it can get complex, though a layer can not be a template/replica and global layer at the same time imo.

Yes, it would make no sense. That is a non-issue.

I don't get the claims of it being overcomplicated—it's just an "extension" of global layers with slightly altered functionality (remove instances carrying over from the master layer, and allow unique instances on non-master layers). So much of it is already there, you know?

Maybe they didn't get what we want yet? I feel the same.

I don't want to be rude and I obviously don't know their code base. But it is global layers that don't share objects, a feature that already exists but excluding part of it.

I really don't want to underestimate complexity here but can't you "basically" just change the drop down menu where you typically select "yes" for "global" to be like "type": ("regular" or "global" or "template") where "template" is the EXACT same code you already have for globals BUT with the object syncing part deleted?

The nesting part Diego mentioned would not be a problem because it would be exactly as it already is, and switching between those types would also do exactly what id does today for globals.

Again, Ashley and Diego, you've always been very nice to me and I really don't want to be rude.

In general, yes. But can we, instead of going only by names, have an option to select to which layouts we want that to apply? Cause like, we may want to change the "Background" layer of all game level layouts but not of a menu layout that may also have a layer named the same.

Also, please note that a very important part of this is that we want them to share properties (inspector properties and effects), so please do include that.

And please, with all due respect, and I do respect you a lot, try acknowledging that this is very very very needed and not just some niche thing we are requesting.

Thanks as always Ashley.

Edit: just realized there is no good way to figure out where a new layer should go in the layer order of all layouts it was also created in, as they may even have a different number of layers. Can we maybe just make a family or something of layouts and we get all the layer structure and settings to sync from a template layout to all replicas?

The problem is that the layers content needs to be different, it cannot be shared:

i.e. on level 1 there are mountains on the background layer and on level 2 there are clouds.

But you still want a shared layer setup that is consisten across levels, like [postProcessing, foreground1, foreground 2, world, player, enemies, background1, background 2]. Now after creating 100 levels and noticing you need to make some change to that layer set-up you need to repeat it 100 times.

Exactly. That is what I meant, Ashley. Global layers are great but what we want here is global layer structure and settings, not global layers.

Edit: Another way to say it is: We want global layers but that don't share object instances. Can you "just" make it an option to have global layers do exactly all they already do but share objects?