Desolation

[Orfelius]

Instead of talking crap on this forum criticizing others' works I actually finally made a map myself (like for real this time not another Red Comet remake ughh).

Desolation



It is a 1v1 map with this *crafty* style to it. That is mostly because of Forb and his late 2 maps for evo quite inspired me, so I made a similar map myself.



However this one was almost entirely made in Scened (besides the mirroring parts and metalmap).
So many thanks Gajop you are the real hero here since that made my work very very easy.

It will probably also receive some features, metalspots and skybox in the near future and maaaybe some shader stuff, if the map will prove to be popular enough to motivate me.

Constructive criticism as always welcome

[gajop]

Wow, people actually making stuff with Scened, that's great to see =)
Maybe those hills could use a bit more leveling+smoothing?
Playability wise it looks interesting for 1v1s

What I'm more interested is to hear your experiences with Scened and how it could be improved.

[Forboding Angel]

You can actually make full maps in scened now? Nice!

Also, I like your layout! The only thing I dislike is that it seems like the highground isn't much higher than the main playing field. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. I need to try it before passing any sort of decent judgement on it.

Nice work!

Edit: Now clone featureplacer and start adding some features!
Featureplacer: https://github.com/forbodingangel/featureplacer (Also available via rapid fp:latest <<< I think)

For easy access to shitloads of features, grab spring features (available via rapid - sf:latest ). You can easily add sf as a dependency in mapinfo.lua


Forum screws up the tabbing, but meh:

Examples of proper dependency usage:

Game calling this archive as dependency:
return {
name='Balanced Annihilation V7.31',
description='Moooooo!',
shortname='BA',
version='V7.31',
mutator='Official',
game='Total Annihilation',
shortGame='TA',
modtype=1,
depend= {
-- Number of other content names this one replaces
"Spring Features 1.0"
},
}

Map calling this archive as a dependency:
local mapinfo = {
name = "Comet",
mapfile = "maps/Comet Catcher Redux.smf",
depend = {
"Spring Features 1.0",
},
}

FWIW, my self imposed guidelines for making "crafty" maps is detailed in this post:
viewtopic.php?f=81&t=33580#p570463

[Anarchid]

Scened has featureplacer format exporting, and does a better job at placing features than featureplacer does.

I think featureplacer can be deprecated.

I think Orf won't be able to use feature dependencies reasonably until ZKL is ... dealt with.

[gajop]

You can actually make full maps in scened now? Nice!

You can't edit spec/detail/normal/etc. maps so it's still limited. Nothing stops you to do it in other tools, which is also how the Gravitas map was made.

Scened has featureplacer format exporting, and does a better job at placing features than featureplacer does.

I think featureplacer can be deprecated.

This.
I haven't done a comparison recently between Scened and FP but I think Scened is a better editor (supports: undo, redo, copy, paste, move, rotate, delete, multiple placement, etc.) and if you're already using it for map making, it makes little sense to use FP too.

SF is where common work should continue imo.

[Orfelius]

The only problem with scened I have found (regarding placing features) is that I can't mirror design my features onto another side. Never used featureplacer (or done anything with features at all tbh) but I intend to do so!

Scened is awesome and quite easy to use if you know the keys *wink wink*

I do not like the whole idea of using dependencies honestly and that has nothing to do about ZKL being ZKL.

This map was pretty much: "I have Scened working now I guess I should make a map now since all my excuses faded away." thus I had no real plan of how I want this map to look and play like and it stolen me a lot of time just because of trial and error factor. Now that I actually know what the heck I want I will probably scrap current progress and remake it from the blank state.
The reason why there is a little difference between map levels is that I wanted vehicles to have easier access to plateaus.

Btw: Springfeatures 1.1 is dreadful I do not know if it is just Scened fault but it includes some TA wrecks and scraps (for some reason), about 10 completely broken features (as in placing them results in placing a generic engine tree), some poorly scaled features (such as ferns and grass) and also some duplicates (each facing other direction which is useless for featureplacer and scened since they can just rotate them). Sorry Forb I just had to express my opinion >.>

[smoth]

Scened has featureplacer format exporting, and does a better job at placing features than featureplacer does.

Does it have randomized placers? Clustering and spread?

I think featureplacer can be deprecated.

That would be nice to know but I have not heard that from gajop yet.

I think Orf won't be able to use feature dependencies reasonably until ZKL is ... dealt with.

I didn't make that. The constant woes of having someone fork my code and others mistaking it for my project. so be clear forb's fork or my code.

[FLOZi]

I think featureplacer can be deprecated.

That would be nice to know but I have not heard that from gajop yet.

Two posts above your own.

[Anarchid]

I didn't make that

I don't blame you for ZKL

[smoth]

I didn't make the spring features archive.

Flozi: last I talked to him he said the placement in Scened was not the same and to continue on FP... I messaged him privately about it to see what he feels I should do. I don't want to waste time on a redundant toolset to fluff my resume'

[Forboding Angel]

Btw: Springfeatures 1.1 is dreadful I do not know if it is just Scened fault but it includes some TA wrecks and scraps (for some reason), about 10 completely broken features (as in placing them results in placing a generic engine tree), some poorly scaled features (such as ferns and grass) and also some duplicates (each facing other direction which is useless for featureplacer and scened since they can just rotate them). Sorry Forb I just had to express my opinion >.>

It only includes what you tell it to include. Spring features does not include any ta content of any kind, so either you're including it via secened or via your map. Did you add ba as a dependency or something?

Code: Select all

		-- The name is shown in the selection interface
		game = "Spring Features",
		shortGame = "Features",
		name = "Spring Features",
		shortName = "Features",
		version = "$VERSION",
		mutator = "Official",
		-- These can be shown by the selection interface
		description = "This is a support archive containing all of the features available for spring. Games can add this package as a dependency so that featureplacer can be used by mappers to create maps that are smaller in filesize and more feature rich.",
		url = "http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=25752",
		-- What kind of mod this is 
		--  0 - Hidden (support mod that can't be selected, such as OTA_textures) 
		--  1 - Normal, only one can be selected at a time 
		--  2 - Addon, any number of these can be selected. Could be used 
		--      for single units for example. 
		--  others - perhaps mutators and addon races that can be 
		--           enabled in addition to xta for example? 
		modtype = "0",
		-- Number of other archives this one depends on 
		depend= {
			-- Number of other content names this one replaces
		},

[Forboding Angel]

I think Orf won't be able to use feature dependencies reasonably until ZKL is ... dealt with.

I didn't make that. The constant woes of having someone fork my code and others mistaking it for my project. so be clear forb's fork or my code.

I'm getting tired of you saying that I forked it. I didn't fork shit. I took what you put into evo and made it standalone. That is not a fork. I didn't change shit, I just unbundled it from evo.

Later on funkencool added some chili gui stuff to make it easier to work with, but it was not a "Fork". I was simply making it usable for people who didn't want to have to have evo in order to use featureplacer.

Scened has featureplacer format exporting, and does a better job at placing features than featureplacer does.

Does it have randomized placers? Clustering and spread?

Until it has these, Scened will be an inferior way of placing features.

[gajop]

The only problem with scened I have found (regarding placing features) is that I can't mirror design my features onto another side. Never used featureplacer (or done anything with features at all tbh) but I intend to do so!

Some sort of symmetric is planned for the next release.

Scened is awesome and quite easy to use if you know the keys *wink wink*

UI won't receive polishing until all features have been added.

I do not like the whole idea of using dependencies honestly and that has nothing to do about ZKL being ZKL.

Dependencies are at the core of the design and it allows for a far easier development process. They shouldn't be visible to the end user (map maker).

Springfeatures 1.1 is dreadful

I think you're talking about this again: https://github.com/gajop/Scenario-Editor-Core/issues/82
Let me try to answer all these concerns:

I do not know if it is just Scened fault but it includes some TA wrecks and scraps (for some reason)

Probably not a SF issue. If you're using Scened BA, it's likely to contain a number of wrecks/scraps from BA as those are technically features that make sense to place if one's making a map/scenario for a specific game.

about 10 completely broken features (as in placing them results in placing a generic engine tree)

Not a SF issue. These are engine features and there are issues rendering them using the same logic as for all other features.
I'm actually of the opinion that engine shouldn't have any features so fixing this is really not a priority.

To summarize, Scened uses features from: 1) Spring Features, 2) specific game (e.g. BA in Scened BA, ZK in Scened ZK, etc.), 3) engine, so your issues are not necessarily due to SF.

some poorly scaled features (such as ferns and grass) and also some duplicates (each facing other direction which is useless for featureplacer and scened since they can just rotate them).

Make a list of those features, go to SF github and make issues: https://github.com/ForbodingAngel/sprin ... res/issues

Does it have randomized placers? Clustering and spread?

No.

Until it has these, Scened will be an inferior way of placing features.

I don't think so. Usability wise, I've tried FP now, and it doesn't even work well with BA or MCL, in the case of BA it doesn't spawn any tree, and with MCL it just crashes the loader.
As far as functionality goes, I think I mentioned the things Scened has that makes it fundamentally a better editor

supports: undo, redo, copy, paste, move, rotate, delete, multiple placement, etc.

that said, I'd like to here your input on what a randomized placer, clustering and spread should do (or however else it can be improved).
It's easy to add most of these things probably, but I also don't want to make an overcomplicated, programmer-designed UI as an end result.

The main issue Scened had previously was the lack of an exporter to the FP format, but now that it exists, I don't think there's a reason to stay with FP.

Regarding FP rapid, there's this at least: feature-placer:revision:21

[smoth]

forked, branched, made an alternate version. Whatever. It is a version outside of my repo.

I make code, you make new repo with a version, that version gets altered.

I am not interested in semantics, there is a divergent version outside of my repo that I cannot control. There is a version I have to jump through a hoop to update.
*edit*
I am going to explain a few things right now about feature placer, it's goals, where it was going to go etc in another thread. Don't expect a long write up, I am tired of derailing threads about this project that I really want to forget it ever existed at this point.

[Forboding Angel]

Does it have randomized placers? Clustering and spread?

No.

Until it has these, Scened will be an inferior way of placing features.

I don't think so. Usability wise, I've tried FP now, and it doesn't even work well with BA or MCL, in the case of BA it doesn't spawn any tree, and with MCL it just crashes the loader.
As far as functionality goes, I think I mentioned the things Scened has that makes it fundamentally a better editor

supports: undo, redo, copy, paste, move, rotate, delete, multiple placement, etc.

that said, I'd like to here your input on what a randomized placer, clustering and spread should do (or however else it can be improved).
It's easy to add most of these things probably, but I also don't want to make an overcomplicated, programmer-designed UI as an end result.

The main issue Scened had previously was the lack of an exporter to the FP format, but now that it exists, I don't think there's a reason to stay with FP.

Regarding FP rapid, there's this at least: feature-placer:revision:21

Why the heck are you calling FP as a dependency? -_- It is a standalone module. The only thing you should be doing is running fp as though it were a game, the map calls the dependencies, if you want to call sf and ba or mcl or whatever as a map dep while you're building it then that is fine, but fp is not meant to be called as a dep of anything -_-

I think you need to spend some time getting familiar with it, and using it before you start crapping on it, cause atm you aren't even attempting to use it right.


Without Randomized features, using scened means taking 3 times as long to place features.

[gajop]

Why the heck are you calling FP as a dependency? -_- It is a standalone module. The only thing you should be doing is running fp as though it were a game, the map calls the dependencies, if you want to call sf and ba or mcl or whatever as a map dep while you're building it then that is fine, but fp is not meant to be called as a dep of anything -_-

I think you need to spend some time getting familiar with it, and using it before you start crapping on it, cause atm you aren't even attempting to use it right.

I blame skim reading. What I did was the opposite - I added SF and FP and dependencies in a different mod, where in fact you wanted me to add SF as a dependency of FP and run it like that. I'll try again tonight though.

[Forboding Angel]

NO!

Run FP standalone, SF should be a dep of your MAP!

Edit: Scened needs this: https://github.com/ForbodingAngel/Featu ... atures.lua

Edit2: And if you did it the right way and are using fp as an sdd, you can add your own random spawners too.

PSA, the buildpics for the randomizers don't work because for whatever reason the unitdef "buildPic" tag refuses to work with png and I haven't had time to figure out which format to use to unfuck it (probably bmp because spring -_-).

Edit3: Nope buildPic tag doesn't work with any format. Yay.

[gajop]

NO!

Run FP standalone, SF should be a dep of your MAP!

Ah ok, well probably the same thing if I just want to test it out!

Edit: Scened needs this: https://github.com/ForbodingAngel/Featu ... atures.lua

Edit2: And if you did it the right way and are using fp as an sdd, you can add your own random spawners too.

Regarding spawners, randomfeatures.lua looks like a good way to make feature categories, which is what I wanted for a while, but I only plan to randomly generate features while the user is placing them on the map. Basically I want it to act as a "foliage brush".
That is, I don't want these features to be randomly chosen on each map start. I assume you don't do that, but I just want to be clear since I saw files like rand0adbush.lua

[Forboding Angel]

They aren't randomly chosen on game start. They are defined in the config I linked to earlier.

The random spawner units are build menu items, so if you select a random spawner, every time you click, it will place a feature from that specific table in the config.

This is how I get such nice foliage on my maps. I don't lay that shit by hand. I have a bunch of predefined random spawners that allow me to just shift click all over the place, and PRESTO! Randomized foliage.

[gajop]

Alright, good, we agree on that then. Those categories are definitely a start, but it would be a lot more powerful if I can make a brush out of it.
Is clustering and spread what you use for placing multiple features? I currently just have it hardcoded.