Spark Editor: Some thoughts.
Dalin Seivewright
0x0000221E Join Date: 2007-10-20 Member: 62685Members, Constellation
0x0000221E Join Date: 2007-10-20 Member: 62685Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Jotted down some thoughts about the editor.</div>The editor seems more like a modeling tool than a level designer - and I'm not sure how I feel about that quite yet (although it seems nice). Making simple rooms is the easiest task in the world. Everything else seems to have complications attached to them right now. In only a few minutes of working with the editor, I somehow managed to break a wall (as seen in the linked image). Nothing I seemed to do to fix it (moving it around, extruding, crying...). It wasn't a particularly complex wall but anywas, I ended up deleting the face and attempted a repair. This was no simple task.
The "create face" feature seems to only work with a maximum of 4 edges. which while it may speed up production of a simple room, isn't that great for more complex brush work (I know the editor doesn't really have brushes but I'm just familiar with using that terminology). On the selected wall in the linked image, there are approximately 7 edges that I can select and try the "create face" tool with. This however displays no results (No face is created at all, not even flipped the wrong way around). I figured it may not like that one of the edges was on an angle, so I simplified a bit and tried to create a face from the bottom, left, and right edges. It seems that it won't "auto fill" the rest of the face by creating a line from the end-points of the selected edges. I then tried a rectangle tool on the edges I selected. It didn't create a face for me but I decided to try the create face tool on the edges of that rectangle - and voila, the bottom half of my wall was fixed. The upper part was similar although it required a face flip.
Duplication level geometry can be pain - especially if the geometry you want to duplicate is extruded outside the level. For example, I wanted a light socket, so I made a rectanglular face and extruded it outwards slightly, then extruded a circle inside of that. Then, I created a border aroudn the rectangle and extruded inwards towards the level. I initially tried to just copy+paste the geometry and move this light to the opposite wall but the engine didn't cut a hole in the wall - which of course, why would it? Instead of manually cutting a hole, I just gave up and went to work on other parts of my room. In theory though, cutting a hole might be a tad difficult when you want to avoid Z-Fighting. This is due to how there seems to be multiple vertices and edges and they never get welded together when they should. For example, I think an extruded piece of floor that touches a wall should have the edges+vertices that touch that wall welded to it - or at least allow us the option of this. Because of the way the extrude currently works, if you extruded incorrectly, you can block your view into the level completely.
Similar problems to the above happen when using the line and rectangular tool - sometimes they just don't work properly. I can't count how many times already that I've made a rectangle in a wall only to have it appear but not remove the part of the wall tht it is covering. I don't know what the tool is supposed to do, but it seems like it supposed to remove the bit of the wall the rectangle is made at and have it create a seperate surface there. It doesn't seem to do this in all cases and the end result is the new rectangle fighting with the old rectangle. This seems to happen a lot when you use either tool in the viscinity of another edge that is already cut into a wall. I.E. If you made a rectangle 32 units from the ground and then another rectangle 8 units above that (or touching it). Seems to be related to how the Extrude tool works as well.
As mentioned in another topic, the ability to select multiple objects and edit common properties is really a must. I've already had a situation where I've had to create a lot of lights with a small radius in a long hole as well as for the reflection of that light above. Changing the color/intensity/radius of those lights is a real pain after you've finished placing them where you like. Mentioned in that same topic was a shortcut of Shift+Move to Duplicate an object automatically - this would be extremely useful.
I think that the Spark editor should at some point implement "Brushes" as another tool to use. Brushes would keep track of whether they're additive (like a column) or subtractive (like making a face and then extruding it downwards). This would allow the copy+paste of complex geomtetry that would integrate properly into other parts of the geometry without having to make cuts. This is probably more required of BSP geometry (I don't know what you guys are using) but I think a solution could be developed.
I'm not sure if its just because its the editor and there is no way to test what it looks like in-game, but the lights bleed through geometry if the radius is too large. This isn't necesarily a problem with a regular light, but it does cause some issues with the spotlight. All in all, the editor seems to be a very simple and yet extremely powerful tool. I look forward to perhaps making a quality map after a long time of not fiddling with such things. I'll look forward to all the patches leading up to the Alpha itself :D
PS: The editor definitely needs customization as far as movement+mouse sensitivity goes :D
The "create face" feature seems to only work with a maximum of 4 edges. which while it may speed up production of a simple room, isn't that great for more complex brush work (I know the editor doesn't really have brushes but I'm just familiar with using that terminology). On the selected wall in the linked image, there are approximately 7 edges that I can select and try the "create face" tool with. This however displays no results (No face is created at all, not even flipped the wrong way around). I figured it may not like that one of the edges was on an angle, so I simplified a bit and tried to create a face from the bottom, left, and right edges. It seems that it won't "auto fill" the rest of the face by creating a line from the end-points of the selected edges. I then tried a rectangle tool on the edges I selected. It didn't create a face for me but I decided to try the create face tool on the edges of that rectangle - and voila, the bottom half of my wall was fixed. The upper part was similar although it required a face flip.
Duplication level geometry can be pain - especially if the geometry you want to duplicate is extruded outside the level. For example, I wanted a light socket, so I made a rectanglular face and extruded it outwards slightly, then extruded a circle inside of that. Then, I created a border aroudn the rectangle and extruded inwards towards the level. I initially tried to just copy+paste the geometry and move this light to the opposite wall but the engine didn't cut a hole in the wall - which of course, why would it? Instead of manually cutting a hole, I just gave up and went to work on other parts of my room. In theory though, cutting a hole might be a tad difficult when you want to avoid Z-Fighting. This is due to how there seems to be multiple vertices and edges and they never get welded together when they should. For example, I think an extruded piece of floor that touches a wall should have the edges+vertices that touch that wall welded to it - or at least allow us the option of this. Because of the way the extrude currently works, if you extruded incorrectly, you can block your view into the level completely.
Similar problems to the above happen when using the line and rectangular tool - sometimes they just don't work properly. I can't count how many times already that I've made a rectangle in a wall only to have it appear but not remove the part of the wall tht it is covering. I don't know what the tool is supposed to do, but it seems like it supposed to remove the bit of the wall the rectangle is made at and have it create a seperate surface there. It doesn't seem to do this in all cases and the end result is the new rectangle fighting with the old rectangle. This seems to happen a lot when you use either tool in the viscinity of another edge that is already cut into a wall. I.E. If you made a rectangle 32 units from the ground and then another rectangle 8 units above that (or touching it). Seems to be related to how the Extrude tool works as well.
As mentioned in another topic, the ability to select multiple objects and edit common properties is really a must. I've already had a situation where I've had to create a lot of lights with a small radius in a long hole as well as for the reflection of that light above. Changing the color/intensity/radius of those lights is a real pain after you've finished placing them where you like. Mentioned in that same topic was a shortcut of Shift+Move to Duplicate an object automatically - this would be extremely useful.
I think that the Spark editor should at some point implement "Brushes" as another tool to use. Brushes would keep track of whether they're additive (like a column) or subtractive (like making a face and then extruding it downwards). This would allow the copy+paste of complex geomtetry that would integrate properly into other parts of the geometry without having to make cuts. This is probably more required of BSP geometry (I don't know what you guys are using) but I think a solution could be developed.
I'm not sure if its just because its the editor and there is no way to test what it looks like in-game, but the lights bleed through geometry if the radius is too large. This isn't necesarily a problem with a regular light, but it does cause some issues with the spotlight. All in all, the editor seems to be a very simple and yet extremely powerful tool. I look forward to perhaps making a quality map after a long time of not fiddling with such things. I'll look forward to all the patches leading up to the Alpha itself :D
PS: The editor definitely needs customization as far as movement+mouse sensitivity goes :D
Comments
Yeah... way too tired when I wrote that I guess. I would edit the original post but I don't want to reformat all of that :)
Brushes are way too blocky compared to what can be achieved with props.
1 to 10
1 being drawing lines in MS paint
and 10 being learning how to use an adobe product. (no tutorials :) )
Add hammer to the number line for comparasion please.
Hammer 3
I wish it was hammer just updated one. i love that tool so much. The thing about Hammer when u got it it is really easy to make maps.
Spark is simple as well but it is so limited in options it is very hard to work with it and it takes ages to make a simple room as i would make it in 1 min in hammer.
Hope updates will take all use full stuff from Hammer
There also seems to be a lack of right click functionality...