New Tool Announcement: AgeCreator 0.0.0 pre-pre-pre-alpha

[Branan]

The latest release is: SVN R30

Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/agecreator/

Any of you that have clicked the tags on the new libHSPlasma page will have found this by now, so I figure I may as well come out with it. I was originally going to wait until I could show screenshots from inside Uru of the first age exported, but it seems kind of silly at this point XD.

AgeCreator is a new tool for creating Uru ages. It's not tied to any specific modeling program, and is in extremely early stages of development. The big design goal is to abstract Plasma objects away whenever possible, through GUIs and grouping sets of related Plasma objects into a single meta-object that the user sees. It's really too early in development to give much more detail - I just haven't decided on a lot of things yet.

It stores all the data in HSPlasma objects internally, so the "export" process is very simple. This makes the internal object model (mapping HSPlasma objects to the "objects" the user sees) somewhat complex. The really big advantage of this in my mind is that you can import an age, add an object, and export the age without losing any existing information.

A unified GUI application that works directly with Plasma files also allows teams using multiple modeling programs to work on the same project with relative ease, and allows someone whose preferred modeling program isn't support by a direct PRP plugin to work on URU ages.

At this point, it can load simple OBJ files and export mesh data with mesh colliders. Lots of the GUI features aren't implemented yet (notably load, save, and object deletion).

It's easiest if you've installed libHSPlasma using my CMake scripts (it can use the CMake config file that's installed as part of that process), but it's possible to point it to any built libHSPlasma. BUILD.txt has instructions. Icons only work on Qt 4.6, but the code should now build with Qt 4.5. I've built it on 64-bit Linux with GCC, and 32-bit windows with MinGW.

EDIT: latest download link is at the top of this post now.
EDIT: adjust some statements to match the current state of things.

[diafero]

Hehe, yes, I was quite surprised to find two projects with the libHSPlasma tag

I already tried downloading and compiling it, but since I don't have the CMake libHSPlasma, it obviously did not work. Looking forward to see some screenshots!

[Branan]

It builds in Windows! Using the Qt SDK 2010.02. Took me forever to find a working mingw binary of the correct version of libjpeg.

With the windows build comes a screenshot of the current state of things:

agecreator.jpg (28.56 KiB) Viewed 3770 times

[Chacal]

Paladin, it would help if you actually said somewhere what your tool is and what it does.

[Branan]

Paladin, it would help if you actually said somewhere what your tool is and what it does.

Yeah, that would be helpful... I wrote that summary while I was way too tired last night

I Added this text above:

AgeCreator is a new tool for creating Uru ages. It's not tied to any specific modeling program, and is in extremely early stages of development. The big design goal is to abstract Plasma objects away whenever possible, through GUIs and grouping sets of related Plasma objects into a single meta-object that the user sees. It's really too early in development to give much more detail - I just haven't decided on a lot of things yet.

[diafero]

So, age writing without a 3d modeller? Is that the aim (though I'm not sure how that should be done)?

[Branan]

So, age writing without a 3d modeller? Is that the aim (though I'm not sure how that should be done)?

You still need a 3D modeler to create meshes, but none of the plasma-specific stuff needs to be done in your modeling program. You'd export the meshes, then add them along with any other non-visible Plasma objects you want, in this tool. All the plasma-specific properties would be handled here. I'm not sure how Materials would be handled yet.

Having to export and then import every mesh is pretty awkward, but an object library is on my list of things to do (way in the future, I'm still getting the basics worked out right now). With an object library, you'd be able do things like click the "Add MyAwesomeCustomLever to the scene" button, and it will add the mesh, and all the necessary Plasma regions, clickables, and animations. The object library will almost certainly also be stored as Plasma objects as well (possibly PRC XML). The library interface will likely be a categorized list + a preview.

In theory it would be possible to add some sort of brush-based (like Radiant or Hammer) modeling system, but it's not really a priority for me at the moment... I'm still trying to get a basic age exported (all that's left is physics and materials)

[Branan]

R19 brings full export of arbitrary mesh data, imported from an OBJ file, and physics data based on the mesh data (other forms of colliders are not yet implemented). Also, since at this point it's now possible to more-or-less export the age described in Your Very First Basic Age, I figured this was as good a time as any to build a windows binary snapshot for people to play with. Not that there's much playing to be done yet. I cannot stress enough how early in development this thing is.

Download here: http://code.google.com/p/agecreator/downloads/list

And sorry for the double-post.

[I.Brattin]

i am getting an error.

Code: Select all

AgeCreator.exe - Unable To Locate Component
This application has failed to start because mingwm10.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

Edit: Fixed the mingwm10.dll problem, found the referenced dll elsewhere (the program filezilla has it) and copied it to the Age Creator directory.

Now I can import an age, but I can't export. Everytime I try and export the program just crashes. When I try and import an object from the plus sign, I get a runtime error.

edit: fixed the export issue, For some reason was confusing myself there. Now that leaves the + sign import, and it giving a runtime error,

edit: looks like the runtime error is associated with only certain object files. Some give the runtime error, while others appear to import but I see no confirmation of that in the Age Creator.

[Branan]

i am getting an error.

Code: Select all

AgeCreator.exe - Unable To Locate Component
This application has failed to start because mingwm10.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

<chopped>

edit: looks like the runtime error is associated with only certain object files. Some give the runtime error, while others appear to import but I see no confirmation of that in the Age Creator.

I'll bundle mingwm10.dll the next time I do a snapshot build. As for the OBJ issue, I'll PM you my email, if you can send me an OBJ file that doesn't work I'll take a look at it. The OBJ loader is just as in-development as the rest of the code.