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Betatesters for 3D Blades of Avernum Editor!


Isaac

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I am finally ready for the first release of my 3D Blades of Avernum Editor, version 0.8b1. Don't be scared off by the "beta" marking; I think I've removed most of the bugs.

 

Get it here . There is also a screenshot on that page.

 

I want feedback. Bug reports, of course. And especially, suggestions on one thing. In 2D, you can see terrain scripts, north/south/east/west town entrances, wandering monster creation points, damaging floor, etc. Currently, my 3D view does not display those. Should I keep it that way, or does anyone have suggestions on how to display those in a good way?

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Oh, I simply must have this shiny new toy. Great job, Isaac! I love you. I also love the person who ports this, they just don't know it yet.

 

My love for Windows, on the other hand, is at an all-time low right now. And believe me, that's really saying something.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find myself a corner to sulk in for a while.

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In a word: Schweeeeet!

 

Now someone just needs to port it to Windows.

 

*glances around*

 

Hey, don't look at me, guys. I only have four days of holiday left! I mean, c'mon! :p

 

Edit: By the way, if you want PC users to be able to download the source code, you may want to package it as a zip. Stuffit files can *theoretically* be unstuffed using free software on the PC, but in practice I ran into all sorts of problems the only time I ever tried. And I tried about ten different programs. frown

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*Sees 3d editor*

I LOVE YOU MAN! Now I can spend time to test on my scripts, not how everything graphical looks! Your beautiful man! laughlaugh

Jeff Vogal should offer you money! laughlaugh

 

EDIT: As for beta testing, I am having trouble with secret walls locations in the 3D mode. But still, very great work! Begone are the sweets of me having to make editor graphics specificaly for the editor for my custom terrains and objs...

The icons are kinda small in the window where you choose terrain or floors. I suggest lessening the amount of terrain and floors on the scrolling thing so you can increase their size.

Like I keep saying over and over again, great job!

 

EDIT 2: 3D Editing does not allow Setting Item atributes(charges and drawing shifts and the like) nor does it allow changing of creature atributes during 3D Mode. And as of the 2d wandering monster and script terrain icons, just use the icons from the 2d editor in the 3d mode. put them on the side of the terrain. So the scroll, B, Red Circle, Spawn locations, all those icons appear in a 3d way on terrain. Change the perspective of the icon(ex:Scroll for terrain script) so it looks like it is slanted.

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Quote:
Originally written by 20eyes:
A question for Isaac or one of you other lucky Mac users: Can you switch back and forth between 2D/3D while running the editor, or is the 3D editor a separate app entirely?

Hasn't anyone ported this yet?! What's the hold up? wink
First, dont complain. Us mac users wait all the time for games because they come for PC first. Im STILL waiting for Age of Mythology: Titans for mac eek
Be patient.
Second, yes, you can switch between 2d, 3d in the editor.
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Quote:
Originally written by Sathoj:
Awesome! My only complaint is that you don't factor in "tints" made to graphics, but that's minor.
Yeah, I couldn't figure out how to do that.

Quote:
Originally written by Crunchy Frog:
In a word: Schweeeeet!

Now someone just needs to port it to Windows.

*glances around*

Hey, don't look at me, guys. I only have four days of holiday left! I mean, c'mon! :p

Edit: By the way, if you want PC users to be able to download the source code, you may want to package it as a zip. Stuffit files can *theoretically* be unstuffed using free software on the PC, but in practice I ran into all sorts of problems the only time I ever tried. And I tried about ten different programs. frown
OK, I'll make a zip version of the source available for PC. However, I wouldn't advise porting it yet, since it isn't quite finished. :p

Quote:
Originally written by GIFTSare2cute:
As for beta testing, I am having trouble with secret walls locations in the 3D mode. But still, very great work! Begone are the sweets of me having to make editor graphics specificaly for the editor for my custom terrains and objs...
Be warned, the editor graphics are also used, scaled down, on the Automap in the game.
Quote:
The icons are kinda small in the window where you choose terrain or floors. I suggest lessening the amount of terrain and floors on the scrolling thing so you can increase their size.
EDIT 2: So... you want to have to scroll a lot? Then again it wouldn't be so bad, it gives me a bit of visual overload trying to find the terrain I want among all those (tiny) images. I'll try making it at least not distorted (currently they're squished vertically), and then see how it looks.
Quote:
EDIT 2: 3D Editing does not allow Setting Item atributes(charges and drawing shifts and the like) nor does it allow changing of creature atributes during 3D Mode. And as of the 2d wandering monster and script terrain icons, just use the icons from the 2d editor in the 3d mode. put them on the side of the terrain. So the scroll, B, Red Circle, Spawn locations, all those icons appear in a 3d way on terrain. Change the perspective of the icon(ex:Scroll for terrain script) so it looks like it is slanted.
I'll look into these things.

EDIT: Not being able to change item/creature attributes looks like a bug. However, I can't seem to reproduce any problems with secret walls. Can you give me more details? (or find out what you're doing wrong, so I don't have to fix it wink )
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EDIT: Not being able to change item/creature attributes looks like a bug. However, I can't seem to reproduce any problems with secret walls. Can you give me more details? (or find out what you're doing wrong, so I don't have to fix it ) --Issac

 

Sorry about secret walls. I forgot you said that terrain scripts and other small squares dont appear to indicate something on terrain in 3D mode. I meant that I couldn't see the SD in the secret walls on 3D mode. I forgot to edit that part out when I made EDIT 2 shocked

 

quote:

The icons are kinda small in the window where you choose terrain or floors. I suggest lessening the amount of terrain and floors on the scrolling thing so you can increase their size.

EDIT 2: So... you want to have to scroll a lot? Then again it wouldn't be so bad, it gives me a bit of visual overload trying to find the terrain I want among all those (tiny) images. I'll try making it at least not distorted (currently they're squished vertically), and then see how it looks.

 

So... you want to have to scroll a lot?

As opposed to tiny icons, yes wink

I have not noticed any vertical squish in the icons.

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Excellent. The aesthetics were my first major gripe about the BoA editor (I've since moved on to other things), and now I can bear to look at the map editor.

 

One small gripe, however. Just from looking at Babysitting in the new editor, the dungeon entrance is obscured by the size of the trees. I appreciate that not much can be done about this (apart from rotating camera view - a major work), but it is annoying. It would be nice to switch between 2D and 3D, however nasty the 2D version is.

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Quote:
Originally written by Morgan:
Excellent. The aesthetics were my first major gripe about the BoA editor (I've since moved on to other things), and now I can bear to look at the map editor.

One small gripe, however. Just from looking at Babysitting in the new editor, the dungeon entrance is obscured by the size of the trees. I appreciate that not much can be done about this (apart from rotating camera view - a major work), but it is annoying. It would be nice to switch between 2D and 3D, however nasty the 2D version is.
There is a way to switch between 2D and 3D.

Also, I'd say this is half good. Pay attention to this. If you can't see it, neither can the player. When playing Babysitting, the dungeon entrance is a little hard to find because of the tall trees. If they're in the way (and you're actually creating a scenario, not just looking at one), take the problem tree out!

Quote:
Originally written by GIFTSare2happy:
So... you want to have to scroll a lot?
As opposed to tiny icons, yes wink
I have not noticed any vertical squish in the icons.
The 3D pictures are 46 pixels wide and 55 pixels tall. The way the small 3D pictures were displayed, they were 16 by 16. The picture has to be shrunk a little more vertically than horizontally to fit that. It is not very noticable, especially since they're so tiny.

I've changed the small 3D pictures' heights to be 19 pixels, a little bigger than before. I hope this helps... I don't have much of a problem with the tiny icons (which are tiny in 2D as well; do you have a problem with that too?). You can download the new version from the same place, which is now in my signature. (it also has a couple bugfixes)
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The awesomeness of this application cannot be expressed using words.

 

Yeah.

It's that awesome.

 

BUT like the little whiner I am I want to suggest a few more features.

 

- If you could figure out the whole tints thing, it would be incredibly useful.

 

- A mode of the 3D editor where the central point is the point of view and all things out of line of sight are blacked out would be awesome. Cave of No Return, for example, has two sets of tree terrains for the forest: trees that block sight and ones that don't. I can't distinguish between the two, which made it very difficult to get it right (which I didn't do) so seeing what the line of sight would be like would be very useful.

 

I don't have any more recommendations for features, and you're welcome to not add any at all. I'd still use your editor.

 

One more thing: THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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omfg I just soiled myself. You, sir, deserve a MEDAL.

 

I will play with this a great deal over the next few days, so any bugs I find I will send to you.

 

It would be lovely if you could get the various things that are not displayed (terrain scripts, etc) to display. I imagine a little box with 3-d versions of those graphics in the corner of the terrain that they're on, much like the 2-d version, but I have no idea how hard that would be to implement. If not, I'll just switch to 2-d. No big deal.

 

Seeing icon adjustment would be great, but this seems like it would be hard. Stating the obvious here, you could try asking Jeff about it, and if you show him this app he might pay attention, but then, he might not.

 

I may have just missed this, but is there a keyboard shortcut for switching between 2-d and 3-d? That'd be really nice, if it's not already there. Maybe TAB, if that's not already used for something.

 

And yeah, the toggling to see the line of sight thing would be really cool, too, if you could pull it off. I imagine you could hack together something out of the scenario script based on the different directions of sight that are blocked.

 

But even if you do nothing to this thing, I will use it regularly. Thank you!

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Quote:
Originally written by Eldiran:
The awesomeness of this application cannot be expressed using words.

Yeah.
It's that awesome.

BUT like the little whiner I am I want to suggest a few more features.

- If you could figure out the whole tints thing, it would be incredibly useful.

- A mode of the 3D editor where the central point is the point of view and all things out of line of sight are blacked out would be awesome. Cave of No Return, for example, has two sets of tree terrains for the forest: trees that block sight and ones that don't. I can't distinguish between the two, which made it very difficult to get it right (which I didn't do) so seeing what the line of sight would be like would be very useful.

I don't have any more recommendations for features, and you're welcome to not add any at all. I'd still use your editor.

One more thing: THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Both of those things should be possible, but I'm not going to think about them any time soon. I'm tired of working on this. The only significant feature I'm likely to add soon is the "tiny rectangles", although if someone could tell me what functions to use for the tints in Carbon, I could implement that. Hmmm... Maybe I'll email Jeff to ask about that. He would know exactly what the parameters were, if any.
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Quote:
Originally written by Vercalos:
Wow. This looks like quite an amazing piece of work, and certainly useful for checking how something would look in the game, and checking to make sure that everything that needs to be seen is seen.

BTW, if you want a good place to store images, check www.ripway.com
Not sure what they get out of it, but there's one thing I found that would make using that impossible for me:
Quote:
Note: Accounts that are inactive for over 30 days will be removed. Please log in at least once a month to keep your account active.
There's no way I could reliably remember to do that forever.
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Quote:
Originally written by Just Call Me Kel:
It would be lovely if you could get the various things that are not displayed (terrain scripts, etc) to display. I imagine a little box with 3-d versions of those graphics in the corner of the terrain that they're on, much like the 2-d version, but I have no idea how hard that would be to implement. If not, I'll just switch to 2-d. No big deal.
I am going to implement that tomorrow.

Quote:
Originally written by Just Call Me Kel:
I may have just missed this, but is there a keyboard shortcut for switching between 2-d and 3-d? That'd be really nice, if it's not already there. Maybe TAB, if that's not already used for something.
That reminds me, I was actually intending to implement that, with the exact same key, but I forgot about it. I'll do that too.
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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
Looks very cool.

Tinting is not done using system calls, but by bit by bit editing of the graphic data. It's a pain.

- Jeff Vogel
Hmmm... If you could post your tinting code, then, well, I'll probably implement it. If not, I doubt I will. After all, I don't even know how much each thing tints it, and I don't know how to do "bit by bit editing of the graphic data" (although I bet I could figure that part out).
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I have finished version 0.9b1, which includes the tiny rectangles in 3D, and Tab to switch between 2D and 3D, as well as some more bugfixes. Get it at the same place. Unless I get the tinting code or more bug reports soon, I will release this as version 1.0.

 

Jeff (or anybody else who would know), what should I do with it when it becomes version 1.0, to make it available to everyone?

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Quote:
Originally written by Shining Lightbulb:
If you want to make it available to "everyone", find a PC and port it. smile
Does the program work on windows? Or is it just the picture formats?

If it's just the picture formats, I might be able to help there. 3D version would be so much easier when it comes to designing landscape, especially when certain people say my landscape is appalling. (It probably i, too)
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Quote:
Originally written by Dahak:
Is there a way to ditch the grid lines. They are very annoying (2D or 3D).
No. I found that without them I couldn't tell where the spaces were. Although it would be possible to modify the code to remove them, there isn't room for more buttons to do all these suggested features. If I decided I wanted to work on this program some more, though, I could add another row of buttons.
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The sooner this thing goes into feature-lock, the sooner Isaac can release a bug-free v1.0.

 

Which means (hopefully), the sooner someone can port it to Win32, and the sooner I can put it to use for my own evil... erm... creative purposes.

 

So obviously, I'm strongly opposed to adding more features. laugh

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Quote:
Originally written by Daravon:
I downloaded but it won't start. It says that it is "either damaged or doesn't work with this type of computer" to which I was like: "Huh?" I have Mac OS 9.2.2
I assume the standard BoA Editor works for you? Possibly the download was corrupted, and you should try downloading it again?
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For the record, I can't reproduce this, but I have noticed that the dark tiles outside the town's borders sometimes conform to what's on the edge of the town and sometimes don't (and if they don't, they just stay black). Sometimes I will see grass outside town and sometimes I won't -- and because BoA actually does this in the game, I think it may be an accurate representation of what the town will look like when you enter it.

 

I have no idea if this is related to what you're talking about, though.

 

Isaac, have you gotten any sort of response about hosting? I have a bunch of open web space, so if you need someone else to host it, I can do it.

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Quote:
Originally written by Isaac:
Quote:
Originally written by Dahak:
Is there a way to ditch the grid lines. They are very annoying (2D or 3D).
No. I found that without them I couldn't tell where the spaces were. Although it would be possible to modify the code to remove them, there isn't room for more buttons to do all these suggested features. If I decided I wanted to work on this program some more, though, I could add another row of buttons.
Instead of another 'row' of buttons, you could assign an function key (F1, F2, etc.. or Alt + F1, Alt + F2, etc...)

Just mention it in the readme file laugh

James
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Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
I'm guessing this is a height problem. What height is your in-town area set at, and what does the other side of the town (at the west exit) look like?

EDIT: Or, more pressingly, does it NOT look like this when you play it in the game itself?
It does NOT look like this in the game. In the game it looks normal, and the height is the same all around.

A brand new town does the same thing. I put 1 cave floor on the border and I have a floor line streching inward over whatever the terrain is.

I've never had this probem with Medium and Small Towns.

Note: As a test, I created a new blank large town, and the problem exists still.

Another bug: Imports of large towns become corrupted. This problem exists in Spiderweb's Editor and Issac's, so I will e-mail Jeff about the problem.

EDIT:
Never mind about the corruption. I just had to open the scenatio I import from and save the scenario while each large town was loaded in memory. I don't know only the import would corrupt, but it isn't the editor's fault.
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Quote:
Originally written by Dahak:
Bug:

If you create a large (64x64) town and do not have pit or solid stone at the border then the terrain will strectch inward and cover up what ever terrain you have placed.

I'm sorry, but it is a little hard to explain.
I have reproduced this and will fix it in the next version.
Also it doesn't work for small towns correctly (not displayed on south or east). This may have been related to what Kelandon was saying (there are also times when it should not be displayed, because the game doesn't; in particular, when the town border is at the edge of the town). Apparently it draws it where it should for a 48x48 town all the time.

Quote:
Originally written by Overwhelming:
Isaac: Added your site to my site's links page. Hope you don't mind. laugh
Not at all. smile

Quote:
Originally written by Dahak:
The editor does not show floors that have been adjusted using fl_floor_height_pixels
You misunderstand the effect (maybe). From the BoA Editor Docs: "The number of pixels up graphics and creatures drawn on this space are shifted." The floor itself isn't affected (I assume). Actually, I didn't realize such a thing existed, so I'll have to test in the game and fix the 3D Editor anyway.

Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
Isaac, have you gotten any sort of response about hosting? I have a bunch of open web space, so if you need someone else to host it, I can do it.
No response to my email yet, but I don't really have a problem with web space yet. Although when it's finished, I wouldn't mind you doing that: if my site becomes unavailable for any reason, I don't want that to take away the availability of the 3D Editor.

I just realized, I can use the zoom in/out button when in 3D because it currently doesn't do anything then. I could change the button's picture if necessary, which would be much easier than making a new row of buttons.
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Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
There is one more empty button, right between force barrier and clear space. (Only in town mode, though.)
Yes, but that's the problem: only in town mode. Almost anything I would want to do with 3D mode should work indoor and outdoor.

Version 0.9b2 is available. It fixes the large town problem and accounts for fl_floor_height_pixels. Also, my web page has been improved.
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