WA Editor Updates, Ideas & Suggestion Thread

[Lazy Loof]

EDITED (2021-08-11): This topic is now for any discussion related to OpenWA editor.

Here are our screenshots for adventure select redesign in OpenWA:

Sorting Adventures by Creators


You can also use "traditional" archive option, they are now displayed separately

[Pawelec]

I find the blink barrels a bit hard to distinguish from other things, have you though about a purple version of a Grow mushroom?

[rainbowmon]

Or maybe just turn Blink Barrels specifically Purple.

Also, I just had a crazy thought, but I'm not sure how well it would work...

Blink Wraiths.

Actually, wraiths of all magic types could be cool. But, you know, baby steps and all that; I don't even know if it's possible, and I also don't know the first thing about coding, so I may as well mention one specifically if someone wants to look into it.

[Lazy Loof]

I find the blink barrels a bit hard to distinguish from other things, have you though about a purple version of a Grow mushroom?

Have you only seen the video or played with them in v3.04?

Or maybe just turn Blink Barrels specifically Purple.

Also, I just had a crazy thought, but I'm not sure how well it would work...

Blink Wraiths.

Actually, wraiths of all magic types could be cool. But, you know, baby steps and all that; I don't even know if it's possible, and I also don't know the first thing about coding, so I may as well mention one specifically if someone wants to look into it.

The idea is cool as heck but I don't really know how it will be useful for adventures... Imo it is good to only implement those elements that are actually useful for adventure designing, not those who are just silly! Plus I am also not much a coder (what I get is purely a result of testing several code additions).

Is there any community requested feature for WA that should definitely be included? What are your opinions?

[Pawelec]

Have you only seen the video or played with them in v3.04?

Actually I've only played with them without seeing the video

Is there any community requested feature for WA that should definitely be included? What are your opinions?

Oooh, I believe it is a bad idea to do this here, a separate Ideas & Suggestions thread would be nice.

[rainbowmon]

Agreed, Pawelec, though I would like to say something while I'm thinking about it...

I think implementing RTW mechanics like pushing boxes and such could be a cool addition to Adventures. It'd allow for even more elaborate puzzles. (Not that we really need RTW mechanics for that, since this is the Wonderland community, but it would add an extra layer that I'm sure could be very useful.)

Also: Aryan, correct me if I'm wrong about either of these, but I seem to recall 1. Spellballs flung by enemies can travel further than those flung by the player, and 2. There's a way to get a spellball to stop and activate on specific tiles upon passing over them (I think with a command or something?). My first thoughts are: maybe Wraiths could be used to activate things too far for the player to reach. Granted, there are probably other ways around it, but... And maybe it could be used to test a player's skill in manipulating their (the Wraiths) actions? My point being, yes, it'd be silly, but it could also add a bit of variety, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Pawelec]

The main problem is most of RTW elements won't work with diagonal movement.

[rainbowmon]

Solution: Have objects that can be pushed cardinally (up, down, left, and right), and objects that can be pushed diagonally, with the visual difference being that diagonal-push objects are rotated °45.

Alternatively, boulders could make sense from any direction because of how round they are, so if they were introduced, they could be pushed anywhere.

[Lazy Loof]

Is there any community requested feature for WA that should definitely be included? What are your opinions?

Oooh, I believe it is a bad idea to do this here, a separate Ideas & Suggestions thread would be nice.

Ok, I have merged all our posts of discussing new elements here. Now say which feature you want?

Also: Aryan, correct me if I'm wrong about either of these, but I seem to recall 1. Spellballs flung by enemies can travel further than those flung by the player, and 2. There's a way to get a spellball to stop and activate on specific tiles upon passing over them (I think with a command or something?). My first thoughts are: maybe Wraiths could be used to activate things too far for the player to reach. Granted, there are probably other ways around it, but... And maybe it could be used to test a player's skill in manipulating their (the Wraiths) actions? My point being, yes, it'd be silly, but it could also add a bit of variety, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

Yep there's a way to do that, I remember to have programmed a data# value to SpellBall that does that but can't remember that right now. About such sort of wraiths, I need the approval of community members (since I am not currently active in puzzle designing yet )
@WA Players: Do you want Wraiths, Cannons, Fireflowers, ZapBots, UFOs shoot all types of magic?

I think implementing RTW mechanics like pushing boxes and such could be a cool addition to Adventures. It'd allow for even more elaborate puzzles. (Not that we really need RTW mechanics for that, since this is the Wonderland community, but it would add an extra layer that I'm sure could be very useful.)

Nice idea, and I am sure it can be implemented although it could be a bit difficult... (but that won't be implemented in v3.05 )

[Pawelec]

Do you want Wraiths, Cannons, Fireflowers, ZapBots, UFOs shoot all types of magic?

I don't think Pop, Flash and Blink would be of much use though. Floing and Grow would work but they would have to be slightly altered so a tile is targeted (think Grow Wraiths).

As for other features I'll dig into the code myself next weekend (exam session till 14th Jun) and see if I can fix that 62x62 tile texture render bug. Also changing Flash behaviour so it doesn't require that one prepared tile (I thought of faking a remote floor tile for that, e.g. -100, -100) would be nice. This would have to be wlv-specific though because of some puzzles using that teleport the player via Flash thingy. Another thing is custom music support, maybe in master.dat one could assign file paths to track numbers beyond the vanilla ones?

One more thing is I'd prefer buttons not to change the tile logic to floor (although I think they have their own logic so it wouldn't be that easy).

[Lazy Loof]

As for other features I'll dig into the code myself next weekend (exam session till 14th Jun) and see if I can fix that 62x62 tile texture render bug.

Ok you can dig into the code and find out the fix... BTW if you want you can work with us on GitLab (there is OpenWA topic for it). My reason for saying this is that, we have changed the layout of the files and if you made the fix with v10.00 or v10.04 then it could be hard to implement in v3.05 or next release.

[Pawelec]

So I actually opened level.bb in 10.04 and I think I found the part of code responsible for 62x62 rendering, seems to be an intended feature, not a bug.
There's a loop starting at line 911:

Code: Select all

	If j2=0 Or j2=LevelDetail Or i2=0 Or i2=LevelDetail
		If i2=0 
			uoverlap#=.002
		Else If i2=LevelDetail
			uoverlap#=-.002
		Else
			uoverlap#=0
		EndIf
		If j2=0 
			voverlap#=.002
		Else If j2=LevelDetail
			voverlap#=-.002
		Else
			voverlap#=0
		EndIf
	EndIf

The loop can set values to .002 causing offsets, they are set to 0 by default so commenting out the loop should stop that.
Also, adventures.bb, starting at line 3648:

Code: Select all

	Case "!CustomModel"
			
		If FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".3ds")<>1 Or FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".jpg")<>1
			ObjectTextData(Dest,0)="Default"
		EndIf
		ObjectEntity(Dest)=LoadMesh("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".3ds")
		ObjectTexture(Dest)=LoadTexture("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".jpg")
		EntityTexture ObjectEntity(Dest),ObjectTexture(Dest)

Switching the default texture for custom models to PNG then to BMP then to JPG then to default would be nice, e.g.:

Code: Select all

	Case "!CustomModel"
			
		If FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".3ds")<>1
			ObjectTextData(Dest,0)="Default"
		EndIf
		ObjectEntity(Dest)=LoadMesh("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".3ds")
		If FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".png")=1
			ObjectTexture(Dest)=LoadTexture("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".png", 1+2)
		Else If FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".bmp")=1
			ObjectTexture(Dest)=LoadTexture("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".bmp", 4)
		Else If FileType("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".jpg")=1
			ObjectTexture(Dest)=LoadTexture("UserData\Custom\Models\"+ObjectTextData(Dest,0)+".jpg")
		Else
			ObjectTexture(Dest)=LoadTexture("UserData\Custom\Models\Default.jpg")
		EndIf
		EntityTexture ObjectEntity(Dest),ObjectTexture(Dest)

Is there a tutorial showing how to test changes made to the code? I've never worked with Blitz before.

EDIT: Exploring the code is way too exciting. Have you thought about enabling PNG for custom level and water textures so we can use alpha?

EDIT2: And while we're at features:
- bridges in all colours (I can make the textures if you want),
- teleports placed on walls so they can be entered only from one side, maybe done like springs so one can rotate them,
- and of course portal magic.

And a huge idea I have now would be to redo vanilla textures so they use alpha channel (e.g. trees).

[Lazy Loof]

[LONG POST]

Yea I saw that in level.bb but never touched it before. I think it is an intended feature, I remember to saw that in comments.

About the custom models using BMP and PNG textures, the idea is nice. Also, I am sure you know that object textures now officially support BMP and PNG textures, view the Guide to new feature topic I made in WA editor general discussion to know everything about that. Plus v3.05 will support custom background which will be the copy of the tiles placed in the edge of the level.

The ideas you gave are really very much required, I am also looking for to add support for custom gates and keys.

Now about testing with Blitz3D, Blitz3D IDE is very easy to use and with some trial and error you would master it!
To test your code, open player.bb, click on Run -> Run Program... There is also an option Debug enabled in this menu... If you want to distribute the exe, then disable the option and then create compiled exe (although that shouldn't be done since any change you made will be officially merged with other mods).

[Pawelec]

I get 'Unable to set graphics mode!' error, is there any way to fix that?

[Lazy Loof]

I get 'Unable to set graphics mode!' error, is there any way to fix that?

Run launcher.bb using Blitz3D and set GFX mode to 800x600x32 and windowed and then click play.
Now compile and run player.bb.

[Pawelec]

Thanks, works perfectly!

As for quality of life improvements, FlipBridges and Gates could be rendered closed/open in the editor.

EDIT: Well, almost perfectly, you see, there's something wrong with alpha channel. I have no idea why the trunk of my bush is rendered in front of the leaves.

[Lazy Loof]

EDIT: Well, almost perfectly, you see, there's something wrong with alpha channel. I have no idea why the trunk of my bush is rendered in front of the leaves.

I'm also clueless here how that didn't worked for you, I had tested that using the same textured tree with alpha channel and that worked for me in Editor. I don't remember if I tested this in game or not... Does that happen both in editor and game?

Are you trying to use transparency with PNG textures using the official MS method only? (I.e is the one file in UserData\Custom\Objecttextures and you just types the filename plus extension not the full path?)

BTW Pawelec, could you design a nice texture for blink barrels and a nice new model for prisms exclusively for WA? (this was actually suggested by someone else not me)

[Pawelec]

This was a test of non-MS method (PNG for a custom model) and it failed but it uses the same code as the custom texture (EDIT: tested it and it has the same problem), I'll try with some different models, it may have something to do with DirectX8 in Win10 so WndDx debugging should be done. Happens in both editor and player.

As for the textures, I've realised there is one more problem with blink barrels: they hide whatever is underneath them. In case you haven't noticed all other magic-spawned objects are transparent so you can see what they covered. Of course I can try but I'd prefer a Blink mushroom instead.
For the prism model I'd like to test the alpha channel first because I'd like the glass part to be semi-transparent.

EDIT: which Blitz version you're using to compile? Maybe we're using different releases?

[Lazy Loof]

This was a test of non-MS method (PNG for a custom model) and it failed but it uses the same code as the custom texture (EDIT: tested it and it has the same problem), I'll try with some different models, it may have something to do with DirectX8 in Win10 so WndDx debugging should be done. Happens in both editor and player.

As for the textures, I've realised there is one more problem with blink barrels: they hide whatever is underneath them. In case you haven't noticed all other magic-spawned objects are transparent so you can see what they covered. Of course I can try but I'd prefer a Blink mushroom instead.
For the prism model I'd like to test the alpha channel first because I'd like the glass part to be semi-transparent.

EDIT: which Blitz version you're using to compile? Maybe we're using different releases?

Blink barrels are not an transparent entity, you can make them transparent using EntityAlpha.
About the alpha channel bug, this needs more testing.
I'm using the legacy version v1.108 release of Blitz3D downloaded from here and manually installed latest doc packs: https://nitrologic.itch.io/blitz3d
There is also a same v1.108b version of Blitz3D officially released by Blitz devs at: https://blitzresearch.itch.io/blitz3d
But it contains a number of bugs that is why I didn't used that. If you googled and download Blitz3D then probably you're using this version... Uninstall your current version, download the legacy version of Blitz3D from the former link and install it. Also while installation you might encounter an error regarding Blitz.fon file, simply click on ignore/continue and continue the installation.

[Pawelec]

Well, the result is different when the editor is opened (old code applies textures with no masks) and when a new entity is placed or in the player. Below are the results with 3.04 in the player, actually no method works correctly for PNGs. I've also tried adding TGA support (Blitz supports it and it has better control over transparency than PNG) but the results are identical.

[Lazy Loof]

Strange!

I really don't know why this happens, can you send me the WOPs and PNGs so I can test them?

EDIT: Also, try using flags 1+2+8?

[Pawelec]

Sadly 1+2+8 doesn't help.

[Lazy Loof]

Sadly 1+2+8 doesn't help.

Hmm... Can you please PM me or attach here your PNG file of tree (as well as the model if there)? I actually don't know how to create alpha channels that's why I need yours. Hopefully, we can find a way to fix that.

[Pawelec]

I get the error with vanilla Tree1 so no model, the PNG is attached.

When it comes to features, when I have to specify file paths in the editor (models, textures etc.) I'd love to be able to edit the one already there instead of retyping everything.

EDIT: I don't know if you have seen that, but at some point Blitz3D had DDS support added and I've read users reporting these alpha problems don't occur for DDS textures. Sadly I've tested for it and using DDS yields the same results as PNG and TGA. Nevertheless DDS is definitely the most advanced texture format and it should be supported (TGA is uncompressed so file size is huge, DDS has compression, file size is about 2.5 times the PNG without mipmaps while TGA is approximately 10 times larger).

[Pawelec]

The thing is Blitz3D isn't capable of correctly assigning surface order for overlapping alpha surfaces and that's a feature, not a bug (done to prevent different behaviour on different GPUs). However, that order is applied when one copies an entity so the solution is to create a copy of an entity and then texture that copy as a child of the original without texturing the original.

I've tried with all mesh formats (.3ds, .x, .b3d) Blitz3D accepts and none of them fix the problem. BTW Blender has export plugins for all three so adding support for them would be nice (.3ds is the most archaic of them, not an optimal choice, I'd love to switch from .3ds/.jpg to .x/.dds, also DDS is loaded into memory differently so it is better for performance). While I'm at it: Blitz3D accepts DDS made with nVidia Photoshop plugin up to DX5, files created with Intel plugin don't work (both plugins are freeware).

DDS has alpha mask instead of alpha channel so one can specify the color of the edges, PNG doesn't support that. There's also TGA but it isn't compressed so files are way too large (especially for compressing custom content) but more file formats supported have never hurt anyone.

Now, there were ways to solve it but the Blitz3D forum is now down and I've only found mentions of these solutions (one using CopyEntity and another using TextureBlend Texture,3).

[Lazy Loof]

Ok, good job!

I have currently released the testing build for v3.05 here so you can try it: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=27861
Although this doesn't include support for png, tga, dds, everything you mentioned, but I will try to add these in final build.

[Pawelec]

You seem to have replied when I was editing the post. Sadly my investigation was faulty because the texture of LeafTree1 I used for testing has black background so two things were merged together. As of now I only know it is possible to solve the problem but I don't know how exactly.

[Lazy Loof]

You seem to have replied when I was editing the post. Sadly my investigation was faulty because the texture of LeafTree1 I used for testing has black background so two things were merged together. As of now I only know it is possible to solve the problem but I don't know how exactly.

Oops! Well I am also clueless...

[Pawelec]

There is one solution which is to use masked DDS textures but I have no idea how to use the current version on nVidia's plugin to export them.

EDIT: I think a workaround would be to load the texture, extract the pixels with alpha = 1 and render that in mode 4 then render the target texture on top of that in mode 2, maybe on a child to prevent z-fights but I don't know how to process images in Blitz. I think this should work because it worked with my LeafTree1 test (masked vanilla texture under alpha one on a child, worked flawlessly). From the theoretical stuff I read this should work as long as there is at least 1 opaque (alpha = 1) pixel on each polygon.

[Lazy Loof]

EDIT: I think a workaround would be to load the texture, extract the pixels with alpha = 1 and render that in mode 4 then render the target texture on top of that in mode 2, maybe on a child to prevent z-fights but I don't know how to process images in Blitz. I think this should work because it worked with my LeafTree1 test (masked vanilla texture under alpha one on a child, worked flawlessly). From the theoretical stuff I read this should work as long as there is at least 1 opaque (alpha = 1) pixel on each polygon.

Well if you can code that, then that'll be quite nice, since I too don't know about that stuff.

EDIT: Blitz3D also has a feature to switch the GPUs, should it be used?