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

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jaimeastorga2000
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by jaimeastorga2000 »

xer wrote: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 also do the exact opposite. Some creative and talented writers and potential scenario makers for whom coding is a barrier could be able to make some interesting new content. Besides, even if the average quality of UMC decreases somewhat, the filter of being included in the mainline should still serve to highlight the good campaings, right? Specially since there would be more campaings to draw from.
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by fabi »

jaimeastorga2000 wrote:
xer wrote: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 also do the exact opposite. Some creative and talented writers and potential scenario makers for whom coding is a barrier could be able to make some interesting new content. Besides, even if the average quality of UMC decreases somewhat, the filter of being included in the mainline should still serve to highlight the good campaings, right? Specially since there would be more campaings to draw from.
Please be aware that the new editor will not auto-generate the code for events.
Without any manual wml coding the results you can achieve even with the new editor are very limited.
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Unnheulu
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by Unnheulu »

Oh, so theregoes any worries I might have :) Goodluck fabi
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IPS
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by IPS »

fabi wrote: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.
That is simply awesome! When everyone can place units in the map editor everyone can make "sieges" or a thing much better "AI with starting soldiers".

For an example, in a balanced 1vs1 game AI can have in the keep for an example 2 spearmans, so that can make a very different grade of dificult in the own map. And maybe in a map add a neutral faction without keep, but with a leader with no keep who only controlates the neutral units OR maybe without leader but a side to move only a neutral faction.

Example: near of the 2 players can be a group of unfriendly peasent for both and the players need to kill the peasents before can kill the other player.

Good Luck Fabi!
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Dagoth
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by Dagoth »

Why not just make it a bit more simpler and create terains with the items/scenery folders? Study the terrain coding a bit and it should not be too confuzzling. I've notice that quite a few campaigns do this, such as IftU. And then add a purpose for each. A few examples:

Tents and Lighthouse: Counts as Villages
Metal Fence: Counts as Walling

As for chests, I liked the earlier suggestion. X = amount of gold, but then the terrain would have to be switched to whatever it lays on (lets say on grass, it would be Cst^Gg to Gg when it is opened.)
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fabi
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by fabi »

Dagoth wrote:Why not just make it a bit more simpler and create terains with the items/scenery folders? Study the terrain coding a bit and it should not be too confuzzling. I've notice that quite a few campaigns do this, such as IftU. And then add a purpose for each. A few examples:

Tents and Lighthouse: Counts as Villages
Metal Fence: Counts as Walling

As for chests, I liked the earlier suggestion. X = amount of gold, but then the terrain would have to be switched to whatever it lays on (lets say on grass, it would be Cst^Gg to Gg when it is opened.)
Well, that is a way to solve the issue.
The disadvantages are that Wesnoth's terrain system only supports 2 layers.
So you can't define a terrain that has a signpost on top of a forested hill for example.
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IPS
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by IPS »

fabi wrote:
Dagoth wrote:Why not just make it a bit more simpler and create terains with the items/scenery folders? Study the terrain coding a bit and it should not be too confuzzling. I've notice that quite a few campaigns do this, such as IftU. And then add a purpose for each. A few examples:

Tents and Lighthouse: Counts as Villages
Metal Fence: Counts as Walling

As for chests, I liked the earlier suggestion. X = amount of gold, but then the terrain would have to be switched to whatever it lays on (lets say on grass, it would be Cst^Gg to Gg when it is opened.)
Well, that is a way to solve the issue.
The disadvantages are that Wesnoth's terrain system only supports 2 layers.
So you can't define a terrain that has a signpost on top of a forested hill for example.
No problem, you can put the label in a nearner mountain or in a nearner forest. The problem is resolved ;)
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Dagoth
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by Dagoth »

Thats a good point. Two layers might not work always. Lets say you make a signpost (Snp) on grass (Gg) with a lit subimage. Perfect example.

The next update should allow 3 instead of 2. (However, I tink this might be a leading prob to slow gaming.)
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IPS
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by IPS »

Yeah, I think so.

You dont need to put the labbel exactly in the same square than you wants, you can put it in the down one, or in the upper one, or in a next one.
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Dagoth
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by Dagoth »

fabi wrote:The disadvantages are that Wesnoth's terrain system only supports 2 layers.
Hmm... well I guess that Gg^Sng^l^whatever-else would be a bad idea. it would probably lead off to complete re-writing. so im thinking that to do something like a forested hill with a sighpost could be done like this:

1: convert the terrain "forested hill" to a terrain with one terrain code, such as Fsthl.
2: make the signpost function like a subterrain, like the lit terrain does.
3: then put it together.

however you want to do it, you will need to go into the coding one way or another to define what the signpost will say, or how much gold there will be, and so on. Adding a function to the map editor to do this would not be used by everyone.
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IPS
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by IPS »

Hmmm... an idea to post signpost in the map editor (maybe only decoration or when you click in them appears a message and in the map editor you should be able to write what is in the signpost)

Should be a awesome idea.
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Dagoth
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by Dagoth »

IPS wrote:
fabi wrote: Example: near of the 2 players can be a group of unfriendly peasent for both and the players need to kill the peasents before can kill the other player.
Like... a bodyguard system? Again, more coding, becuase you just can't throw in two spearmen with any player, especially if they are drakes or undead.

But I do like your thinking. It crossed my mind before too, especially after playing HttT. Li'sar has a bunch of guards, so why not the player? :hmm:
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ilor
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by ilor »

Rya wrote:The only thing the map editor really needs is an integrated mirroring tool. :-)
That's actually in there since a loooong time -- but you need to copy half the map into the clipboard, mirror the clipboard and paste it at the right spot (zooming out helps).
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artisticdude
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by artisticdude »

Personally, I'd like the map editor to be able to handle layers that you cam move around (so you could, say, import a smaller map into a larger one as a new layer, and then more that smaller map around on the big one). Although this would probably be way down on the high-priority list, it's a feature I think some users (myself included) might find useful.
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Re: Idea to do the map editor more complete.

Post by ilor »

artisticdude wrote:Personally, I'd like the map editor to be able to handle layers that you cam move around (so you could, say, import a smaller map into a larger one as a new layer, and then more that smaller map around on the big one). Although this would probably be way down on the high-priority list, it's a feature I think some users (myself included) might find useful.
This would be quite complex to do, I even considered it at one time but it didn't make the cut. At least copy and paste in the new editor allows better aiming ;)
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