Hi,
after many interesting announcements at GDC, now a 3D Gamestudio related one: the new totally refreshed MapBuilder editor is ready! Of course, with complete source code to allow users to customize it.
Nearly every part of the source code has been rewritten, and reorganized into editor and runtime (in-game) modules. It results in much faster game compilation when including MapBuilder's source (see the two little examples in the root folder), and lower memory consumption, The editor also become much more easily customizable, you can remove unnecessary parts, or replace them with your own solutions, or add new features based on the existing ones. It has a positive effect on stability too.
Of course, beside many important bug-fixes, a little package of new features arrived:
- now you can start with an empty map, and add or delete ground and water terrain any time (the new grid helps in empty space);
- quitting from the editor mode returns to the startup menu, thus you can change some graphics settings and test your levels in a more flexible way;
- automatic terrain multitexturing, based on some height and slope parameters;
- optional terrain shader supporting dynamic shadows close to camera, and fading smoothly to static lightmap over distance (when shadow_stencil is -1, i.e. exponential shadowmapping is used, thus no need for pssm);
- a new entity category called "building models", which has nearly similar properties to map-entities, but it is the preferred one, because models are rendered much faster;
- obstacles are now for smaller objects, mainly for vegetation (the sample assets have been reorganized accordingly);
- corrected model preview, which can be rotated, and aligned to surface in more different ways (now the placed entity will be exactly there, with the same rotation or alignment);
- easier entity modification (ctrl + left mouse), similar entities in the level can inherit modified properties (or delete all similar ones);
- entity cloning (shift + left mouse), making modular level design really fast;
- even tile size for entities, useful when having collision determined by x-y tile size;
- pro edition features, like terrain lod and particle instancing, are supported now;
- slightly reorganized main menu and shortcuts.
Download latest version from
GitHub Enjoy, and please donate!
p.s. The documentation is not updated yet!