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DifEx webpage with videos added

Name:	Brandon Maness
Date Posted:	Feb 16, 2006
Rating:	4.3 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Brandon Maness

Blog post

I finally uploaded a webpage, and made some videos demonstrating the workflow and usage of difEx, formerly called difView. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.. I wonder what video is worth?

**If you had donated to the tutorial site in 2005, and did not receive the email I sent you with a link to the Early Alpha version of difEx, let me know your current email, and I'll email you the link. I used the email address you had on file from paypal.

The link to the webpage is:

torque.smdlabs.com/difEx.htm

As always, post any questions, comments, or suggestions right here!

Also, I'd like to thank GG for the Associate status. This is really a vibrant community that has been a joy to be a part of.

B--

Recent Blog Posts

List:	07/08/06 - difExpress Setup Videos Added 03/18/06 - difView download now available 02/16/06 - DifEx webpage with videos added 02/01/06 - Update: difView and logParse 01/23/06 - Easy .dts placement for .dif interiors 11/07/05 - Plan for Brandon Maness 09/29/05 - Plan for Brandon Maness 08/28/05 - Plan for Brandon Maness

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Hans (Feb 16, 2006 at 02:43 GMT)

this is ausome work thks alot for your fine work Brandon

Travis Wood (Feb 16, 2006 at 02:43 GMT) Resource Rating: 3

Not bad!! Not bad at all!!!!pat your self on your back this is good.

Tom Spilman (Feb 16, 2006 at 03:39 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Awesome work as always Brandon!

Eric Forhan (Feb 16, 2006 at 03:56 GMT)

That's looking very nice, Brandon. =)

Unk (Feb 16, 2006 at 18:18 GMT)

The development of these sorts of tools are going to be what sets Torque apart from it's competitors. If we are going to be a professional community we are going to need more professional tools like this.

Great job, man. Keep it up.

-Unk

Brandon Maness (Feb 16, 2006 at 23:21 GMT)

Thanks everyone.

@Tom: You know, if you added an option to launch an executable after export, and had a %variable for the map name, then cShop4.1 with your exporter could use difEx as well. Launching difEx.exe -dif [mapname] would do the trick. Just a passing thought.. I know you are very busy. The lastest release of Torsion is looking quite nice BTW. I used it quite a bit on difEx, and was thankful to have it!

B--

Tom Spilman (Feb 16, 2006 at 23:39 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Brandon - We've pretty much settled on not expanding Pipeline any more. It's worked well for us on our internal projects and we're jumping on the Constructor bandwagon. But it is a good idea... you should see if Josh from Leadwerks is interested.

We have a lot of new stuff in the next Torsion release... we're getting close to beta now.

Brandon Maness (Feb 17, 2006 at 00:35 GMT)

@Tom: Very good news on the upcoming beta! Concerning the exporter, I figured that would be the response, and I understand completely. There have been some cShop4.1 users asking whether difEx would work with 4.1, so I had to ask. 3DWS has been setup to work, but I wouldn't even dream about asking Josh to update cShop.. He wouldn't have even done that before 3DWS. ;)

B--

Tom Spilman (Feb 17, 2006 at 00:44 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Brandon - Well i'll see if i can fit something in sometime soon. I just need to get this next release of Torsion out, finish up my TSE precip work, and a couple more little projects. And Josh couldn't fix Cshop if he even wanted to... the source code was lost.

Brandon Maness (Feb 17, 2006 at 01:09 GMT)

@Tom: I know you've got 4 full plates worth of work in front of you, so thanks for even offering to consider it! I always wondered why there were no updates past 4.1. You know, I would still be kicking myself in the pants if that happened to me.. I think that's a developers worst nightmare, right up there with showing up to work in your dream naked! LOL

Eric Forhan (Feb 17, 2006 at 02:31 GMT)

Hey Brandon,

You might consider having it automatically create a simgroup when loading the files. Mostly for copy/paste, or if you or someone else comes up with a way to import or merge the mini-scenes directly into TGE.

Just a thought. :)

-Eric

Brandon Maness (Feb 17, 2006 at 02:47 GMT)

@Eric: Thats a good idea. I haven't spent too much time working on placement/export processes yet. Just ironing out the basics. When I get finished with the project(day job) I'm currently in charge of, and have some free time, I will get you a copy, and see what other bright ideas you can come up with. I have a list I made awhile back that outlines the major features I wanted.. Guess I should share them, and see if anyone has any additional comments.

Some of these have been completed, or just me thinking out loud, but here goes:

Phase 1:

quickly load and edit dif and related dts shapes
save your work and exit difView with 2 key strokes
new gui skin
minor editor bug fixes
*minor gui container modifications
world editor settings now load and save between sessions
arrow nudging and bracket nudge size adjustment added
quark/Hammer/3dws environment setup
remember last cam position on reload
*TGE window remembers last position

Phase 2:

help, example assets and tutorials
quick axis alignment and placement (place many windows in a row)
easy object snap and alignment
improve nudge so that it can move groups
.mis file management and creation (merge many .dif missions into a main mission)
(ie:copy paste, or import)
refactor dts placement option, and optional tScript dts placement generation
click tree view to focus cam on object, shortcut key to nav through the scene or groups 1 at a time
customize cam focus behavior
create group attribute of dts shape to apply it to dif
startup options (start in f11 menu, camera, player, etc)
mission creation wizard
?settings explorer: instead of f11 use a floating window dialog for mission changes
Dialog based step by step wizards for mission and dif/dts management

Andy Hawkins (Mar 31, 2006 at 12:53 GMT)

Is there a help file on how to set this up? I can see there's some qrk files for Quark and the DIFEX/DIFVIEW Torque project - but how do I set it up so Quark and Torque are linked? I've downloaded the alpha but it doesn't have a installation help file that I can see.

Brandon Maness (Mar 31, 2006 at 17:57 GMT)

You are right Andy, I didn't add any help to get you up and running.. I'll see if I can get something put together this weekend.

B--

Andy Hawkins (Apr 01, 2006 at 05:47 GMT)

@Brandon - excellent thanks. It's a great innovation as working from Quark to Torque is a bit of pain having to drop back to explorer all the time. I'm looking forward to it. Any idea how much the final release will cost?
Edited on Apr 01, 2006 05:47 GMT

Andy Hawkins (Apr 26, 2006 at 14:32 GMT)

@Brandon - just checking in. Have you provided any setup instructions yet?

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