DeleD Community Edition

[GraysonPeddie]

Hi. I just thought I want to post my first post in here...

You could use 3D GameStudio / A6 to build your game after you convert your level from DeleD 3D Editor to 3D GameStudio. Here's the link to it:
www.3dgamestudio.com .
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The tool used to develop games:
3D GameStudio - A6

[Jeroen]

Hi there, welcome to these forums.

3D GameStudio looks very nice. Do you know of any tools that can convert DeleD levels to 3DG? Maybe we could write a few import/export plugins to support 3DG as well...

[dirkk]

Hi GraysonPeddie!

AFAIK Gamestudio comes with it's own set of level editing and modeling tools. What are your experiences with them - where could DeleD kick in?

[GraysonPeddie]

I know 3DGS comes with the level/model editing tools and I've been using 3DGS since last year.

I've tried out DeleD, and I think that using DeleD are just a little harder than using the World Editor in 3DGS.

First, I create a cube with 128 (I don't know what kind of measurement system DeleD use but I'm just have to call it "quants") in width, 128 quants in length, and 128 quants in height.

Since each of the small squares equal to 64 quants in width/length/height, I choose Move, then for the top view, I enter 64 for the X, then I click OK to move the block. If I have to do this in World Editor (WED) then I will have to open the properties dialog box and enter the values. Of course, the tab order in properties is nor in a correct order but no problem when I get to properties located on the lower-right hand corner of DeleD.

Next comes the scaling part on which I can scale a block. For the absolute value which is chosen by default, I've noticed that when I set the X vallue to 2, the block shrinks down (in width) to make it look thin. So I undo it by doing Ctrl+Z, then I tried 64. Since the size of the block is about 64, the width of the block gets scaled down by helf. However, if I chose 256, the block gets scaled 2 times in width. If I choose 64 after I scale it to 256, the block gets scaled down by 1/4 in width. So, to get it the way I want it, I've chosen 640 for the width, 384 for the height, and 640 for the depth, then I click OK. If I click OK, then nothing changes so I leave it there.

Then comes to hollow the block. So, I click Hollow, but nothing happens, and I didn't notice that there's a property for segment depth. Since I've assumed that the small square equals to 64 in quants, I've chosen 64 then I clicki OK. What I have noticed is hollowing the block looked a little different than in 3DGS' WED. To get the floor to the way I want it along with the walls, I select the floor, then I click in Scene, I select "user defined 7", then I right-click to choose Properties to look in the Properties Inspecter since I don't know how many quants are in width and depth, even though I know that the height of the floor is 64. So, I look in the Property Inspector and I saw that it's width/depth is 640. So, to scale the block to match the size of the room, I go to Create/Edit, select Scale, then for the width/depth, I enter 768 because 640 + 128 is 768. Then I do the same thing with the ceiling. So I select the top part, then click OK to confirm the scale.

Then, I go for the wall but this time, I'm going for the edge more to close out the corners of the room. So, I select either of the walls, then I use the move command in the Edge mode to make it fit to the corner of the room. Then I do the steps with the other walls. However, I can't be able to select another block while I'm in edge mode, so to select another wall to match the other wall's edge, I have to choose the object mode, select the wall, then the edge mode, then continue to work in the walls. There's another issue on getting the edge to make it fully closed with no gaps and that is the edge didn't snap to grid. But the primitives get snapped to grid once I add a primitive like a cube. So, I may have to give up in DeleD since in 3DGS' WED, creating a block and going to Edit then Hollow block is a lot easier in WED than in DeleD.

But in WED, if I were to scale the block to the way I want it, then scaling the block can be unpredictable uniess I look at the size of the block in numbers. So if the orginal block is sized at 128x128x128 and I want to get to 640x384x640 (although the corridenate system is different than DeleD so in this cals it's 640x640x384), then I will have to do some math by using a calculator, since I have to do it in decimal. For example, 640/128 is 5 so I ener 5 for the X. Then 384/128 is 3 so I enter 3 for Z, and 5 for Y. But in DeleD, with the absolute values selected, math is not involved for me.
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The tool used to develop games:
3D GameStudio - A6

[dirkk]

wow - that was a long one.

So you have good reasons to prefer DeleD over WED, this is understood. Can you point me to some references concerning the import features or to the file formats?

[GraysonPeddie]

Actually, my previous post is for DeleD, not for 3DGS. While DeleD can export .X, WED can import .map files only. So if there's a .map exporter for DeleD, I can be able to import .map files into WED, while obeying to the BSP (binary space partition, used for creating indoor levels).

And I forgot to make a summary for my previous post...

Even though it can take a lot of time to create a hollowed room in DeleD, in WED, it is quick and easy to do. All I have to do is I do to Object, Add Cube, then Large, scale the block to what size I want, then go to Edit, then Hollow. The block will be hollowed automatically.
_________________
The tool used to develop games:
3D GameStudio - A6

[dirkk]

You can do this in DeleD, too?

- Create a cube
- Select it by shift clicking it
- select 'Hollow' in the Edit Menu to the right
- select a segment depth in the hollow properties
- click ok.

There you are!

[Jeroen]

@ GraysonPeddie: I think you need to look at the manual to see what other options there are in DeleD. I see you are using the command property windows a lot to perform actions (like the scaling of parts of a hollowed cube for example) but lots of these actions can be done much easier by using the mouse.

For example, if a cube you've drawn does not have the correct dimensions, I would go into Polygon mode and select the Move command. Then click right beside the polygon you wisht to move and voila, you're done. The effect of scaling can be achieved easily like this too. The same goes for selecting objects. You can always use ALT+leftmouse to select objects in whatever mode you are.

It's all in the manual summarized in just a few pages.