Drawing validity

This article is a stub.

Validity when making a selection

While editor or playing a game, it may be necessary to make a selection in the 3D World. In many cases, there are parts of the world that are not valid for selection. For example, when making a selection for placing a construction, the building may not be placed in a location where a construction already exists. Similarly, when making a selection to remove a part of a specific building, any part of the selection that does not actually select the building will be invalid.

When a selection is made, it may be composed of both valid and invalid parts. If the action, for which the selection is made, is performed, only the valid parts of the selection will be used to perform the action. Invalid parts of your selection are ignored. When the selection has other effects while selecting, such as the calculation of a price for the action to take, the invalid parts of your selection are ignored as well.

Validity colors

File:Interface game drawing validity overview.jpg

A selection which is partially valid and invalid. Only empty areas are valid for selection, the rest of the area is grey. The green area is selected and valid. The red area is selected and invalid. The yellow area would be valid, but is considered invalid as this would cost more then the player's budget. Note that the bottom of the water is grey, meaning a selection on the water would be invalid.

To indicate what areas would be valid or invalid for selection, and what parts of the selection are actually valid or invalid, colors are used. The meaning of the different colors are listed below.

Natural colors

This is how the world looks normally. This means this part of the game area would be valid for selection.

Grey

This is a part of the world that is not valid for selection. This can be for a number of reasons. When creating a construction, it could be that a construction already exists in that location. When removing parts of a construction, the selection is only valid when the construction is selected.

Green

This part of the world has been selected, and is also a valid selection. When taking the action for which this selection is made, this part of the 3D World will be affected.

Red

This part of the world has been selected, but is not a valid selection. When taking the action for which this selection is made, this part of the 3D World will remain unaffected. Other effects of the selection, such as the calculation of a price for the action, are unaffected by invalid parts of the selection. That is to say the price of a building will not increase when an invalid selection is added to the current selection.

Yellow

This part of the world has been selected, and would be a valid selection. However, due to a non-spatial restriction, this selection is invalid. An example of such a restriction would be the budget of the player. If the budget is insufficient to pay for the action when the selection becomes larger, but the selection is made larger anyway, the parts of the selection that were added last are made yellow, and are considered invalid.

Exceptions

Exceptions exist for when a selection is subject to validity. In these cares, an overlay will be used which is related to the property you are making a selection for. For example, when drawing zones in the editor, any place in the game can be selected to be made a part of a zone. the zoning overlay will be made visible. The situation is similar for ownership.