The Spark Editor
Fortune
Join Date: 2009-04-27 Member: 67290Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2009-04-27 Member: 67290Members, Constellation
Holy freaking yes!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We're also getting ready to release our "Spark" level editor. It will everything you need to start making NS2 levels and also to get a closer look at the dynamic lighting, art and tech in the game. In November we will be sending e-mail with download instructions to everyone that has pre-ordered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was excited for this more than anything else...
So who else is going to try their map craft?
I hope they give us an overview of general gameplay mechanics, I figured if they gave us the editor with the alpha we could play the game, get the feel for it before we map for it, but I guess not. Unless of course we only have access to the design part of making, to make a shell of a level.
Still... just give me access to that engine already, I've craved long enough.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We're also getting ready to release our "Spark" level editor. It will everything you need to start making NS2 levels and also to get a closer look at the dynamic lighting, art and tech in the game. In November we will be sending e-mail with download instructions to everyone that has pre-ordered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was excited for this more than anything else...
So who else is going to try their map craft?
I hope they give us an overview of general gameplay mechanics, I figured if they gave us the editor with the alpha we could play the game, get the feel for it before we map for it, but I guess not. Unless of course we only have access to the design part of making, to make a shell of a level.
Still... just give me access to that engine already, I've craved long enough.
Comments
I was excited for this more than anything else...
So who else is going to try their map craft?
I hope they give us an overview of general gameplay mechanics, I figured if they gave us the editor with the alpha we could play the game, get the feel for it before we map for it, but I guess not. Unless of course we only have access to the design part of making, to make a shell of a level.
Still... just give me access to that engine already, I've craved long enough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
your telling me i want to also
But I don't think it will be too long before we get our hands on the editor (I hope).
I want to make maps ;__;
I was excited for this more than anything else...
So who else is going to try their map craft?
I hope they give us an overview of general gameplay mechanics, I figured if they gave us the editor with the alpha we could play the game, get the feel for it before we map for it, but I guess not. Unless of course we only have access to the design part of making, to make a shell of a level.
Still... just give me access to that engine already, I've craved long enough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sure the level design documents will have quite a bit to say about certain gameplay mechanics...We'll need lots of detail regarding the power grid, for example.
It would certainly be nice to have the alpha as well, but it's not entirely necessary to start out...as long as we have plenty of info in the design docs, such as sizes of all the units, jump height, time to run from a hive to marine start, etc., we should be fine (NS1 mapping guidelines were informative, I expect these will be as well)
Looking forward to the map tools release!
Should be fun :D!
Can't wait.
I am very much pumped to be able to see my lighting effects without a compile. There's definitely going to be a whole lot less time sitting around waiting for compiles to finish to see what your map looks like.
While I originally thought that we would be given the tools and alpha at the same time, I now think that we will have some kind of NS2TR allowing us to venture around our maps. And hopefully we will be given marine, skulk, and onos size models to play around with for dimension purposes.
Unfortunately it looks like content (meaning textures, props...) will be relatively limited to begin with, but alas I'm just itching to do some mapping again.
For real for real.
I think there'll be a bunch of nice props to play around with. It'll surely be an inspiration for custom ones if everything doesn't suit our needs.
I've got kind of high hopes for 'spark' editor. I hope it's easy to play around with, I've always found hammer to be simple, but terribly stiff with the brush way of things. I hope its a mix between hammer and a modeling tool.
We'll see...
Edit> Its gonna be nice having an active mapping forum too. I'm still here because of the ns1's mapping forum, was the best place on the internet.
Will be great not to compile, and the screen shots look very impressive.
This is why I pre-ordered.
Hopefully all these questions will be answered next month-----NOVEMBER---- when they say they will release them :)
Keep up the great work NS2 team!
Cant wait^^
So here's to hoping that the builder is so simple, it's as easy to make maps out of Lego than it is in the engine! :D
Now imagination doesn't have to be limited by cack-handedness.
might be an idea to look in to this before commiting to spark as a name:
<a href="http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=300" target="_blank">http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=300</a>
There's still a big difference between doing a fly-through of the level viewer and actually walking around in the level from the viewpoint of a player...the issue here is scaling, which is very important to make your environment look right. I spent quite a bit of time this past summer working on a Left 4 Dead campaign (unreleased) and there were many areas I had to do over because they didn't work in the game...For example, one of my maps ended up being about twice as long as the longest map in any official campaign, and I didn't really have a good indicator of how long it really was until I was in the game, and could measure the distance through the nav tools.
There's definitely a lot we can do with just the editor, but we will eventually need the capability to run around inside the level.
I guess discussing this over the weekend is a bit pointless though, probably have to wait until monday before they can answer.
Totally, I hope I can get something sorted out once I get my paws on the tools though :D
You'll get quite a reasonable amount of environment art with the editor.
Max has done a really amazing job with it. Once you get your head around it, it's really simple to use and you can get something looking great really quickly. Lighting in particular is a doddle thanks to the realtime editing.
I've been looking around, in which video cast did you spot this?
<!--quoteo(post=0:date='Oct 31 2009, 02:07 PM:name=Insane)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Insane @ 'Oct 31 2009, 02:07 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lighting in particular is a doddle thanks to the realtime editing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What about atmospheric lighting and all? Do you see the cool lighting effects like on the lighting video cast?
Guess we'll all find that out soon enough, but this has got me really thinking!
Max has done a really amazing job with it. Once you get your head around it, it's really simple to use and you can get something looking great really quickly. Lighting in particular is a doddle thanks to the realtime editing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's exciting, my major gripe about Source is the lighting, sure it can look awesome... but only after hours of tweaking. Unreal improves on this but there's always that damn compile.
Also is the editor mainly prop orientated like Unreal, with the shell being brush in some instances, or can you include a lot of brushes to make up the majority of the level?
Oh Yeah! haha it got a bit mixed up but you got the point! That's very nice to know.
[i've fix the quotes above for proper reading]
Yeah but how easy/intuitive is it to optimize ?