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Old 06-10-17, 19:42   #1
HD86
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Default TREditor

TREditor 1.0
--------------------------------------------------------

This is a new upgrade of NWE that introduces some fundamental changes. Following is a summary of the main changes.

The main menu
---------------

The "New," "Open," and "Save" commands now do not handle WAD files but rather a custom file type called a TREditor project file (has the
extension .tre). This file format contains all the data necessary to produce a full TR level. It can be used to produce a level, a WAD,
a TRLE project, etc.

When you are working with TREditor you are making and editing TRE project files.

To produce a full level from your TRE project, use the command "Export Level" in the main menu.

To produce a WAD, select the moveable and static objects you want contained in the WAD and select "Export WAD" from either the moveable
or static editors.

Exporting TRLE project files is still unsupported. It will be in the next update.

Like in NWE, you can create a TRE project in two ways:

-Use the "New" command in the main menu to create a blank project, and then import slots to it. Currently it is not possible to import
room slots so this method won't allow you to import rooms to your project.

-Use "Import Level" in order to create a project from a level file.

UV mapping support
---------------
Thanks to the new file format, it is now possible to save UV mapping data. This data will be useful when you export a level file but
not when you export a WAD.

Texture editor
---------------
In the TR level format, UV mapping data is assigned to textures, not faces. Each texture has four UV points. You can edit these points
in the texture editor. Note that when you change a texture that will affect all the faces using the texture.

The TR level format has separate slots for textures used in rooms vs. objects, and for textures used in tri vs. quad faces. When using
TRE you don't need to worry about this. You can use room textures on objects and vice versa. When you export a level the app will go through
all the textures and set their properties correctly (and will create additional textures if necessary).

The texture editor now allows you to set some new properties for textures. I have not tested them and I don't know all of their effects.
With regard to bump mapping, the app will produce bump maps in an identical manner to tom2pc.exe, which is the official level builder provided
by Core Design.

Sprite editor
---------------
Unlike the texture editor, the sprite editor does not support UV mapping because the TR level format does not store UV mapping data for sprites.
In any case, it seems that the sprite info stored in the TR level is entirely useless. The game engine has hardcoded sprite info and it does
not care about the sprite info stored in the level.

Thus, the sprite editor is useful only for editing pixels/images of sprites but not their number or dimensions.

Moreover, the game engine ignores the images of all sprite objects other than object 463: DEFAULT_SPRITES. For example, the images of
object 460: SKY_GRAPHICS are ignored and won't appear in game. However, the level file does have the images of these hardcoded sprite
objects in a separate location, which means it is possible to edit them after all.

In TRE you will see two sprite objects called HARDCODED_FONT_GRAPHICS and HARDCODED_SKY_GRAPHICS. The images of these objects are the ones
that will appear in game. Therefore, if you want to edit the sky sprite you need to edit the image of HARDCODED_SKY_GRAPHICS and not
the dummy 460: SKY_GRAPHICS. Similarly, if you need to edit the font graphics (or other hardcoded sprite objects) you need to edit the
image of HARDCODED_FONT_GRAPHICS.

SFX
----------
The level file stores the SFX samples that will be played in game, but it does not store their original names. When you import a level with
TRE, the level samples will be extracted to your samples folder and will be given sequential names. These names will be stored with the SFX
data that you see in the SFX editor.

When you build a level, the app will go to your samples folder and will get the samples whose names are indicted in the SFX editor.


TREditor 1.0
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Old 06-10-17, 20:29   #2
LaraCablara
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Is this what I think it is

Edit: Don't mind me, I actually confused this for the new level editor project in a different thread . But this looks great too!

Last edited by LaraCablara; 06-10-17 at 20:33.
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Old 06-10-17, 23:24   #3
HD86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LaraCablara View Post
Is this what I think it is

Edit: Don't mind me, I actually confused this for the new level editor project in a different thread . But this looks great too!
Thanks. The project is still incomplete. There will be many additions in the next releases.

Addition: Your reference to the other level editor was unclear so I don't know what you are talking about. However, I want to reassure you that this app is not intended to be a replacement for any other room editor. I don't plan on making a room editor similar to the TRLE room editor or to Tomb Editor or whatever you meant. This app uses a completely different approach.

Last edited by HD86; 07-10-17 at 03:19.
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Old 07-10-17, 07:08   #4
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Testing it right now and it works lovely with the classic levels. For fun I decided to load TRNG level too and it worked! It's just awfully slow in the room view (like, 1FPS).

I'm a bit confused. What is the purpose of the application? At first I thought it's a WAD Editor, but now I can see it has so many more options!

From bugs I noticed it seems that animations are not played with correct speed. They are slower.
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Old 07-10-17, 14:53   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Caesum View Post
Testing it right now and it works lovely with the classic levels. For fun I decided to load TRNG level too and it worked! It's just awfully slow in the room view (like, 1FPS).

I'm a bit confused. What is the purpose of the application? At first I thought it's a WAD Editor, but now I can see it has so many more options!

From bugs I noticed it seems that animations are not played with correct speed. They are slower.
Turn off the "Lines" button and it will speed up. This issue will disappear in the future when I change the way the lines are rendered.

This app generally has the same options as were available in NWE 2.5. The only important additions are the ones I listed in the first post. Basically this app can read and write TR4 level files while NWE 2.5 was only capable or reading and writing WAD files. This is the only thing that is really new.

The TR4 level format is very similar to the WAD format. Most of the TR4 level data is identical to the WAD data. It was easy to upgrade NWE so that it could read and write TR4 files.

ADDITION: As for UV mapping support, NWE was already capable of UV mapping but this was meaningless because the WAD format can't hold the data.

Last edited by HD86; 07-10-17 at 15:10.
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Old 07-10-17, 20:37   #6
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Very interesting! I expect it will be able to make new levels from scratch in the future?
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Old 07-10-17, 23:09   #7
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Very interesting! I expect it will be able to make new levels from scratch in the future?
The next updates will focus on adding more importation/exportation options. For example, it will be possible to load rooms either from a TRLE project or from an MQO file. Also there will be more options for importing objects from a WAD or from an MQO. These are my near time goals.
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Old 08-10-17, 11:25   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HD86 View Post
The next updates will focus on adding more importation/exportation options. For example, it will be possible to load rooms either from a TRLE project or from an MQO file. Also there will be more options for importing objects from a WAD or from an MQO. These are my near time goals.
I see, so this is more focused on modding then
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Old 08-10-17, 16:45   #9
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Found first bug - whenever I click "New Project" and it asks "Do you want to close xyz?", after clicking "Yes" it shows "applications has stopped working correctly" and turns off.

Btw, I think it would have been better if instead of asking to close, it asked if one wants to save the project before closing. Then three options should be available: Yes, No, Cancel.

Level viewing is very fun so far:



But it would have been better if your editor could handle transparent textures correctly. So far whenever there's transparency, it hides everything, making holes in the levelmesh.
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Old 08-10-17, 19:07   #10
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Quote:
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But it would have been better if your editor could handle transparent textures correctly. So far whenever there's transparency, it hides everything, making holes in the levelmesh.
Magenta transparency and semitransparency is supported for object meshes. Make sure that the options are ticked in the rendering settings.

The app should render the objects exactly like the TR4 engine.

As for the room meshes, they are displayed without lighting or transparency, because I did not write the shader code for this. In the next update it will be available.
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