[Alpha 0.606] FA Forever Map Editor

[ozonex]

v0.500
- Rewriten Scenario and Save lua files loading and saving
- Editor now will correctly load and save everything from scenario.lua and save.lua
- Rewritten markers tools and rendering
- Rewritten selection and transformation tool (now allow to move only in X or Z axis)
- Rewritten object creation tool
- Cleanup in source code
- Support for Camera Markers (with option to display how it will look)
- Support for all properties of any marker
- Marker presets (press R to rotate)
- Display connected markers for Path markers
- Optimized rendering of props (using new rendering method: Instancing) with basic LOD system
- Changed rendering settings to to get better and faster shadows
- Optimization of all editor graphics
- Optimization of game code to use less CPU
- Some small fixes in Props painting
- Added "Snap to grid" option for props (useful for buildings)
- Added per prop random rotation range
- Minimum display brush size to see it when it's size is set to 0
- Resource browser will now not reload assets when opening same page again

This is next big step to finish this project. Rewritten half of editor code, to add support for decals and units. But remember that this is still Alpha and after that many changes some old features may be broken and editor needs testing. I will still work on fixing all bugs and add support for marker chains and adaptive maps creation.

Known issues:
- Editor will lost "PlatoonBuilders" from save.lua
- Still working on good name generation script
- Map area display is now broken, but editor loads every area from save.lua
- Army swapping tool is broken






http://ozonex.pl/fafmapeditor/fafmapeditor_alpha_v0500.zip

- Somehow the editor requires more of my cpu than playing faf itself. It makes my laptop heat up like a motherfucker. Even more so then when i'm playing battlefield.
- I kinda missed the lack of being able to just hold ctrl z and undo a whole lot of orders like in the SC editor. You have to manually press it every single time.
- I can only undo 5 orders now and that's nowhere near enough (for me).
- It's probably better to have similar hotkeys as the SC editor (from a users perspective).

Aside from that it looks a lot smoother than the SC editor from what i've seen. Couldn't take a long look at it because.. well... it overheated my laptop so much in 10min that i smelled something burning xD

Also, i'm still secretly waiting for the day i will be able to copy paste mountains :3

Latest build optimized CPU and GPU usage, try it.

In edit/preferences you can change maximum undo history size. Default size was 5, but I changed it to 50 now.

It's hard to copy mountains, because they are not an object that you can select. But you can load heightmap to photoshop, create brush from that mountain and put it in "FAForeverMapEditor_Data/Structure/brush/" folder. Then you will be able to paint with brush that looks like that mountain.
But maybe in future I will add "Clone stap brush" where you will select place on heightmap and when painting it will change that area to looks like selected part.

[ozonex]

v0.501
- Added chains tool (Markers/Chains)
- Better name generation script
- Editor will now display the biggest area
- Saving of lua files should be now faster
- Changed algorithm that finds render distance for props
- Props render distance has been reduced to lower GPU usage
- More cleanup in sourcecode
- Redo command will no longer leak memory

Another build after long day of work. Editor is now more stable and runs faster. Also there is new tool for creating, removing or modifying chains. New object naming script will now find the lowest number that can be in object name. For example when we have "Mass 0" and "Mass 3" next markers names will be: "Mass 1", "Mass 2" and then "Mass 4".

Will be awesome if someone will find some time to test it. I'm trying to test everything but I also have lot of work on the editor.






Download
http://ozonex.pl/fafmapeditor/fafmapeditor_alpha_v0501.zip

[ozonex]

v0.502
- New marker graphics (Rally point, Navy rally point, Camera, combat zone, defence zone, path node)
- Function to create camera marker from current view
- Fixed bug in name generation script
- Chain creation and editing is changed and more similar to original map editor
- Creating markers when chain is selected will add them to the chain
- Selected chain is displayed in scene view by yellow line connecting markers in chain
- Focus function (press F, or double click on objects list or double click object in scene view)
- Markers are now sorted by type and then by name
- Fixed some small bugs

Thanks to Speed2 chain tools has been changed. They should be easier and intuitive to use.






Download
http://ozonex.pl/fafmapeditor/fafmapeditor_alpha_v0502.zip

[Sprouto]

I believe that this project is one of the most important contributions to the Supreme Commander community in many years. I'll back that statement up with a donation to a worthy effort.

Having used the existing editor for years, with all it's faults, it nice to see that there's a good chance we'll finally have a stable, effective tool. It's my hope this will unleash a flood of new maps from many sources and make editing of the existing maps not such a painful and tedious adventure.

I do have some questions -- and I know you're still working hard on this. Marker editing and linking.

I use the HazardX marker editor extensively to work with the movement markers, specifically for the LOUD project. Will the marker editing have the same ability to easily link, and maintain links, between markers -- and have the ability to easily visualize those links -- in a fashion similar to the HazardX Marker Editor?

Hazards' editor is easy to use, but has limitations -- no support for more than 8 armies (without editing scenario files directly), and the editor just uses a grey-scale overview of the map, which makes it difficult to tell if you are linking movement nodes over what could be impassable terrain.

[ozonex]

I do have some questions -- and I know you're still working hard on this. Marker editing and linking.

I use the HazardX marker editor extensively to work with the movement markers, specifically for the LOUD project. Will the marker editing have the same ability to easily link, and maintain links, between markers -- and have the ability to easily visualize those links -- in a fashion similar to the HazardX Marker Editor?

Hazards' editor is easy to use, but has limitations -- no support for more than 8 armies (without editing scenario files directly), and the editor just uses a grey-scale overview of the map, which makes it difficult to tell if you are linking movement nodes over what could be impassable terrain.

Thank you!

Yes, there will be support for path nodes. As you can see in previous posts is new marker graphic for path node and also I loaded and displayed connections between nodes. I want to make good tools for that in near future (possible this week). Right now core marker tool is ready and I can work on next tools and features.

I will work now on tools for armies, areas, path nodes and settings for adaptive maps. When this will be ready and well tested then I will work on last basic features: units and decals. With all that done editor will be released as beta.

[nine2]

You are making a new graphic rendering system for FA. You could make your own replay viewer. You could support many things like:
- Rewind
- Foresight (highlighting a unit that is going to do something cool)
- Trails (showing lines of where units have come from)

In a past life I made a mod that you use while watching a replay. It dumps the entire gamestate at each moment out to a text file. Then I could read it in to my own application which rendered it and had rewind. However I only supported strategic icons and maps. You have units etc. You could do bullets.

Then you can even make automated casting bot that analyzes a game and focus's on the most interesting bit, moves camera angles. The most interesting bit is something that changes a metric: eg: mass per second decreases, number of units decreases, etc. Then you could process 10 replays a night and order the by interestingness, autocast the most interesting one.

Oh and make a dynamic soundtrack that gets more and more exciting based on what is about to happen. So the music cuts out just before the strat bombs land.

Obviously this is pie in the sky.

I may have spend a few weeks thinking about this.

Too hard!

[ozonex]

You are making a new graphic rendering system for FA. You could make your own replay viewer.

Man, there is long way between rendering some graphic and playing replay from fa replay file. There need to be whole gameplay to make it happend, and I only render some graphic assets. So what you want needs rewriting whole game. I don't believe its possible.

[ozonex]

v0.503
- New armies tool (add teams, add armies, rename, drag&drop, extra armies)
- Rewritten how armies works in editor
- Blank marker will auto change graphic to spawn when its name is the same as any army
- Some new marker models and icons
- Lag when painting Heightmap has been greatly reduced
- Some changes in UI to make it render faster
- Fixed small bugs

Next thing I will be working now is new map areas tool and I will fix old feature, that allow to swap spawn points. Then I will work on tool that will allow to connect path nodes.



Download
http://ozonex.pl/fafmapeditor/fafmapeditor_alpha_v0503.zip

[nine2]

You are making a new graphic rendering system for FA. You could make your own replay viewer.

Man, there is long way between rendering some graphic and playing replay from fa replay file. There need to be whole gameplay to make it happend, and I only render some graphic assets. So what you want needs rewriting whole game. I don't believe its possible.

Nah dude read what i said again. I wrote a mod that uses the real FA to watch a replay and the mod dumped out the location of every unit and projectile at every frame - to a rather insanely big text file. Your rendering engine could load the text file (not the replay) and just show the right things at the right time (ie: draw bullet X and position Y at time Z). Now you can watch (preprocessed) replays in your own app. You do not have to build the game engine or gameplay, or rewrite the whole game.

It is possible and I have done it - just not with your quality graphics. I don't think i got around to doing projectiles... just unit positions maybe.

[Brutus5000]

This is some impressive work.
The screenshots look nicer than FA itself.

I have two minor suggestions:
- Please add a license file to your project.
- Have you considered using release tags in github and upload the binaries to the releases?