Since the work in progress board is mostly DBP stuff now and I'm really only looking for feedback on my map editor, I thought I should post this in the DBC thread if thats OK?
It's the map editor for an RTS game i've been working on off and on for awhile and I want to know what everyone thinks. so here are some screenshots.
Editor Features:
User can create maps of any size with up to 50 tiles in each direction and edit the landscape in a nice, user freindly GUI.
There are various tools for landscape editing including smoothing, flattening,texturing, etc. (Texture maps are 512x512 and have 16 different tiles each 128x128 the user can otionally add their own textures to the programs texture subfolder and use them in their maps).
Update: I've now decided to adopt the texture method TDK uses in his MatEdit program so that when designing maps, a texture is automatically generated that uses only the tiles the user selects for use in the map. This keeps the texture bitmap size down for maps that use only a few tiles and also gives more freedom of choice when choosing how to texture a map.
User can place unit models in the programs subfolders for the editor along with a data file with information on the units stats and add that unit into their custom maps along with any units that are in the campaign. If they wish for the new unit to be constructed at certain buildings they only have to add the units name to the list included with each buildings model in the buildings subfolder. Other units include structures, natural features, special shading devices etc...
Note: I'm now going to redo my unit placement routines to load the data for the units as you place them so you can click the test map option and execute the main program executable and test your map without having to save it and then run the game and go to scenario > play map > the map you want to play
Map is exported with all the data for the pathfinding systems so the user optionally use block objects to block off extra squares on the map they dont want the units to walk through. Squares below water level are automatically unwalkable.
Terrain heightmaps are exported as shaded bitmaps so the user can otionally edit their landscape from a grayscale heightmap.
A trigger system to be added later that allows the user to set events to occur based on conditions in the game.
only about 85% of this stuff is done completely
Credits:
To Underware Design @
www.underwaredesign.com
for the matrix selection routine by Kevin Picone. (Used with permission)
And to Phaelax for his tutorial that used a scaled 3d object as a selection square. (Saved a few FPS in the actual game)
The normalizing routine is from TDK's golfcourse entry in the DBC challenge thread Which i think came from the DB tutorials and is actually by lee bamber. If im wrong please correct me, im a bit confused on where it came from. I'm not using the same one in the completed version.
The snowman model came with the DB boxed version and the grass and water textures are just placeholder textures and from freeware sources.
Here are some Pics:
