Spring IDE

[Agon]

Hello all,

I'm working on a game which will use the spring engine.
Because I'm a Linux user I miss some tools under Linux like UpSpring (yeah, I know it should theoretical work under Linux), a good animation tool and a model/texture converter.

I thought: "Hey other engine have world editors or sound editors and such things. Why don't we have something like this?" We have many tools spread across the Internet. Some lag on features, some are old and have no Linux support.

Hm, maybe time for a IDE for Spring?

So I'm going to ask: "Are there interest in an IDE for Spring?"

Q: Yeah, what do you understand under an IDE for Spring?
A: Mainly this:
Model/Texture converters supporting different in- and outputs.
Model viewer/editor.
Animation tool.
Script editor (Lua, Cob, FBI, and how they all are named).
And some more things.
All collected in an IDE and linked together for easy use by mod/game developers.

Basically I thought of this usage of tools:
C# with .Net/Mono due cross platform compatibly on Windows, Linux, Mac OS.
Using WinForms and OpenGL (Tao bindings or OpenTK).
For customizing from game/mod developer Lua like CAEdit does but maybe using a CLI compiler for Lua.
And usage of addins through Mono.Addins.

Also a plus point for C# is as far as I can remember that Jcnossen is/was working on a terrain renderer for CommandEngine in C# which supports the Spring engine terrain formats.
So we can 'steal' from him, if he allows.

And we can use parts of CAEdit and SpringDownloader for publishing content directly from the IDE.

[SinbadEV]

I absolutely love this idea...

I think it has been healthy thus-far to have a disparate set of tools devoted to various features but it has become burdensome for people to "get into" developing for spring because of it.

A script editor/compiler is something I feel we have never had as Scriptor is neither open source nor easy to use.

I would like, if you (or a team of Y'all) DO do this that you go all the way.

I see it as a Visual Studio style product where you have a "project" that is a full game and collects various assests (models, scripts, textures, sounds) and exports them as an sdz or sd7 or SDD and creates an .SDD and executes it with spring when you press F5 to "compile and run"... with support for mods/mutators within the project...

I can't really offer any coding help but I'm willing to help you with documentation and the like.

[Hoi]

Nice idea, but I think that a new model format is likely to come in one of the following releases, so you might have to change the program to work with that by then, but this sounds great an will make stuff much easyer, especially if you dont have to code scripting but can do it with checkboxes, ect.

also, a request: animation preview.

[BrainDamage]

i think that your effords could be better spent, like:

Model/Texture converters supporting different in- and outputs.
Model viewer/editor.
Animation tool.

a simple working model import/export plugin for one the most popular free 3d editors would suffice (wings or blender?), would be much easier to use, would avoid for modders to deal with another program and would take care of all the previous tasks togheter inside their 3D editor, not to mention it would be 300 times more powerful than anything you'd write from scratch since it could use the native functions of the modeler program.

For the texture converter, you could write a GUI for the direct draw texture converter.

Script editor:
there are and have been "holy wars" about the ideal text editor for coders which resulted in thousands of projects be available already for every platform; since BOS & COB will be replaceable in next version by lua a compiler/decompiler would not be necessary anymore, then only a plain text editor with project support would be needed for the lua scripts (there are plenty around)

[Hoi]

Script editor:
there are and have been "holy wars" about the ideal text editor for coders which resulted in thousands of projects be available already for every platform; since BOS & COB will be replaceable in next version by lua a compiler/decompiler would not be necessary anymore, then only a plain text editor with project support would be needed for the lua scripts (there are plenty around)

Bos & cob will still be compatible I assume? is there any more info on this? will skeletal animation work?

[trepan]

Who replaced bos/cob with lua? I haven't committed
any of the work I've done, nor is it likely that I shall.

[Agon]

I absolutely love this idea...

I think it has been healthy thus-far to have a disparate set of tools devoted to various features but it has become burdensome for people to "get into" developing for spring because of it.

A script editor/compiler is something I feel we have never had as Scriptor is neither open source nor easy to use.

I would like, if you (or a team of Y'all) DO do this that you go all the way.

I see it as a Visual Studio style product where you have a "project" that is a full game and collects various assests (models, scripts, textures, sounds) and exports them as an sdz or sd7 or SDD and creates an .SDD and executes it with spring when you press F5 to "compile and run"... with support for mods/mutators within the project...

I can't really offer any coding help but I'm willing to help you with documentation and the like.

Exactly what I thought. An IDE like VS.

@BrainDamage: True but an IDE that shorten the develop time due wizards and scripts which do things automatic like CAEdit does is better.
And for beginners much easier to understand and get in.
Creating export plugins for Blender would be good but not every one uses Blender or Wings3D. And you would need to update the plugins with each new version...
The script addin could also have hints and tips and includes code completion and such things. Which a normal editor does not have or you need to implement it.

And the IDE would not be for hard core programmer which only use an editor with syntax highlighting or Vim.

[Das Bruce]

Over, above and before any other abilities it should first have a simple text editor and V.S./CodeBlocks/generic ide file organisation ability. That lack of easy organisation and overview has got to be the main thing that is slowing me down.

And yes, bold was necessary.

[Agon]

We could 'steal' from Monodevelop the MSBuild project code (licensed under MIT)
which enables the ability to use the project file with VS, MD and SharpDevelop.
It should be able to handle custom file/data types.

I will take a look later what we can use and how.
But before we should collect suggest and arguments.

[Hoi]

1: It should be an all in one package, it should be the only thing you need besides a program for modeling and texturing
2: It should be able to load atleast .wings .3ds .max and blender (dunno extention) files
3:as you said, script editor (Lua, Cob, Fbi)
4:Include basic stuff to start with, eg some sound effects

How it should work:

-Create/Select modfolder (.sdd)
|
|
\/
Import model
|------>(model will always be shown in upspring like way)
| ----->set radius, orgins, model hight, ect.
\/
import texture(s)
|------> should be auto converted to .dds when saving?
|------>teamcolor changing in the program?
\/
Corpse
|------>AUTOGENERATE CORPSE!?
|------>Import corpse model+texture
\/
(create)Fbi
|----->explain
|----->should work in a visual way, with checkboxes, ect, but should also be availible manual
\/
Import/create animation
|----->explain
|----->should work in a visual way, with checkboxes, ect, but should also be availible manual
\/
Weapons
|----->explain
|----->should work in a visual way, with checkboxes, ect, but should also be availible manual
|----->preview
\/
Import/Add sounds
|----->explain
|----->preview
\/
The unit is done!
|
|
\/
All stuff is saved in the right file/directory
\/
A button like test my unit/mod now! would be great.
\/
program should also be able to work with stuff like sidedata.tdf, ect

[Agon]

Yeah, Hoi like this.
But importing .wings, .3ds and .blend files is a bit much.
A general model format should be enough first.

Created a small early design doc:


Also possible could be SVN/Git support.

Will search for possible libraries/tools which could be used to solve some features.

[Hoi]

Then let's use .3ds files as they save some hiearchy and .obj files don't.
Also please don't let it work like the damn upspring with the texture/model check, when upspring sees a file is being modified it trys to load it, becaus of that ps can't save and everything crashes....
And would autogenerate corpse be realistic?

[Das Bruce]

That's a big list, you're going to want to split it up into stages so you don't get overwhelmed.

[Agon]

That's a big list, you're going to want to split it up into stages so you don't get overwhelmed.

Yeah, huge list.
The IDE will be mainly a set of addins.

I think I will start with the basic project/solution handling and then a text editor.

Then let's use .3ds files as they save some hiearchy and .obj files don't.
Also please don't let it work like the damn upspring with the texture/model check, when upspring sees a file is being modified it trys to load it, becaus of that ps can't save and everything crashes....
And would autogenerate corpse be realistic?

Auto generate corpses would be possible but would look ugly.
A script could turn the texture into gray and move the vertexes randomly in 3D space but a custom self made would look 100% better. And such a feature is really not that big necessary.

I need to find a library which can load .3ds or .obj file types. If I can't find such libraries I need to write the algorithm to load a file by myself. I remember that I read some there that it is possible to use .obj with hierarchy.

Ah yeah and any help would be welcome

[Hoi]

Get the lib out of upspring?

[FLOZi]

TA managed without an IDE perfectly fine.

yeah, it's a nice idea and if someone does it and its good i'll probably use it - but i won't hold my breath.

[SinbadEV]

why did you use a pdf format to publish a bulleted list? When I get bored I'll look at it again but you're missing a versioning control support for projects with multiple members (SVN or that kind of thing)... also... there's this project called "Dev CPP" that's an open source IDE... I don't know how salvageable any component of it is (especially since you're aiming for C# and it's programmed in C/C++) but if it's dynamically programmed enough it might be worth using as a start... or something similar.

[Agon]

Because every one can read pdf. And the wiki which is hosted here does not support formatted input.
I can upload it next time in an OpenOffice format if you like.

I want to use C# because you can have in short time a working application.
And it is my preferred language.

I can use parts from SharpDevelop (LGPL) and MonoDevelop (MIT).
But there should be a syntax highlighting editor widget for winforms somewhere.

[tberthel]

A plug-in for NetBeans and/or Eclipse should be sufficient.

Don't build a new IDE just a Spring specific plug-in

[Gnomre]

A script editor/compiler is something I feel we have never had as Scriptor is neither open source nor easy to use.

Scriptor is too open source.

Also, that "autogenerate corpse" thing sounds stupid unless you plan on implementing ragdolls into the engine. And in that case, the IDE wouldn't have anything to do with generating it anyway.