Level editor feature wishlist

[Shrinker]

Hey guys.

Some of you maybe know my little level editor. I intend to continue the series later, after I graduated.

I'd be interested to hear from you what features a good editor should have, so I can make sure that I account for them in my concepts.

[Ich 666]

BACKGROUND IMAGE

[Nutomic]

Uhm, texture editor?

I mean, like being able to assign textures to faces and see them?

You should make a team and turn this into a real alternative for hammer.

[Shrinker]

I'm already cooperating with coder0xff.

[city14]

Uh, how about a circular grid?

I honestly can't think of what I would want right now... Dynamic lighting would be nice, or perhaps a cool alpha blending technique with unlimited texture support...

[MáØ]

Dynamic lighting would be nice, or perhaps a cool alpha blending technique with unlimited texture support...

LEVEL editor wishlist, not engine.

I would like to see you incorporate VBCT or something, and the biggest thing (if you haven't done it yet, haven't checked out MB in awhile.) is adding entity support. Just make us a whole new hammer thanks

[city14]

Uh, Dynamic lighting within a level editor is a feature...

Alpha blending, I guess not as much... However, he didn't specify it was a replacement for hammer, it could be for his engine.

[Shrinker]

Making it fully-fledged to support or supersede as much of Hammer's capabilities as possible should be my goal.

[Saxon]

How about optional XYZ viewports? Thats one thing I found slightly awkward for your previous iteration (especially when trying to make precise shapes)

[peegee]

Step1:
An interactive scheme viewer for relations, triggers, input and output between the nodes.
Step2:
Editable interactive scheme viewer
Step3:
Editable interactive scheme viewer during runtime

[Shrinker]

Saxon: Yeah, multiple and especially orthogonal viewports are planned.
peegee: Nah. :P For that, I'd deem it much more useful to create a little description language that is interpreted by a program, which then outputs a VMF.

[zombie@computer]

Saxon: Yeah, multiple and especially orthogonal viewports are planned.
peegee: Nah. For that, I'd deem it much more useful to create a little description language that is interpreted by a program, which then outputs a VMF.

ask coder about the interactive scheme entity i/o stuff, hes already got something basically finished to go.

Allthough i dont map anymore, i can tell you what i missed most in hammer
1) background images: the sky in 3d view projected over the skybox textures, a customizable (and scalable) image in orthogonal view.

2) Pluginability. Or atleast the ability to execute certain functions using WM_ messages and commands.
eg through WM_COPYDATA.

3) automatic info_node placement (shift-click surface or something, surface fills up with some nodes, esp around corners and static props.

4) 2d and 3d rulers.

5) importing heightmaps.

also, things i dont think you have implemented yet (and if you have, ignore them )
1) visgroups (hiding parts of the map for visibility)
2) ability to view and import portalfiles and leakfiles
3) steam interaction (importing and browsing models, textures, sounds, reading gameinfo's and fdgs)
4) preview of resources mentioned at 3.
5) compile menu.
6) prefabs or other ways of instantiation (sp?)

all of which are pretty easy once you have the time to start on them. Again, for (3), ask coder.

[Shrinker]

I do not intend to access the Steam file system directly, so Steam interaction will not become a noteworthy thing for this editor.

All tools will be plugins written in a certain language and compiled to a certain bytecode. You will be able to make new tools and share them with your friends and even replace or remove the standard tools that come with it.

[Carbon14]

better displacement tools, displacements could be so powerful but in hammer they are shit. A system whereby they were treated like patches and could be moved and/or altered any way you see fit, stitched together and stayed stitched etc. Editing the texture coords so that you have a uv map like option to choose how the texture is placed on the displacement etc!

[skoften]

God, I so wishes this project success. Ill come up with a huge list soon.