Feature: Entity slicer plane

[HugoBDesigner]

Which component should be improved?

Rendering

Describe your feature suggestion in more detail

This proposal is for a brand new entity, which works primarily as a rendering aid. It'd be a point entity with angles that define a one-sided plane. Any part of an entity beyond that plane would not be rendered, almost exactly like what happens with portals (except without the actual portals).

This entity would need to have a filter and/or a way to select one specific object to be affected. Ideally, for maximum flexibility, it should be toggleable and movable at runtime.

Use cases would vary a lot and be mostly up to mappers, but one primary use would be to set up alternate versions of static props, basically allowing the mapper to slice and stitch them manually on a per-need basis. Importantly, this entity would only affect the rendering – collisions and interactions would not be changed.

Some useful applications: partial squarebeams, catwalk segments, shorter trusses, special "materialization" effects for physics props (moving object through fixed slicer, or vice-versa).

[kitrodian]

I think this is called visual clipping.

[craftablescience]

• Why the need for no physics changes?
• Could probably be implemented as a postcompiler transform if its only for static props

[HugoBDesigner]

• Why the need for no physics changes?

Just to make it easier to implement and to reduce the scope. If having physics changes is relatively easy or makes more sense, then by all means it can be implemented.

• Could probably be implemented as a postcompiler transform if its only for static props

I cited static props as the main use case, but considering that many props – including decorative ones – are dynamic, it would be best to have it work in those cases. The minimum viable product would be a static, compile-only implementation of this feature. The ideal implementation would allow for dynamic changes, such as parenting or toggling with I/O.