Poll: Who uses Cartography Shop?

#21 Wow! You will be exporting directly to DIF?

#22 Yep... from within CShop4.1 you can export a DIF and it works. It took a while to get all the texturing to map across perfectly and modding the hell out of map2dif , but it works. I'll be posting it soon. My reason for the poll question was to gauge the demand to make a decision on how to release it. I feel like a greedy fuck if charge for it, but stupid if i don't. I think i've settled on "optional payment" for continued development (is there a better name for that?).

A quick screeny:


One issue is that it's TSE specific at the moment (it builds against TSE map2dif) I'll be looking into either making it an export option or just having two dll plugins.

#23 Are you starting map2dif as a subprocess, so that the user isn't bothered with the map2dif command line? I thought about that too, but then you have to catch all the different kind of errors.

#24 I went a few different ways. First i just wanted a version of csm2dif for CShop4.1. I took John's 3.x code and did alot of work making it export in 4.1. At that point it was still two source files and a patch for map2dif. I then decided that command line stuff is stupid for artists. So i started making a GUI front end for csm2dif as a cshop exporter.

Then i decided that i eventually want Gile lightmaps. At that point i just bit the bullet, to hell with being nice and not changing map2dif code, i hacked the hell out of it and got map2dif linked into the dll exporter. Since i've got it branched properly in source control i should be able to easily merge in changes in future map2dif code as needed.

So it's a true fork of the map2dif code with some bugfixes (i did submit them as patches to Ben too). I need to ask a GG person if this is all ok. Can i charge for it? Does the indie license rules apply for this? Do i need a GG logo in there? Can it be bundled with a non-Torque product (CShop5)? I don't know if this has come up before as searches turn up nothing.

There is a master plan to all this which i'll detail when i release the beta this week.

#25 I would post under the Liscensing forum and ask that. I've used it a couple of times and you usually get an answer from someone who knows. I wouldn't see problem with it though.

Matt

#26 Just charge $5 for it. That way, you won't be considered greedy, and nobody else's greed will effect the future development. :)

#27 I'm talking to Josh @ GG now. It seems tools are not covered in the Indie License, but they may be able to make an exception in this case.

#28 I use CShop! :)

Hey Tom, glad to see you're releasing the exporter. If you can make it do half the things your shooting for it'll be a huge help.

#29 Thanks John.

#30 I need help, Anyone can tell how to export with (cshop) to Torque.
Need any plug-in ? Where can download ?pls help.

#31 Your best bet at the moment is to export from Cshop using the .map format. You then need to open the map file in a text editor and change the worldspan properties to look like this:

"classname" "worldspawn"
"min_pixels" "250"
"geometry_scale" "32.0"
"light_geometry_scale" "32.0"
"ambient_color" "0 0 0"
"emergency_ambient_color" "0 0 0"
"mapversion" "220"

This should then pass thru map2dif alright. The problem is that Cshop lights won't export and that the texture mapping will be incorrect. I should have a beta version of my exporter available in the next few days.

#32 Thanks tom

#33 Any ideas how you could handle exporting the DTS style objects into the map? That would be a great advantage, export the object and generate the relevant DTS definitions that you could cut and paste into the mission file perhaps?

#34 My understanding is that DTS instances can be added to the interior as a SubObject. I haven't looked much deeper into this, but i'm pretty sure it will require changes in both dif creation and in the runtime engine. It's on my list of 2.0 features.

#35 I released the beta.

#36 I really don't know what to use for interiors at the moment... There's no one solution that "jumps out" that I can see... except Quark...

I just can't work with it... all the path configuration stuff... the cluttered interface...

Playing around with CS Demo is a breeze... you can make something and preview it in seconds. I would like to get it, but no one has sold me on the idea.

I mean, the problem is that Saving is disabled, so there's no way to know how well it will work. It's too bad it's not like Milkshape with a time trial, instead of disabling exporting/saving.

#37 @Will - Yea Josh took the simplest approach to securing the trial version... he just does not include some important functions like saving, export, or carve and hollow. I can't say much more than the worst case your out the $60 or so for Cartography Shop. Really though if you can build something interesting with the beta using the normal CSG primitives and functions it will export properly.