Hal's Prefab Editor

[lil_joha]

thinks I crash sisters server with fillarea forestGroundWGrass1 thinks I did it to much .. was trying out the commands and wellllll I think I need to learn more about that comand. mananged somwhat but how do you get it to set on the ground instead of floating? and undo does not seem to work with the fillarea command.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=lil_joha;596497]thinks I crash sisters server with fillarea forestGroundWGrass1 thinks I did it to much .. was trying out the commands and wellllll I think I need to learn more about that comand. mananged somwhat but how do you get it to set on the ground instead of floating? and undo does not seem to work with the fillarea command.[/QUOTE] FillArea is based on the player location so adjust where you're stood and calculate the radius to get it placed with the ground. Yeah undo is pretty new and only for Prefabs at the moment

[Mana]

Curious about the new block system for A16. Will we be able to convert A15 prefabs to A16?

[HAL9000]

I haven't decided about the editor yet for A16. If there's an editor then it's more likely there'll be a converter. It'll just depend on how much work is involved in moving over to the new system. I've not had time to check out the code behind the new block system yet but depending on how they've implemented it then it may not make sense to have an external editor like there is now as it'll be easier to paint everything and forget about blocks.

[lil_joha]

Bbbbbbuuuuutttt HAAAlll your program makes it even easyer to correct errors like concrete block placement in wrong spots and to design balance. I love the fact that I can do the basic bones of a building outside of the game . Then do the tweeking in game and corrections with the edittor. I would never been able to build the grand scale buildings I am enjoying without it. (besides not being eaten while building ) Plus being able to move a build from place to place, I dont think I enjoy the game as much with out that ability. The editor makes building even more fun to do. I am hoping that type of building will be still available. I thank you ever time I make and move and Play with your editor.

[Guppycur]

[QUOTE=HAL9000;596761]I haven't decided about the editor yet for A16. If there's an editor then it's more likely there'll be a converter. It'll just depend on how much work is involved in moving over to the new system. I've not had time to check out the code behind the new block system yet but depending on how they've implemented it then it may not make sense to have an external editor like there is now as it'll be easier to paint everything and forget about blocks.[/QUOTE] It totally makse sense. Your 2D editor is WAAAAY better and quicker than the in-game editor, and better than the hidden in-game editor. Painting is just looks, we'll still need to build blocks with certain HP's. Also, the painting thing is a minor feature that hopefully will get axed. :)

[Casualjin]

Download link does not work ? Hey Hal. Because of the possible Map Wipe for Alpha 16 i try to save my Base as a Prefab. But if i click on your Download link he gave me internal error. What can i do ? Tried with my Computer and Smartphone. And the other question is: I Herad that may the Alpha 15 Perfabs did not work anymore for Alpha 16. What do you think about it ??? :-P

[Guppycur]

Link does seem to be down...

[HAL9000]

It comes down to a couple of things, ease of conversion and motivation. I'll be honest if the block code needs a complete rewrite I don't think I've got it in me to do it. It's such an integral part of the code there could be dozens of hours that are needed to move everything over to the new system then at least a couple of releases to get all the bugs out. I've had zero modding time over the past few months and although I'm hoping to get some back over the next few there's a lot of other projects that have my interest and I don't have the time to do all of them. The editor was a lot of fun but it was mainly just maintaining these days which didn't take long and while I wouldn't leave you builders hanging there's at least 2 other tools that can import/export prefabs and I don't think the Pimp's tools aren't that far away. No decisions yet, it may be I look at the new code and find it'll take an hour to hook it up. If that's the case all is good. If not I may make an SDX version of the editor while I'm coding other things or revist it in beta/gold when I know things won't massively change again. Painting's the future Gup, it's a huge improvement on the old system from a technical viewpoint. Seeing what someone like Laz or Slaan will be able to do with it is gonna be awesome! Thanks for the heads up with the link, I'll look into it this evening. In the mean time I've uploaded the editor [URL="http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=71147693835408551160"]here[/URL]

[Casualjin]

Thank you so much for your Reply and the new upload. Sure I can understand. Real life and motivation is a huge factor when it comes to stuff like this. So I hope that youre successfull in order to follow new projects. Again thank you so much for your effort

[Guppycur]

Painting doesn't account for si or hp's, so is virtually useless in terms of anything but decorating. As awesome as it will be for decorating, I'm quite vocal against it because I know what it actually means. They are once again dumbing down the system. By gold we will have "block". Right next to "Meat". And any awesomeness specialness of the game will be gone. Besides the point, though. Import and export? Fine. The editor? Not so much. :) We have seen the pimps editor and it is little better than creating the prefabs in game. Nothing beats the speed of which we can create prefab using your editor. Obviously I hope that you do continue the project. If you do not, would you consider posting your source? Whatever decision you make, I know I speak for the entire prefab Community, as small as it is, in saying thank you for all the time you have put in. We could not have done this without you or aussie.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=Guppycur;597505]Painting doesn't account for si or hp's, so is virtually useless in terms of anything but decorating. As awesome as it will be for decorating, I'm quite vocal against it because I know what it actually means. They are once again dumbing down the system. By gold we will have "block". Right next to "Meat". And any awesomeness specialness of the game will be gone. [/QUOTE] Nooooo.... it's the opposite in fact. It's vastly increasing the complexity or at least combinations. It's going to be like having thousands of block IDs in the list. With the new system the very least you'll get is everything you currently have but there'll be thousands of other possibilities/combinations as well. It means all they need to do is add a new mesh and every texture will be available to put on the mesh to create a block. Sharing will be easier as there'll also be no need for custom block XML as all these combinations will be (I'm presuming here but it makes sense) inside each block and stored in the prefab file. It's also paved the way (or enforced the creation of) standardised rotations and texture UV alignment which will make things easier on builders/modders. I think once it's out you'll find it adds far more than it's taken away. [QUOTE=Guppycur;597505]Obviously I hope that you do continue the project. If you do not, would you consider posting your source? Whatever decision you make, I know I speak for the entire prefab Community, as small as it is, in saying thank you for all the time you have put in. We could not have done this without you or aussie.[/QUOTE] Maybe but probably not. The solution is almost 3 years old (!) and there was never really a design strategy. I use it as a testbed to dig into the code and everything's been bolted on along the way. If I do discontinue the editor it'll be because large parts of it need rewriting anyway so it'd be best to start again designed around the new system. I don't obfuscate anything though, all the code is there for anyone interested. All this may be premature, I just answered a question about the converter with what I'm thinking at the moment without having seen the code. It may be I rewrite the editor using SDX inside the game so you have 3D and 2D without having to alt-tab out and with all the advantages of having that 3D data available. Or it'll be fire and burnable worlds or maybe helping out with the Starvation mod. It just depends where I find an interesting challenge to play with

[TSBX]

I'll say this, Hal. I never would have started making prefabs if it hadn't been for your editor. You made a part of the game accessible to those creative and patient enough to spend the time directly adding content to the game and subsequently each player's experience. I can understand your frustration if it turns out to be a complete redo, especially with the caveat that it could change more. (Though I'd have a hard time fathoming another big change like this one is, seems like they're paving the way for Steam Workshop with this upgrade to the block system) With that out of the way, I very much hope that it will work out so that your amazing editor will continue to be a mainstay in our community. The in game editor is rather meh, and it doesn't even scratch the surface of what your editor does. Why, just last night I used it to map out an in game build that I would have had to figure out on the fly, which I'm not so good at.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=TSBX;597653]I'll say this, Hal. I never would have started making prefabs if it hadn't been for your editor. You made a part of the game accessible to those creative and patient enough to spend the time directly adding content to the game and subsequently each player's experience. I can understand your frustration if it turns out to be a complete redo, especially with the caveat that it could change more. (Though I'd have a hard time fathoming another big change like this one is, seems like they're paving the way for Steam Workshop with this upgrade to the block system) With that out of the way, I very much hope that it will work out so that your amazing editor will continue to be a mainstay in our community. The in game editor is rather meh, and it doesn't even scratch the surface of what your editor does. Why, just last night I used it to map out an in game build that I would have had to figure out on the fly, which I'm not so good at.[/QUOTE] Hi TSBX, Yeah I hope so too, we'll just have to wait and see on the code. The shape/painting system and electricity will bring some pretty big changes. I think we're at least a month away from finding out though. I'm on a slow decent to getting modding time back in about 5 weeks so we'll see how it goes. @all OP link is back up and running. It's on a new server so may take a couple of days to settle down.

[Guppycur]

Will I be able to make a steel block that assigns a buff, by the time they're done "unifying"? I'm not so certain. That's my fear.

[TSBX]

I would think so, they're basically going to be a steel block. Full stop. The shape will be irrelevant. (Pure speculation of course)

[Guppycur]

Something gazz said scared me... I think they're going to nerf the crap out of blocks as a goal, and give us next to no options.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=Guppycur;597953]Something gazz said scared me... I think they're going to nerf the crap out of blocks as a goal, and give us next to no options.[/QUOTE] I doubt they'd go down that route. They're going to need buffs and more on blocks for the electricity system. I think we're going to end up with much more complexity rather than less of it.

[Laz Man]

Hey Hal, Been playing with block density values in the editor and noticed that after I save changes to a prefab, the density values are reverting back to the values beforehand. Is this bug? In the screenshot below, I change the flagstone block density value from 127 to 0 and then after I save my changes, it reverts back to 127 when I check the density value of the same blocks. [img]http://i.imgur.com/QhnetfJ.png[/img]

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=Laz Man;598630]Hey Hal, Been playing with block density values in the editor and noticed that after I save changes to a prefab, the density values are reverting back to the values beforehand. Is this bug? In the screenshot below, I change the flagstone block density value from 127 to 0 and then after I save my changes, it reverts back to 127 when I check the density value of the same blocks. [img]http://i.imgur.com/QhnetfJ.png[/img][/QUOTE] Hey Laz. No that's not a bug. The 0 values means "Reset it to whatever the default is for this block". It doesn't really speed up importing but if you imported the prefab and then exported the area again you'd see the same result.

[n2n1]

I noticed that the density of the block is reset (ignores) when the prefab spawning - if the layer be on terrain level.

[Laz Man]

[QUOTE=HAL9000;598677]Hey Laz. No that's not a bug. The 0 values means "Reset it to whatever the default is for this block". It doesn't really speed up importing but if you imported the prefab and then exported the area again you'd see the same result.[/QUOTE] Has it always been this way? I use to be able to specify block density so that terrain blocks would blend it better against square blocks.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=n2n1;598683]I noticed that the density of the block is reset (ignores) when the prefab spawning - if the layer be on terrain level.[/QUOTE] It shouldn't do. Is there an example? [QUOTE=Laz Man;598853]Has it always been this way? I use to be able to specify block density so that terrain blocks would blend it better against square blocks.[/QUOTE] Yeah it's been like this for a while. You can still do the blend though as that's not 0 density. Just did a quick google and as usual found Gup: [QUOTE=Guppycur;547860][COLOR="#DAA520"][B]Solution:[/B][/COLOR] You have to change the density of the block that's next to the grass to -92. ...and you do that by using hal's editor.[/QUOTE] Or do you mean you're setting it to -92 and it's resetting?

[Laz Man]

[QUOTE=HAL9000;598871]It shouldn't do. Is there an example? Yeah it's been like this for a while. You can still do the blend though as that's not 0 density. Just did a quick google and as usual found Gup: Or do you mean you're setting it to -92 and it's resetting?[/QUOTE] I am at work right now and I will retest to be certain. When I tried it yesterday, I would be able to update the block density to whatever I want (in gups case -92). However, as soon as I save my changes within the editor, the density values would revert back to whatever the block density was previously.

[HAL9000]

[QUOTE=Laz Man;598945]I am at work right now and I will retest to be certain. When I tried it yesterday, I would be able to update the block density to whatever I want (in gups case -92). However, as soon as I save my changes within the editor, the density values would revert back to whatever the block density was previously.[/QUOTE] I've just done a quick test and it seemed to work ok for me. I think you can also use -118 for the density if you want to pull terrain in. If you select the "Density" radio box you see it displayed as an option in the list that appears. Pretty sure that's why I put it in the list. If you've not played with the editor for a while you can use that layout to apply densities in the editor window (like you can change the blocks) [IMG]http://7d.l9000.co.uk/Densities.png[/IMG]