DeleD Community Edition

Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

These simple things i miss most in DeleD! They will complete the features needed for game level editing and make DeleD a full "World Editor".

Paths: Can be used as ai-paths for games with every waypoint having "Tags" for ai calculations. Can also be used for a few modelling techniques.

Empties: A object with no geometry. A empty has a position and rotation and "tags". Can be used as a pivot point for scale, rotate operations. Can also be used as a generic "entity" or "trigger" in a game. Maybe other objects can be linked to empties to create a custom local matrix.

Portals: For visibility culling. A portal is just one flat polygon with multiple edges. A portal should be displayed half transparent and be created by selecting a edge loop from a existing mesh or from hand.[/b]

trucker2000 · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:57 pm Post subject:

Paths are usually generated in the game engine.

Empties--> another thing the game engine would handle.

portals--> Deled already has these if you are using the torque exporter.
It isn't a single sided plane tho. It's a box with a special tag that makes it non renderable and non collideable.
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Starnick · DeleD PRO user Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 611

Pivots can be found in 3DS, and can be helpful - I believe I've already mentioned them to the team a while ago Smile

Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

@trucker2000: Please tell me what game engine generates paths and empties. I wonder!

@Starnick: Maybe, so you can count me in Smile

trucker2000 · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:50 am Post subject:

Starnick · DeleD PRO user Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 611

Not all game engines provide an AI solution, so paths may be iffy. But I'd say most engines could produce "empties" e.g. jMonkey uses a scenegraph, so you could just define a node to be an empty (this is actually what I use to import attachment points from deled w/ specially tagged geometry).

Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

trucker2000 · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject:

My point isn't wether or not a person is using a rendering engine or a ready made game engine. It was that most Game engines have this functionality. Putting that behind us...

How would you suggest these be added? (You know PJ is going to ask. Wink

)

Portals should be quite simple as it's just a tag line command.

I don't quite know what it is you are referring to as empties other than it a non rendered mesh with a special tag assigned. DeleD 2.0 will include bones. (pretty much just a non rendered mesh) could that be used with a tag that the exporter can read?

As for paths... That would be a group of nodes on a spline or (whatever the name of that other type is callled. Can never remember) This would require deled to have object grouping and a tag for that group.

Btw, I'm not arguing against your requests here. The more info. PJ and Jeroen have, the easier it is for them to decide wether or not to add the feature. So get down to the nitty gritty explaining and possibly, mabe it will be added. Smile

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Jeroen · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject:

trucker2000 · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:00 am Post subject:

ash · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:06 am Post subject:

first off, object hierarchy is something Ive found to be pretty useful, though DeleD has it not. Given that, a NULL object is just wonderful for grouping things, or acting as placemarkers. a generic "empty" or NULL object would be keen.
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Jeroen · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:09 am Post subject:

A generic 'empty' object is indeed what I would use to solve the example Trucker gave (the camera position). Such object could be used for just about anything because of its generic nature. This keeps things clear and easy to understand and does not abuse other concepts like joints etc.

In DeleD, such generic object would have actual geometry. Everything you see in DeleD is a 3D object (primitive) so it's clickable and adjustable in the 2D/3D views (you want to move your generic object etc). So, I can imagine such object being a simple cube with additional, generic properties (just about anything you guys can come up with Wink

).

We have been looking at hierarchy in the past. It turned out to be more complicated to implement that we thought. We might be implementing it in the future though.
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Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

chronozphere · Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:04 pm Post subject:

I think it would be cool if these generic objects had a direction. This can be used in may different ways. If the game engine associates such an object with a camera, the direction could be used as "LookAt" vector. If the object is supposted to be a spawn point, the direction could be used as initial look/move direction for players or enemies. The direction can also indicate the particle emission direction for all kinds of particle systems. Definitely usefull. Smile

A position + direction also implies a plane (direction being the normal vector). This could be used for all sorts of things, such as defining a plane that seperates two rooms (can be used for visibility determination).

If you add a few of these generic objects to your scene and give them incrementing tag numbers, the engine could link them together and see them as a path. It would be even better if DeleD had this functionality in the form of PathID and a PathPos property, but that's probably too much to ask right now. We first want animation and the secret feature to work properly.

Just my two cents. Wink

Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

Good points, agreed! I also dont expect it to be implemented immediately. But i think it will fit nicely into the future. And should be considered for the file formats and plugin SDK of 2.x.

I also would like to have a direction for the empties. And if not you could create two empties and let one be the direction. And using them as pathnodes is also a nice idea, maybe better than mine.

Lets add that, because you can use empties for a lot of different things, the visibility should be adjustable to distinguish pathnodes from spawn-points and particle emitters. A custom color should be fine.

I also would like to have a "tag-library" with empties. For example, you have a text-file like this: