Posted by karjala on 2022-07-23 09:20:19 EST

WDFUSE 3.0 Release

We are excited to announce version 3.0 of the WDFUSE - the Dark Forces Editor. This version has multiple improvements that will streamline your map-making experience. 

You can download it from our Downloads section or through a direct link here. 

3D Renderer Updates

A long-requested feature by the community (Ex: Secbase Unlimited) was the realization of a 3D renderer synchronization to visualize editor changes. This day has come and now the editor has live synchronization to the 3D Renderer .

Any change you make in the 2D mode editor will be instantly reflected in the 3D renderer.

 

This includes moving map components such as sectors, walls and objects. For a better understanding of what live-synchronization entails take a look at the video below. 

 

You can now automatically download, install and configure it by pressing the download button in the 3D Renderer Options tab. 

 

This is a seismic shift - gone are the days of launching the game just to see if the texture you moved is now properly aligned with the wall. The changes are instant and work with the largest community-made missions such as the Dark Tide Series or the Assassination on Nar Shaddaa. 

WDFUSE Tutorial Missions

The Editor now includes mission tutorials. They will give you step-by-step instructions on how get started with mission editing. They are geared towards map-makers without any experience. 

You can load them up from the New WDFUSE project window.

The tutorial missions will go over all the Dark Forces editing components in a simple methodical manner. Here you can see the tutorial room on Switches.

Editor Improvements

In addition to the renderer we now fully support the Origin store version of Dark Forces as well as being able to launch your GOBs within the The Force Engine 

We can now drag individual or multiple vertices at once. This will make wall-alignment a breeze.

Here we multi-select vertices and move all of them at once instead of piece-meal. All the adjoining vertices are moved together. 

 

You can now specify colors of any object in the editor. Don't like the defaults? Make all the stormtroopers red!

 

You can now load any recent project you've been working on. This is useful for those of us that jump between multiple projects. 

Full Change List

Projects

• Added ability to load a list of Recent project
• You can now have projects longer than 8 characters long
• Added an option to open the project folder of the current project in explorer
• WDPs should now be auto-associated via the Options
• Added variable back-up limits via Options
• Added 100 vs 125 DPI support
• The Force Engine has been added as a Launch Menu in Options
• Added EA Origin support as an external storefront. 
• Added verification to project assets and added more logging when issues occur
• Added a warning if the GOB assets are locked (Ex: you are running Dark Forces)

Map Editor

• Added real-time sync with 3D Renderer 
• Clicking on Sector Find now updates the INF Editor as well
• You can now update multiple wall lengths at a time
• Sector Heights are now shown in the Wall Editor 
• BOSS and COMPLETE sectors are now different colors (controlled via Options)
• Normals now always show up when single-clicking on a single Wall
• Grid/Scale settings are now stored in the INI file
• Fixed an issue where some objects do not detect the sector they are in
• Bit values now show up in the INF Editor's event_masks
• You can now pan while holding ALT and left clicking
• Added freehand drawing of vertices while holding CTRL button
• Added control over object snapping (Floor/Ceiling/None) 
• Clicking away from objects will now auto commit (if enabled)
• Added support for negative Yaw values (will modulo to 360)
• You can now change the texture offsets using Shift+Arrow Keys
• Added Rotate option to the Pop-Up menu
• Added Flip option to the Pop-Up menu
• You can now change object colors 
• Added ability to move Vertex and Wall multi-adjoins at once instead of individual dragging.
• Deletion of multi-Vertex/Walls added

WDFUSE Assets

• The Asset Toolkit now loads DELT/ANIM filetypes
• Added WAV to VOC converters
• Added PAL/CMP/WAX converter tools from Jereth Kok and Oton Ribic

Misc

• Rewrote CopyFile code so now you get valid stacktrack during issues 
• You can now enable/disable Wall Texture modulo via Options
• Fixed Wall scale calculation where sometimes you could not click on walls that have small deltas (Ex: 0.01)
• Added a WIKI Tutorial as a HELP (F1) guide.

Renderer

• Renderer height and width size is now stored in the registry to persist between sessions
• Holding ALT button now allows you to pan your mouse from 3D renderer to WDFUSE
• Added an option to automatically download and install the renderer from the Options menu.

DF-21 Wiki and WDFUSE Tutorial

Learning WDFUSE has always been a challenge. There were few modern guides explaining how to make custom missions. 

We've taken the time to create an entire Wiki with full an extensive tutorial with example missions to help you get started. 

Check out the modern WDFUSE Tutorial and feel free to expand it with more examples.