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MapBuilder 2
#418028
02/20/13 13:31
02/20/13 13:31
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
OP
Expert
MapBuilder 2
MapBuilder Editor has arrived to a new stage. Beside keeping it a lightweight editor, a lot of new features are packed into it, extending the old system with support of 3D Game Studio A8 Commercial/pro edition (object shaders, decals, pssm shadows, shade-c 0.91 water shader and shadowmapping, post processing shaders). This way Free and Extra users can experience with the possibilities of Commercial edition, or can choose to limit options to the basic engine functionalities, to utilize only compatible features during level design time. MapBuilder now offers static lightmapping for all the engine editions, and a completely new, vegetation and texture package, to achieve both quality and performance, optimized for 3D Game Studio A8. Level testing also features some weather effects now, to see at design time how performance changes in case of many snow or rain particles. At the download page you can find the version history mentioning all the important improvements done on each update, just shortly: - From version 2.2 MapBuilder is open source, and features improved pssm shadows, shade-c based shadowmapping and water shaders, new shadow and water editors. - Update 2.21 provided some wmb saving/loading improvements. - In version 2.3 the source code is completely reorganized, the terrain editor is reworked, entity modification is more flexible, it has much better entity seeding options, offers two camera modes. - Update 2.32 includes two example projects using the editor source directly covering various ways of level loading, and a 4 level mini shooter game with our favourite wizards. - Version 2.4 features improved shadowmapping, rewritten shader package, improved water, more flexible lightmap usage, fixed nexus and memory handling. To download the latest version visit MapBuilder homepage. Or: MB 2.40 (160 MB) https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlnuxz5k7opj97j/MapBuilder240.zip?dl=0MB 2.41 patch (1 MB) https://www.dropbox.com/s/rge9fmoddmbhngs/MapBuilder241_patch.zip?dl=0
Last edited by sivan; 01/08/15 15:55.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#429433
09/12/13 11:47
09/12/13 11:47
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
sivan
OP
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
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Hi agan! MapBuilder 2.21 update is ready, please visit the download page: http://mapbuilder.zxq.net/download.htmlAs you can read there in the version history, new features are: - Rewritten exporter for wmb compilation. - Rewritten wmb importer. A wmb info file is used now for identifyíing which shadow mode is used by the exported wmb file - it can be selected to be used when loading a wmb level for better compatibility. - No terrain is required any more when importing a wmb level from WED. - Some material handling and entity modification issues are fixed. - Updated 1 skin terrain shaders to have similar look as without shader. - New example levels, and a new map. - Rewritten sky settings file loader, that can handle files in older format. Old sky files are replaced by new ones. - Managed engine issue when PSSM is used without blur, together with the new terrain shaders. - Source code included again. And last but not least, many thanks for the feedback! PS: there are still some engine related limitations I could not solve, namely after loading a level with pssm or shade-c shadowmapping, a level with decal shadows may be loaded with some missing decal shadows. so basically, use wmb only for final versions to be used in your game, where probably you will not switch between shadow modes.
Last edited by sivan; 09/12/13 11:55. Reason: PS.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#429654
09/16/13 09:07
09/16/13 09:07
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Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 158
Feindbild
Member
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Member
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 158
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A working WED alternative? Oh man, you got me hooked. Downloading and trying right now!
Edit: first feedback after testing for ~30 seconds:
- Needs a windowed mode (or am I missing something?) to feel more like a program and less like a game
- Camera controls (and some other controls too) are slow and unintuitive. Why no movement with WASD? Why can't I move the cam by holding down a mouse button?
I need to play around with this more, but it has great potential!
Last edited by Feindbild; 09/16/13 09:20.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: Feindbild]
#429665
09/16/13 11:49
09/16/13 11:49
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
sivan
OP
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
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thanks! it's not a complete replacement of WED, it has a lot of missing features, while having many others. you can switch to windowed mode from the startup menu, select window mode 2. there you also have to select a resolution smaller than your desktop resolution. in the other case it will run as fullscreen. the camera is a rts camera I need in my game, but you are not the first requesting it, so probably I'll add another camera type soon. by the way, wasd is used in the test mode for character control. ps. and please don't forget to vote for it in the AUM contest 
Last edited by sivan; 09/16/13 11:56.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#432676
11/11/13 11:24
11/11/13 11:24
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
sivan
OP
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
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News: I decided to have a slight delay, instead of a minor update containing only modified shadowmappings, I started code reorganization, do more testing, and bugfixing. For example, I faced several bugs in bitmap handling of the terrain texture editor and lightmapper, that required several days to eliminate. Another problem is that the older parts of the code are a bit badly organized, so they need also significant time to rework. The UI input handling also has some instabilities currently, to be checked in the following days. As future plans, a new GUI, and an additional camera system also would be fine, I know... The documentation is another very incomplete thing. All of these not shiny jobs are very important for further development, and also for those users who want to work with the source code to customize MapBuilder due to their own needs. So next time you can expect only a few new features (exponential shadowmapping for both shade-c shadowmapping, and pssm), but you will get a more cleaner code, and better stability. Morevover, I'm planning to make some new example levels to be handled as tutorials how to make a full scene step by step in MapBuilder, and how to compile it into wmb, to have a game ready product. Until new WED arrives Thanks for reading.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#434061
12/11/13 15:07
12/11/13 15:07
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
sivan
OP
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
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be prepared! MapBuilder 2.3 just stepped in final test phase!
I think increasing of the above mentioned slight delay to one month long has been a very good decision. I made a full code reorganization (which should be continued even further ideally...) that helped debugging of a lot of minor issues, and made easier adding new features.
shortly, the following features have been improved/modified:
- exponential shadowmapping,
- shade-c shaders converted to SM3,
- reworked entity shadow settings,
- flexible entity selection/modification after placement,
- corrections in terrain height/texture/lightmap editor,
- better player test mode,
- 2 selectable camera modes,
- removed RTS game specific settings resulting in faster loading,
- customizable GUI panel positions,
- auto setting grass normals,
- new shortcut buttons,
- safer map loading,
- safer $$m file saving (required by wmb compilation)
- some Pro edition only features,
- made ready for near future engine update bugfixes/improvements.
it will be surely out before Chrismas. I think I covered all the areas what I wanted to do, and nearly all what you asked before.
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#434503
12/19/13 19:26
12/19/13 19:26
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
sivan
OP
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,150
Budapest
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as promised, MapBuilder 2.3 is out! you can download it from: http://mapbuilder.zxq.net/download.htmlbeside the above mentioned new features, the nearly full code revision results in quicker and safer usage, and now the densly commented reorganized source code is really suitable for customization. for details please read the version history just under the download link. I started to work on the in-game script package which is an extract of the editor source code includable in your games or applications. hopefully it is out in January with some simple example projects. you can help my work with free assets (character and building models, textures, game scripts). thanks for using MapBuilder, and merry XMas!
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Re: MapBuilder 2
[Re: sivan]
#434522
12/20/13 10:08
12/20/13 10:08
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 1,225
germany
gri
Serious User
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Serious User
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 1,225
germany
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horay  Besides betatesing and christmaspreparations you've made a new Mapbuilderversion. Thank you, Maybe my very old graphic Adapter (GeForce 6600) here at the company is to crappy. Here I get an Error. E2000 DirectXError:TXTARG Try it later when I get home.
Last edited by gri; 12/20/13 10:32.
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