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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: Dan Silverman]
#254209
03/01/09 18:37
03/01/09 18:37
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 3,232 Australia
EvilSOB
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 3,232
Australia
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Instead of the old error message "Bad manipulation. Map doesnt allow concave blocks. [Cancel][Ignore]" how about we get a message like "Bad manipulation. Convert Block to Mesh? [Cancel][Accept]" That would be much more useful. Since WED does not convert CSG geometry in to meshes, then this error message would not work because WED could not give you the choice to do that. This is the nature of CSG ... a different animal than a mesh (polygonal, quadratic or otherwise). I know its a different animal, BUT, since an FBX file is an even different animal, and WED can import them, surely it wouldnt be to hard for WED to "pretend" to import the block and convert 'just that one' block into a mesh object. The compiler does it, so why cant WED do it on a smaller scale...
"There is no fate but what WE make." - CEO Cyberdyne Systems Corp. A8.30.5 Commercial
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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: FBL]
#254246
03/01/09 22:52
03/01/09 22:52
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 11,321 Virginia, USA
Dan Silverman
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 11,321
Virginia, USA
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I agree, Firoball. I think that WED and MED need to be ditched in favor of one unified editor for creating polygonal environments and other polygonal meshes. Or Conitec could create a decent modeler (or require the end-user to use another modeler) and have a decent, real-time editor for putting it all together (possibly like the one they are in the process of creating now). However, my point here was not to say that WED should not change, but to point out the fundamental differences between WED blocks and polygonal meshes. If Ness understood the differences then perhaps his request would be different. For example, instead of asking for an extrude function for CSG geometry in WED, he might ask for WED to dump CSG all together in favor of a more modern way of creating game environments such as using standard meshes. I thought this worked before, but I might remember wrong. I don't remember, frankly. Didn't it used to take a block with a concave surface and break it up in order to make several non-concave blocks? And if WED can handle meshes, why not consider blocks as meshes? Because that would be quite a fundamental change for WED. WED is what it is: a CSG tool. They would have to rewrite WED to do more than import meshes, but to create them and edit them. If you remember, Conitec had wanted to merge MED and WED many years back, but that ball got dropped like a hot potato. So it must not be so easy for Conitec to do this.
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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: Dan Silverman]
#254267
03/02/09 07:23
03/02/09 07:23
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,986 Frankfurt
jcl
Chief Engineer
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Chief Engineer
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,986
Frankfurt
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I've never heard that WED had problems with concave blocks. 90% of all levels contain partially or mostly concave blocks, so I don't think that there can be a problem.
Still, you have to keep some things in mind:
- Concave blocks can't be used for building the BSP tree by the compiler. So when your level consists of only concave blocks, the BSP tree consists of only one huge leaf.
- When you manipulate blocks to make them concave, switch the map to "concave" in Map Properties to suppress the warning, and also lock their texture and set the block's "Concave" flag. This is not necessary for imported blocks because their concave flag is automatically detected and their texture automatically locked.
- Make sure that when using vertex manipulation on concave blocks, no surface is bent or broken. Otherwise, WED won't complain, but the blocks will look wrong.
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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: FBL]
#254499
03/03/09 19:06
03/03/09 19:06
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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 353
amy
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 353
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I also donīt see a future in WED and MED. All the quake legacies... argh! Itīs 2009! Going through Gamestudioīs content pipeline and map compiler is a constant painful fight. <edit> some annoyances I ran across recently: - the fbx importers have no custom scale options (which would be important because there arenīt any serious 3D-software packages which use quants and a power of two grid)
- the WED and MED fbx importers seem to scale differently
- the fbx importers have many problems with triangulating n-gons
- mouse picking is horribly broken in WED
- the map compiler is slow and crash prone
- texture filenames are limited to 16 characters
- the fbx level importer still seems to create alpha channels by mistake even if this is supposed to be fixed
I could go on and on... By the way, I really dislike quants and the power of two grid. Itīs not intuitive. Get rid of it. There is no need for it anymore. CPUs have fast floating point units nowadays. </edit> On the bright side... Blender 2.5 (which will be released later this year) will have a very customizable user interface which will make it possible to turn Blender into an easy to use level editor. Conitec would just have to open up the WMB format and then someone could write an exporter to WMB.
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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: vertex]
#254522
03/03/09 20:30
03/03/09 20:30
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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 353
amy
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 353
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I am not complaining about the engine but more about the tools. In my opinion the engine is quite nice and there isnīt that much missing compared to the competition. But the tools arenīt user friendly and very outdated. Conitec should start doing some dogfooding. Hire an artist who gives direct feedback or something. For inspiration Conitec should take a look into the Unity demo once it is out in a few weeks.
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Re: "Extrude" Function in WED + Moving Camera in 3d mode improve
[Re: FBL]
#255220
03/08/09 21:29
03/08/09 21:29
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 9,859
FBL
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 9,859
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For testing I used a pyramid and moved a single vertex closer to the center, in order to get a concave object. But most likely I forgot to set the concave flag for the block itself. I only switched that in Map Properties.
I'll try again soon. I confirm that I forgot to set the flag for the concave block. It's working just alright.
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