[Mud-H]

Just wanted to share my current work on an enhanced editor for Torque3D. I decided to revamped it a little because I always had problem trying to improve the tools GUI without having the editor to crash on the next load. So after a quick analyse, I decided the best would be to reorganize the scripting base completly and make it more modular so it's easy to add or update the tools. I ended up by doing a huge amount of changes to system and I decided to give the interface a more modern look. It have been a long ride so far but now it's stabilizing and I can focus on working on some tools improvement.
So here's a rough video about current status, it's still in pre alpha stage so there's still many bugs, I just wanted to share it and get some feedbacks or tools improvement suggestions.



I'm still undecided about what I will do with it but I'm thinking to make it available for a small cost when it will be completed. I'd like to give it for free, but after all those years I really need to get some money from my work even if it's a ridiculous amount...
So I'm looking to ear about what you think about WorldLab and also looking for tools improvement suggestions, I already have a lot of planned improvement but I'm curious to ear about what you think of.

EDIT: Removed GameLab references

[Johxz]

Looks great! good work

[Duion]

What exactly are all the features it brings?

[Mud-H]

What exactly are all the features it brings?

Well, to be honest, as now, it doesn't bring much new features. It mostly the structure behind that has been rewritten/reorganized to make it easier to add new features or new tools. For example, it's possible to make changes to the GUI in th GuiEditor without worrying about creating corrupted .gui file (Some stock .gui have more than one hierarchy or have an unknown parent they were detached from that you need to figured out). To prevent that, when a new plugin is added, the editor keep in memory all the original parentGroup of the plugins GUI added and I added a Detach Editor Guis button, in GuiEditor to set back the plugins into their original hierarchy allowing to edit the GUIs normally.
I will try to start documenting the system soon so I will be able to share more details about how it work because, on the fly like that, I forget a lot of things and since english is not my primary language it make it harder...

About the tools features, most tools are still working like the stock editors but I will start working on more improvements since now the base seem quite solid. Also my plan is to rework brand new tools and keep the stock editor tools scripting quite intact so I can merge future tools upgrade without much trouble. Also during my work, I found many functions, tools or shortcut that I wasn't aware of and I'm trying to make the more accessible.

Here's some of the few new features that I can think of:
-> Clone array tool with mouse drag cloning (Could be usefull to build fences for example)
-> The grouping tool which allow to group and ungroup any objects without affecting the MissionGroup.
-> Forest brushes can be added to SimGroups making it easier to organize them.
-> DragAndDrop plugin bar, you don't need a plugin, simply drag it out of the bar. You want it back, open the Disabled plugin bin and drag it into the bar. You can also, reorder them by dragging the icon in position you want. (Planning to add that features to the toolbar so it's easy to reorganize the toolbar)
-> MissionArea editor is gone since the MissionAreaGui 3D editing feature seem to have been removed from Code so I simply show the Area editting GUI when MissionArea object is selected.
-> New automated Settings GUI, you simply list the Plugin settings in a specified format and the editor will generate automatically the settings and add them in the Setting GUI (EX: %cfg.setVal("DefaultWidth", "10" TAB "Default Width" TAB "SliderEdit" TAB "range::0 100;tickAt 1" TAB "RoadEditorGui" TAB "1"); )
-> Some other I might have forgot and many other small improvement to different tools...

Anyway, it still quick early in development and I just wanted to share my initial progress, more features would be added in the future when I found the need for it while editing one of my game projects. Also, I'm open for suggestions about some features you'd like to see in the editor.

Some of my "unofficial" future plans:
-> New ShapeEditor-ish tool oriented toward specific type of objects (Ex: Editing the player or vehicle objects with the datablock setting in same place )
-> New ConvexEditor with building features( I still need to investigate what's possible and wrong with the current(Exported .dae doesn't load correctly in game)
-> ScriptEditor plugins which would allow to quick edit some scripts and reload them from the game.(I have currently a prototype but I need to work a new Gui class because GuiMLTextEditCtrl is not made for that)
-> Shortcut/Toolbar management GUI

Okay enough for now, I really need to start getting better organized about this project and start listing the changes and what's to be done. There's still a lot of work to be done before considering any kind of release.

[Duion]

Jeff Raab did already improve the sketch tool I think and the current exported .dae from sketch tool, cannot be loaded, but I fixed them by hand to load them in another application, there is some junk lines in the collada file, but I already forgot what I did there to fix it.

[Mud-H]

Yeah, I remember having search for that .dae export issue a while back but I don't remember having found the fix. If you can find back what was wrong with the collada file, i'd like to have a look. I guess it shouldn't be too hard to make a simple script that check the .dae file and replace what's wrong. Anyway, for now it's not a priority for me and I will investigate deeper at that time.

Where the Jeff Raab improvements are? Included in the stock editor already?

[Mud-H]

Just a little update about GameLab/WorldLab and I think this thread should be moved in ShowOff sections since no tools are provided...

First GameLab is "cancelled" as T3D StarterKit product, I will just keep it as a prototyping platform for my projects but might release the structure later if anyone want to have a look.

About WorldLab, I will get back at it and aim to release it for free as an Open-Source T3D in-game editors. It might happen soon but would be as Alpha release until I clean all the scripting syntax and formatting.. I just came back from a 1 month break and I will provide more informations soon...

[Mud-H]

Please move this to ShowOff or simply delete the entire topic (Can't figure how to do either of it). Plans have changed a bit and gonna post about it when ready!

[Mud-H]

@

Mud-H sure, moving it to Show-Off. If you want something moved, don't be afraid to @Mention me so I notice the post!