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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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 Posted: Sep 27, 2008 05:26 Post subject: |
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Looks nice, however 3d view is only good for texturing and eyeballing sector and adjoin heights, and checking lines of sight or whatnot.
For geometry manipulation, a simple top-down view like WDFUSE is far more efficient IMO. Particularly, you don't have to worry about tilting or panning the camera or moving it around for the best view of the sector you're manipulating. Just my 2cents.
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Marley
Gamorrean
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2008 07:14 Post subject: Re: DarkXL Update 8 - Level/Mod editing tools. |
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lucius wrote:
And of course there will also be a fully featured 2D mode, easy sector drawing and editing in all modes, cleaving, automatic adjoining, user creatable object templates, prefabs, rotatable grid, custom grid sizes and much more...
Editing Dark Forces or DarkXL levels should be fun and easy. The creativity comes from the layout, gameplay, story and so on... not from fighting the system. With built in tools this should be accessible to anyone and provide really fast testing, iteration and editing.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2008 08:06 Post subject: |
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The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
Looks nice, however 3d view is only good for texturing and eyeballing sector and adjoin heights, and checking lines of sight or whatnot.
For geometry manipulation, a simple top-down view like WDFUSE is far more efficient IMO. Particularly, you don't have to worry about tilting or panning the camera or moving it around for the best view of the sector you're manipulating. Just my 2cents.
Thanks for the comments but as you can see from the Marley's post below, 2D editing won't be neglected.
As for 3D editing, I have to say its a matter of opinion. This isn't the first tool like this I've made and I've discovered that if the 3D tools are good enough, many people (but certainly not all) actually prefer to do most of their editing in 3D. Like 3D modelers, different level builders like to use different kinds of tools - think of the difference between zBrush and Maya for example. There's something about seeing what you're building as you build it and manipulating it directly.
That said 2D views are very nice and have advantages of their own. Many of these features will work exactly the same in 2D - so I'm really working on both in many ways. And there will be a mix of features from both. For example, you could have ground texturing being displayed in the 2D view, zoom in and out smoothly and enter or exit 3D at any time.
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klasodeth
Trandoshan
Joined: 03 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Sep 27, 2008 08:31 Post subject: |
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The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
Looks nice, however 3d view is only good for texturing and eyeballing sector and adjoin heights, and checking lines of sight or whatnot.
For geometry manipulation, a simple top-down view like WDFUSE is far more efficient IMO. Particularly, you don't have to worry about tilting or panning the camera or moving it around for the best view of the sector you're manipulating. Just my 2cents.
While there are definitely advantages to laying out sectors in 2D, I think 3D will be far superior for setting sector heights, among other things. Typing numbers in numeric fields is neither quick nor intuitive when it comes to making doors, windows, pits, steps, platforms, and more that look "just right". Seeing the results in realtime while editing sounds much better to me than typing in numbers. lucius hasn't shown us much in the way of wall editing features yet, but being able to draw a door or window right on a wall that looks right sounds a lot better to me than drawing the width in one view and the height in another. It also makes things like alcoves easier to deal with. If it's too deep or not deep enough, just push or pull the wall until it looks good. Why have to go to another view to do that? I can't imagine many scenarios where having an exact integer value for an alcove is more important than something that looks good. Initially laying out sectors in 2D is not a bad thing, but I think 3D will be far more useful for tweaking everything. It's not like the grid will be going away, so precision isn't going to be lost.
There are also potential advantages when populating levels with enemies and items. They can be quickly placed where they look good. It's much easier to take into account visibility when doing so. Being able to place something exactly where I want it without ever leaving the editor sounds a lot better than placing a point or square on a grid, only to bounce back and forth between the game and the editor to make incremental changes. Being able to edit within the level in realtime is the difference between aiming for "just perfect", versus settling for "good enough".
One last point. Consider that the 3D view could be instantly turned to a 2D mode simply by placing the camera above the level pointing straight down, and locking out rotation. Add in some forced perspective, and voila! Typical 2D mode.
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DF4GL4ever
Gamorrean
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2008 02:54 Post subject: |
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I agree with the above, and see 2D editing being useful for quickly laying out a map, such as general area and room boundaries. It'd be like the sketcher in 3D cad apps. Just basic things can be set up and objects can be given general placement. Then you can go into 3D mode and work in the details like sector heights and more fine geometry.
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2008 03:09 Post subject: |
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I would definitely draw my 2d sectors in top-down view, since I'm obsessed with symmetry. Then I would tweak the size, set floor and ceiling heights, place enemies and objects, and mostly everything else in 3d mode. So basically, both are important, I agree 
For now though, I like it that lucius is starting out with 3d mode. It's something that we haven't seen before in a Dark Forces editor, gives people a chance to experience something fresh. Besides, it's probably much simpler keeping the same controls and viewpoint that's already present in the game 
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2008 04:01 Post subject: |
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Thanks for all the comments, I appreciate the feedback. In the end I expect 2D and 3D to have the same feature-set, except for things that only make sense in one view or the other, so people will be able to use whatever view they prefer or makes the current task easier.
Any other comments are welcome, of course.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 23, 2008 09:16 Post subject: More Editor work. |
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I've been doing a little bit of work on the editor in order to reproduce cases where there are still glitches with the portals (a rendering order issue). I'd thought I'd go ahead and share some of the new work, where I loaded and did some slight editing on SecBase.
The first shots show the 2D view with various grid/scale settings:
And then a small edit in the 3D mode:
The 2D mode is still early (I just got it working a few minutes ago) but there are some minor things you'll notice. The grid is anti-aliased, where the line size is scaled properly with zoom level and fine grid elements fade out as you zoom out to avoid too much noise. The colored lines are the x and z axes and the intersection is (0,0). Layers are properly supported. And finally the red dot is where the camera is for the 3D mode.
In case anyone is curious, the grid is drawn as a single quad with the lines being computed in a pixel shader (including analytical anti-aliasing without needed derivative functions so it works on lower end hardware). This means its the same speed (quite fast) no matter how far the grid extends or how dense it is. And it looks much cleaner on the monitor, the jpg compression does muck it up a little.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 23, 2008 16:35 Post subject: |
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Awesome, can't wait to get my hands on this beast 
Looking really good!
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BlazingPhoenix
Ree-Yees
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Oct 23, 2008 21:19 Post subject: |
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Awesome! It looks like Doom Builder.
(which is a good thing, trust me)
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Taton
Trandoshan
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 24, 2008 04:18 Post subject: |
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The life saver for me is going to be the editing in 3d. I'm the kind of guy that'll move a single vertex or change single texture, and then I will pounce on the GOB test button.
Keep up the good work lucius.
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Geoffrey S
Gamorrean
Joined: 29 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Oct 25, 2008 07:42 Post subject: |
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Just looking at the map of secbase reminds me why I think it has one of the best level designs I've seen in any DF level. Nice and compact, none of the sprawl that many user missions tend to have.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 25, 2008 07:58 Post subject: |
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Just a small update. It seems that the screenshots above were missing the "hidden" lines, which now show up corretly - as a different color so they're easy to differentiate.
In addition some editing actually works in the 2D mode. You can create subsectors or columns in 2D or 3D and create new sectors in 2D. You can also split sectors and extrude in both modes. They will both have most of the functionality in the end.
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Emon
Ree-Yees
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 04:21 Post subject: |
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Hey lucius, what kind of additional tools do you think would be useful for this project? I wouldn't mind contributing if there's something that can be done outside of the engine.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 06:41 Post subject: Making a simple level. |
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I recorded a video of me making a simple mini-level using the DarkXL editor. The movie shows using the 2D and 3D modes together to build the geometry. 2D is used primary to build new sectors and some subsector/columns while 3D is used for adjusting floor and ceiling heights as well as making a column as well.
Some things to note from the video:
*Adjoins are created automatically when sectors have overlapping edges on the same layer. You will be able to use different layers to enable overlapping geometry however.
*When creating a sector adjoined to another one, it takes on some of the properties of the existing sector automatically - such as floor and ceiling heights - so the editor can make a pretty good guess at what those heights should be.
*Columns/subsectors can be created in either 2D or 3D mode.
*Adjoins never have to be set manually and neither does floor/ceiling height (which can be set in 3D). You will, of course, be able to enter in the floor/ceiling height manually if you want too.
*When going from 3D view to 2D view, notice that the "camera" is centered on the in-game camera. This allows you to inspect things in 3D and then be right there to edit in 2D afterwards. Since zoom is centered in the middle of the screen, you can zoom right in and be in the right spot.
Here is the video on GameTrailers:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/281777.html
As usual, let me know what you think.
The midi is playing, sorry, I need to turn that off when in editor mode.
This is still very early, so features are still missing - there's still much more exciting editing features coming. 
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 06:50 Post subject: |
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Sounds interesting, I'll check it out later.
I do have a question though, what if we run out of layers to use for overlapping geometry? It probably wouldn't happen unless you were making some kind of super-impossible dimensional anomaly, but it would be useful to either be able to toggle the automatic adjoining feature or to have more than the original 19 (right?) layers. I'd prefer the first anyway, since it won't separate the PDA map into layers
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 07:01 Post subject: |
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sheepandshepherd wrote:
Sounds interesting, I'll check it out later.
I do have a question though, what if we run out of layers to use for overlapping geometry? It probably wouldn't happen unless you were making some kind of super-impossible dimensional anomaly, but it would be useful to either be able to toggle the automatic adjoining feature or to have more than the original 19 (right?) layers. I'd prefer the first anyway, since it won't separate the PDA map into layers
I am going to investigate ways of making overlapping geometry like in Perplexion easy to make, so I'll figure out a solution then. Initially you'll need to use layers but that probably won't be the long term solution. There are some features coming that should make it clear why its not just a matter of turning off automatic adjoining.
Anyway check out the video when you got time, you don't actually need to download it - just view it on GameTrailers.
The nice thing about gametrailers is that I can make pretty long videos. This one is 131MB after compression, so its nice that people don't have to download it and that it doesn't have to be stored on this server.
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Gez
Gamorrean
Joined: 05 May 2008
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 18:58 Post subject: |
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This looks like it's gonna turn out a very powerful editor. Even in its early stage it already looks much more agile than WDFUSE.
Out of curiosity, is the editor already storing its geometry data in DF's native LEV format or do you have your own DXL format?
And yeah, I am SO GLAD I don't have to download a 131 meg file
btw, 613 VIEWS  , good job! You sure are attracting some attention.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 26, 2008 20:16 Post subject: |
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sheepandshepherd wrote:
This looks like it's gonna turn out a very powerful editor. Even in its early stage it already looks much more agile than WDFUSE.
Out of curiosity, is the editor already storing its geometry data in DF's native LEV format or do you have your own DXL format?
And yeah, I am SO GLAD I don't have to download a 131 meg file
btw, 613 VIEWS , good job! You sure are attracting some attention.
The plan is to stick with the native format all the way through. The format allows for comments - which Dark Forces ignores when parsing the file - which will be used to store DarkXL specific data. The idea is that levels made in this editor will load in Dark Forces even if extended features are used (such as slopes). Also editor specific data can be stored as well, allowing for things like virtual layers (layers used only for editing which can be different from the in-game layers), tagged sectors/walls/objects and other editor-specific features.
As a side note, it appears that Lucasarts used data embedded in comments for levels as well, although probably just for reference. For example the ACAD references, which are probably IDs referencing objects in AutoCAD, the program they used for level editing. For DarkXL tags like that would be replaced by DarkXL specific data instead. However levels will load and be editable even without any markup.
Gez wrote:
Also, vertex manipulation isn't possible yet, is it?
Vertex manipulation didn't work yet when I took that video but will be in before anyone else uses the editor.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 27, 2008 23:34 Post subject: |
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I think it's amazing that through this project I learn what went into making the original game. It seems I learn a bit more about it day by day.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 28, 2008 01:16 Post subject: A small editor update. |
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The editor now saves and loads files properly and I've tested levels generated by the editor in the original Dark Forces and they work correctly. I also found out that Dark Forces is more picky about certain things than DarkXL, so I'll definitely have to put checks in for certain things for DF.
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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Marley
Gamorrean
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 30, 2008 12:14 Post subject: |
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Can't wait to get my hands on this. Been messing about with WDFUSE before I start work on EofE proper and I find it pretty painful. Will the texturing features be in the first release or will it just be Geomotry?
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 30, 2008 19:03 Post subject: |
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I'm actually looking forward more to the editor than the next build of DXL at the moment.
I'm hoping though that I'll be able to create sectors by hand instead of having to extrude walls. Splitting walls is always a hassle too if I want to make more walls, so I'm hoping that this will be easier to do.
So my wishlist here would be the following for now.
- Create sectors and edit freehanded.
- Be able to move and edit sectors, walls, and vertices without having to switch modes (might be a bit hard to do though).
- An undo mode that actually works
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I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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Emon
Ree-Yees
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
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| Posted: Oct 30, 2008 19:10 Post subject: |
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SketchUp has some great features, such as the push/pull tool. JED, the (only good) editor for Jedi Knight, has a ridiculously powerful grid and snapping system.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Oct 30, 2008 19:12 Post subject: |
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Burning Gundam wrote:
I'm actually looking forward more to the editor than the next build of DXL at the moment.
I'm hoping though that I'll be able to create sectors by hand instead of having to extrude walls. Splitting walls is always a hassle too if I want to make more walls, so I'm hoping that this will be easier to do.
So my wishlist here would be the following for now.
- Create sectors and edit freehanded.
- Be able to move and edit sectors, walls, and vertices without having to switch modes (might be a bit hard to do though).
- An undo mode that actually works
In the video I showed I was creating sectors by drawing lines. Just draw out whatever shape you want, in any direction you want. To connect sectors together, just make sure one or more edges overlap and it'll automatically split the walls as appropriate and setup adjoins. To make a sub-sector just draw your subsector inside another sector. To draw a hole (column) use the same process as a subsector, just hitting a different button to complete it.
To split a sector, just draw a line inside - if you draw 2 points (inside of 3 or more needed for a shape) then it automatically does a split instead of a sector/subsector.
And there are even cooler features coming too. For example, you'll be able to draw a shape that overlaps an existing sector and it'll resolve it into a set of connected sectors automatically. I'll show this and other features in a future video.
Anyway thanks for the suggestions, let me know if you have any more.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Oct 30, 2008 23:00 Post subject: |
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Sounds cool (Sorry, I didn't watch the vid yet) and appears it will work almost exactly like Doom Builder. My only question regarding the sector building and the splits being automated, what if a sector is overlapping another (i.e. a room above a room)? is it just going to be layer prioritized at that point?
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