Project selection 1100

See also : Editor interface overview.

This page is for version v1.10.0 and above
For the latest version of PopcornFX, see: Project selection
For previous versions of PopcornFX, see the following pages:

• Project selection (v1.9.0)
• Project selection (v1.8.0 and below)

Overview

When you first start the PK-Fx editor, the following window will pop-up:

This is the project selection window.

It gives you various useful informations:

• 1 : Popcorn-SDK version
• 2 : User data-folder path (this is where all the projects in the project list are stored, as well as all your user-specific data)

It is split in 4 main panels:

• 3 : Title & online links
• 4 : Project list
• 5 : Selected project's recently opened files
• 6 : Online PopcornFx packages

There are also various buttons to manipulate all this:

• 7 : Show user infos
• 8 : Manually check online for editor updates
• 9 : Launch popcorn editor on the selected project (same as double-clicking on the project)
• 10 : Quit the popcorn editor

Title panel

This panel displays the current SDK Version, as well as a bunch of useful links to documentation, tutorials, or social media pages:

• 1: SDK Version + info for special builds (ex: "preview build")
• 2: AnserHub: Main community help portal !
• 3: Documentation: Script reference
• 4: Documentation: Node reference
• 5: Documentation: Editor reference
• 6: Documentation: UnrealEngine4 plugin
• 7: Documentation: Unity plugin
• 8: Roadmap: follow the development process, and vote for features you'd like to have. Your votes help us prioritize.
• 9: Tutorials
• 10: PopcornFX youtube channel
• 11: PopcornFX facebook page
• 12: PopcornFX twitter page

Projects panel

PK-Fx Editor allows you to setup multiple "projects" at once. However, you can only have a single project loaded at a single time.
This panel allows you to add new projects, and change their settings.

• 1 : Currently selected project
• 2 : Project that was moved and not found on disk anymore
• 3 : Project out of date
• 4 : Remove project
• 5 : Upgrade project
• 6 : Create new project
• 7 : Add existing project
• 8 : Show settings of selected project
• 9 : Relocate selected project

Opening a project

To open a project, you can either:

• double-click on the project you wish to open
• select the project, and click the 'OK' button in the window's bottom-right corner.

Creating a project

You can either:

• Add an existing project
  • click on the 'Add' button
  • An explorer window will pop and ask you to pick a 'PopcornProject.xml' file that's inside the project you want to add.
• Create a new project from scratch
  • Click on the 'New' button
  • Pick one of the presets in the new dialog that pops up:
    
    1. Default : default PopcornFX project.
    2. Unreal Engine : Project setup to be UE4-friendly, with the proper axis-system and physics values
    3. Unity : Project setup to be Unity-friendly, with the proper axis-system
  • An explorer window will ask you to pick a folder inside which the popcorn editor should create the project file.
  • This folder does not have to be the project root folder, but MUST be inside the project directories.
  • See the Project creation and setup page for more details.

Removing a project

The little garbage-can icon on the left of each project deletes the project's entry in the project list.
It does NOT delete the project's files ! it only removes the project from the list of projects.

Relocating a project

Project relocation is a pretty powerful helper tool that came with v1.6

Clicking the 'Relocate project' button will pop the following window, and allow you to change the location of all your projects.
This is especially useful if your Hard-drive changed its drive-letter during a switch to a new machine, or if you checked-out the repository containing your project datas to a new location.
Without this feature, you'd have to delete all your projects, then re-add them all by hand.

Please see the project relocation page for more details.

Project settings

Clicking on the 'Settings' button pops-up a window showing the currently selected project's settings.
This is where you configure your project paths, axis system, unit scale, resource directories, bake settings, etc...

Please see the Project settings page for more details.

Upgrading projects

Sometimes, when a new version of the popcorn runtime & editor is released, some things might have changed, that will cause some assets to break.
When this happens, your project will appear RED in the project list, meaning you need to upgrade it.

Upgrading a project is just a matter of clicking the little upgrade button next to its name, and select 'OK' in the window that pops up.

For more information or details on the upgrade process, and for troubleshooting upgrades, see the Project upgrade page.

Recent files panel

This lists the recent files of each project, and allows you to select what file should be automatically opened when launching the project.

• 1 : if checked, opening the project will also automatically open the file that's selected in the list below
• 2 : list of recently opened files

You can double-click on any item in that list, and the editor will open the project and that file immediately.

Online packages panel

The online-packages panel replace the previous version's 'default-packs' that were added by default on each new install.
It shows various Fx packages available online on our servers, that you can download.

You can then either import the package content inside one of your already-existing project, or create a new project from this package.

• 1 : Package name
• 2 : Package description
• 3 : Package thumbnail & version.
• 4 : Download button.
• 5 : Download progress. Here, already download in progress. If the package has been updated online, the progress-bar will appear empty again, and you will be prompted to re-download.
• 6 : Create new button. Once downloaded, will create a new project out of the package. The editor will ask you where you want to store the project on disk, then will extract everything and add the new project to the project list.
• 7 : Import button. Once downloaded, will import the package into the project that's currently selected in the project-list.

User infos

Data Folder	Tells the Popcorn-Fx editor where to look for the projects settings. It is by default set to a user-directory. You do not have to have your packs in this folder, this is for the user configuration stuff.
Misc User Infos	For our internal use only, used to notify company-specific upgrades if you have a registered popcorn SDK license. Otherwise, just useful for us to get some stats and keep you updated on new popcorn stuff. Make sure you enter a valid email so you'll get the popcorn-fx newsletter. Don't worry, we only send mails for new versions, we won't spam you :)
Check For Updates	if this is checked, the editor will check, on startup, if there is a more recent build uploaded on the popcorn servers. If there is, it will pop a notification window asking you if you want to upgrade. If you disable this automatic check, you can always check by hand by clicking the "Check Updates" button in the main project selection window.

Auto Updates

The popcorn editor will automatically connect to the popcornfx website to check if there are editor updates/fixes available.
If updates are found, it will display the latest update changelog:

We recommend you keep this check active to get the latest bugfixes. However, if you are bound to an older version of the C++ SDK, you might not want to get the latest editor update, as it may have features not supported by your older SDK.

To disable auto-updates, uncheck the 'Check For Updates' checkbox in the User infos window

Even with auto-updates disabled, you can manually check for updates at any time by clicking the "Check Updates" button in the projects panel. If an update is found, the update window will pop, as it would have if auto-updates were active.