[engine] Idea to do the map editor more complete.

[IPS]

The map editor should be a lot more funny if you could for an example put some starting villages are owned by red and others for blue (o for a side ony) and making maps more interesting/challenging.

This idea is useful to do unbalanced maps like 2vs1 and 1vs1 with unadventage or what thing you wish.

Maybe add too a portal to teleport to a [x,y] square to other [x,y] square. You in the map editor you should be able to mark the positions of the point B (can be other portal or an normal square).

And maybe the option to add "chests" with X count of gold for the first side's unit reach the chest, this adition makes more competence between the players. Must be nice too to write labbels in the map editor, that must do more artistic the map with many mountains with names and to made village's name like the random name generator of the random maps.

This things must do more interesting the map editor, and more people will try to use it for own creations without WML.

[artisticdude]

Both of these ideas are achievable through some relatively simple WML. There's no need to have a function in the map editor that already exists in WML , it would be a lot of work for no real purpose.

[Ken_Oh]

Making the "map editor" edit anything other than maps is an FPI. It's not on the FPI list, but it needs to be.

[fabi]

I am currently working on the improvement of the map editor.

I want to implement some of the features that have been mentioned here but not all.

First, it will be very hard to implement a full campaign designer that does abstract
the content designer from all wml coding.
So there is no chance for getting support for any of the pure action wml tags, at
least I will not implement it.

What is already working to some degree:
1. Placement of labels in the map editor. This will work without further knowledge about wml.
2. You can define a named area that can be used in a standard location filter when coding wml.
This is the key feature, in theory every other of the new map editor features can be reduced to this one.
But it's not doing anything without wml code that used the named area.
3. Units can be placed in the map editor now.

What is planned:
4. Support for setting overlay images ([item]) in the map editor.
5. Sound source management.
6. Setting a path/route for units to do cut scenes for example.

I think about the following features:
7. Enable fog of war to give the map designer a better feeling about how the start situation looks ingame.
(That does only make sense if units are predefined).
8. A very basic [side] config tool.
9. Village ownership management.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Does the map editor really need to be any more funny?
see first line of original post

[Hulavuta]

I am currently working on the improvement of the map editor.

I want to implement some of the features that have been mentioned here but not all.

First, it will be very hard to implement a full campaign designer that does abstract
the content designer from all wml coding.
So there is no chance for getting support for any of the pure action wml tags, at
least I will not implement it.

What is already working to some degree:
1. Placement of labels in the map editor. This will work without further knowledge about wml.
2. You can define a named area that can be used in a standard location filter when coding wml.
This is the key feature, in theory every other of the new map editor features can be reduced to this one.
But it's not doing anything without wml code that used the named area.
3. Units can be placed in the map editor now.

What is planned:
4. Support for setting overlay images ([item]) in the map editor.
5. Sound source management.
6. Setting a path/route for units to do cut scenes for example.

I think about the following features:
7. Enable fog of war to give the map designer a better feeling about how the start situation looks ingame.
(That does only make sense if units are predefined).
8. A very basic [side] config tool.
9. Village ownership management.

This is good, but it's starting to sound a lot like The StarCraft Campaign editor. While this isn't a bad thing, it kinda just sounds like something that should be in an updated CampGen, rather than a map editor.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Is there a way I can get a "development version" of the map editor with those features that are "working to some degree" ?

[fabi]

Is there a way I can get a "development version" of the map editor with those features that are "working to some degree" ?

Yes there is.
You need to checkout the editor branch in Wesnoth's svn repository and compile it.

[Rya]

The only thing the map editor really needs is an integrated mirroring tool.

[YankeeSamurai]

Yes, I think it would be very convenient if users could decide village ownership, place units, etc. via the map editor. It can get very tedious inserting the WML coding manually, and most new users have no idea how to at all.

-YankeeSamurai

[Captain_Wrathbow]

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29130

[Mabuse]

What is planned:
4. Support for setting overlay images ([item]) in the map editor.
5. Sound source management.

these things would be extremely nice.

it is really annoying to place tons of (landscape) items in WML, then complie all the code, check every items how it looks ingame, note the coordinates of the items which doesnt look good, and repeat this a hundred times.

[fabi]

What is planned:
4. Support for setting overlay images ([item]) in the map editor.
5. Sound source management.

these things would be extremely nice.

it is really annoying to place tons of (landscape) items in WML, then complie all the code, check every items how it looks ingame, note the coordinates of the items which doesnt look good, and repeat this a hundred times.

That is exactly the reason why I started implementing the new editor features.
Unfortunately I had to discover that placing [item]s is not that easy to code in a good way.
The best place for that would probably a extra section in the terrain palette but that only supports terrains right now.

I am still searching for an easy way to integrate the items feature that doesn't look to awkward.

[Unnheulu]

Whilst I think its a good idea, I can't stop myself wondering if this would incrase the quantity of campaigns, and perhaps reduce the quality somewhat?

Anyways, I probably wouldn't use some of the features, but then for some really strange reason i like placing them myself, personal preference. Keep it up Fabi!

[Max]

Whilst I think its a good idea, I can't stop myself wondering if this would incrase the quantity of campaigns, and perhaps reduce the quality somewhat?

it might affect the average quality of umc campaigns because we'll see more campaigns added to the add-on server. doesn't really matter...

i'm quite sure it will improve the quality (at least the visual aspect) of maps.