Expose node "group" setting to the nodes in the import window

[knil79]

Describe the project you are working on

I am working on a 3D open world fps game with 3D tiles and on a tile I have a terrain meshes imported from blender with StaticBody3D and CollisionShape3D. When the player walks on the terrain I check the group of the StaticBody3D to get what surface the player is walking on to be able to play the correct walking sound.

My example is of course just one example of many many many that this proposal can be used for.

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project

When I import terrain mesh from a blender file I am not able to set "group" settings to the imported nodes, this means that with my current setup I can't detect what surface the player is walking on, since I check what "group" the Collider node is in and that is not set in the imported blender file meshes.

Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation

Making so that I can set the "group" for the nodes in the import window makes it super easy for me to setup a full blender import work flow for my tiles and to detect what StaticBody3D the player is interacting with.

Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams

The implemenation would be very similar in scope to these just added to 4.2
godotengine/godot#77533
godotengine/godot#78803

Here is a super rough mock up on how it could look:

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?

I don't think it can be worked around with scripts.

My example is of course just one example of many many many that this can be used for.

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?

This is very much in the similar vein as the above mentioned PRs
godotengine/godot#77533
godotengine/godot#78803
and is very much and improvement to the core importer!

[Calinou]

Note that reusing the editor groups UI is probably too difficult, so I'd just make the property a PackedStringArray.

While we're at it, should a metadata Dictionary also be exposed?

[knil79]

Note that reusing the editor groups UI is probably too difficult, so I'd just make the property a PackedStringArray.

While we're at it, should a metadata Dictionary also be exposed?

PackedStringArray seems resonable!

A meta data dictionary sounds useful, I personally won't need it, but more options in this case is good! Someone else might very well need it! 👍