[TOOL] Overview previewer
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Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
Hey guys, just finished up a tool that let's you preview your overviews without having to leave the editor!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gayxbek2ixfjcdy/Overview Preview.zip
NEW LINK: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0o4vn2i9qr26ie0/Overview Preview.jar?dl=1
(And yes... that is a wip of the next build of temple... I know you guys were DYING to know...)
TO INSTALL:
-Place the .jar file inside your "Natural Selection 2" folder (NOT your "ns2" folder, it needs to be the folder that "overview.exe" is in).
-Create a new BAT file with this exact text (including the quotes):
-Click "Add", and set the title to whatever you want it to be.
-For "Command", use the "..." button to navigate to where you placed the .bat file, and choose that, THEN PLACE QUOTES around it, or else Spark will gripe at you.
-For "Arguments", use the ">" button and choose "Item Path", and then place quote marks around this one too.
Here's what mine looks like:
There you have it! There should now be a brand new tool for you under the "Tools" menu. Bear in mind it is slow, takes about 10-12 seconds for me; no faster than it is when you're running it from Builder. Overview.exe has to basically load up the whole map, generate the overview, save it to a temporary directory, then MY tool loads THAT image, displays it, and deletes the hard disk copy. Yes that last part is correct, this does NOT update the overview image that *should* be in your output folder, this is in effect JUST a previewer. You'll still need to use Builder to make your output folder copy as usual.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gayxbek2ixfjcdy/Overview Preview.zip
NEW LINK: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0o4vn2i9qr26ie0/Overview Preview.jar?dl=1
TO INSTALL:
-Place the .jar file inside your "Natural Selection 2" folder (NOT your "ns2" folder, it needs to be the folder that "overview.exe" is in).
-Create a new BAT file with this exact text (including the quotes):
"%~dp0\Overview Preview.jar" %1-Add the external tool to the editor by going to Tools -> External Tools...
-Click "Add", and set the title to whatever you want it to be.
-For "Command", use the "..." button to navigate to where you placed the .bat file, and choose that, THEN PLACE QUOTES around it, or else Spark will gripe at you.
-For "Arguments", use the ">" button and choose "Item Path", and then place quote marks around this one too.
Here's what mine looks like:
There you have it! There should now be a brand new tool for you under the "Tools" menu. Bear in mind it is slow, takes about 10-12 seconds for me; no faster than it is when you're running it from Builder. Overview.exe has to basically load up the whole map, generate the overview, save it to a temporary directory, then MY tool loads THAT image, displays it, and deletes the hard disk copy. Yes that last part is correct, this does NOT update the overview image that *should* be in your output folder, this is in effect JUST a previewer. You'll still need to use Builder to make your output folder copy as usual.
Comments
WIll give this a whirl tonight!
"I couldn't get the previewer to work" :P
LIAR!
Not exactly sure what you're asking here, but all this utility does is run Overview.exe and display the output of it. If the output is bad... it's on your map's-end, not mine.
Just checked it, seems to work fine over here.
alot of errors for shader missing technique for rendering light on a huge loop
also unable to load mining light illum red also
Really? A TGA file never appears in there?
Antivirus discovered malicious software attached to the zip file.
Which AV software is that? All that's in there is a jar and bat to run it. No malware in there.
EDIT: What the hell? Yea I'm getting the malicious software warning from Chrome. Does anybody know what can cause this? It's uploaded to my personal dropbox... not sure how anyone else could have access to that.
EDIT2: It's also doing it for my quick arc range thing.
My Antivirus application on one machine is ESET Smart Security 7.0
On my 2nd machine it's Avast.
Both warned about malicious software attached.
I do by no means want to cause trouble I only just really want to use your tool as looks great and it will save me the trouble of opening up photoshop or the game to check the overview.
I think this is something that should have been build into the editor in the first place.
I will try to unzip the file in a sandbox machine for now.
In their defense, the editor is part of the engine, not the game per-say. Theoretically, not every game that uses spark will use overviews... though we have yet to see a spark engine game not use overviews (ns2... combat... ?...)
the map in its current state is not a functional ns2 map, i can run it in ns2 and explore it but it isnt set up to work with all the res nodes tech points and locations etc..
It was working before like a week ago but now wont.
Ooooh wait a minute. YOU delete the folder? It's supposed to get rid of that automatically. So you're saying it's leaving an empty folder behind? Hmmm... this could indicate an error is stopping the program before it gets to that point... interesting...
Hmm... I've noticed that overview.exe has been crashing again on exit like before... but it still works for me. Wonder if that could be causing you problems.
How about Proving Grounds and GorgeCraft? Neither of those have maps or minimaps, os neither use overviews...
It hangs since build 268. The error message is "unable to queue job" (from builder) or something like that.
It still render properly the overview image. With a little difference though. It seems sharper. Maybe it crashes before a blur effect (as last operation), dunno.
I haven't run it since 269 came out, I'll give it a look.
EDIT: Working fine over here.