Plan for Adam Larson

Working on the T2D level editor again.

After about a two week break in which I went on vacation and got away from the whole game dev thing for a while, I have started working again on the T2D level editor (or in GG language, scene editor). And by started working on again, I mean started over. I liked where I got with the last version, but it was really an ugly mess of code and I missed a lot of things that could have made it easier/better (like calculating the window position to scene position coordinates myself from a GuiMouseEventCtrl when the scene window can do that for you).

This was mostly due to the fact that I really hadn't worked with T2D much. Of course, after writing the scene editor, I have a much better understanding and can thus make a much better editor.

So, changes. Aside from being a lot cleaner, I removed my self imposed restriction of not modifying the engine. Originally, I wanted to make it as easy to install as possible. But, there are a lot of things made much easier by tweaking the source. The changes are minor and I figure if I do a good enough job, maybe the tweaks can be added to the stock engine. Who knows.

I also completely changed the interface. In the old version, I was trying to minimize the space taken up by GUI elements so as much of the scene could be visible as possible. It turned out, in my opinion, that everything was much to crowded. Now, I am going with the same style as the GUI editor. It turns out it's much easier to use and code that way.

And, I changed the way objects are created and selected. I don't really want to explain the details, but it is certainly better than it was. In my mind the old way worked well, but in practice it was kind of cumbersome.

I'm not planning to release anything until this is closer to done, though. My last release was intended to provoke feedback, but it kind of failed. I'm attributing that to either the editor being too incomplete, or nobody caring. It seems like most people are making puzzle type games or classic remakes (pong, breakout). A level editor doesn't serve those very well. In any case, I need a level editor, and I would be surprised if I'm the only one.

Aside from being able to place and manipulate objects, here are some other things I am planning for the editor:

Triggers - This will be a derived fxSceneObject that when collided with by whatever you tell it to collide against, will execute a console command. It should make triggered events (like ending a level or spawning enemies) much easier.

Primitives - Lines, polygons, ellipses, etc. Should be useful for quick prototyping. These are mostly done already. They are derived from fxSceneObject so they have all the properties that that entails, including collision and physics. It seems me and Mattew Kee were doing this at the same time.

Pathfinding and Following - Not really related to the editor, I guess, but it's something that I am going to need for anything I make. I'll probably integrate the path following into the editor so you can assign objects to paths.

Datablock Creation and Editing - Self explanatory.

If you are really interested, I can email you what I have working now. I feel like I can have most of this done in about a week, so I'll probably be done in closer to a month.