Map editor implementation & concerns

[Samapico]

As you know, I had a plan in mind to integrate a map editor directly in the Discretion client itself so it could use the same rendering engine, and allow online editing.

 

I'm trying to think how I could start on this, and some concerns and ideas crossed my mind today, so here it goes...

 

-Obviously there will be a couple of modules used specifically for map editing

--Mouse / cursor module (on top of the Discretion mouse module, or a separate one?)

--Menus / toolbars + keyboard bindings; the tileset & lvz image library could be included with the toolbars stuff

--Grid rendering (incorporate into current modules with some ShowGrid, HideGrid callbacks or something?, or just add a module for that)

--Regions preview (same concerns as grid)

--Select + move tiles around (additional rendering needed here, include in this module or another one?)

--Undo/redo stack

--Online editing module, which would receive packets from other mappers with the same data as the undo/redo stack + other info, presumably; and send modifications to the server (so it can send them back to other mappers and normal players as well) <-- So this module has to be loaded for everyone. I'm guessing it would send callbacks to other modules to apply modifications on the tiles, tileset, level animations (like lvz), and whatever.

 

 

And now that we have modules, how do we use them? I'm having a hard time figuring out how it could be integrated with Discretion, as well as allowing editing ingame. You need to be able to:

-Have a shortcut that starts the map editor, and then allows you to open, save, save as... and everything else. You should be able to get in a ship and fly around your map too (offline).

-Enter a zone, type ?edit (or something like that), then if the server accepts your request (i.e. access level high enough + other conditions?), it tells you 'OK', and then all the map editing features appear (still with people flying around ships and chatting and stuff). But then, it wouldn't make any sense to 'open' a map. So there would be slightly different features in both modes I guess.

-In the offline mode, would it be even possible to have more than one map opened? I'm guessing it would require a different instance of the entire client for each map. If we have a tab or menu to change the active map, would it require to re-initialize a bunch of crap everytime? I guess it could be worked around.

 

 

So to do all that, we'd need:

-A separate .bat/.exe that loads different modules for the offline editing stuff (i.e. you have a shortcut that starts the editor) ( \client\trunk\disc_client\src\FrontEnd\editor ?)

-Load modules for online editing during runtime when you receive a 'editmap_request_accepted' packet (or something like that) ?

[tcsoccerman]

The only suggestion I'd give is too make it as lightweight is possible. For example, the "Testing" feature in DCME would be very handy, except it isn't as useful as it could be because it can be very laggy.

 

All you really need to implement is the ability to lay tiles. Then, you can go back to your map editor and fancy it up.

[Samapico]

Well the wonderful thing is that the whole rendering will be handled by the client's underlying code, so there's no real reason for it to get laggy