Guild of Writers

Hey guys,

I've been working since January... Erm, actually, I worked all of January, then stopped, then trashed everything and started over in late May...

Whatever!

Anyway, you guys (may or may not) know that I have been working on a tool to replace PRP Explorer. So, after working, working, working, I've decided that I need some feedback from you guys on how Plasma Explorer should work. So, I'm releasing to you a development copy of Plasma Explorer (release codename "Public Feedback Release"... creative, no?), straight out of he main development branch for your feedback. You should note that write support is disabled and HIGHLY UNTESTED (savvy people could probably turn it on, but I have never tried it myself, so I'd recommend you don't either ). I'm not looking for bug reports at this time, since I am very aware that things are a bit buggy. What I'm looking to get from this is A) What kinds of editors you guys want to see. B) If the current editor design is up-to-scratch. C) Anything you feel may be helpful for the development process!

Okay, enough about that, let's talk about getting Plasma Explorer PFR. Before downloading plEX, you will need this following software.

* Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0
* SlimDX (I developed this on the June 2008 release)
* Microsoft's DirectX SDK

Once you have all of the aforementioned software installed, you can grab Plasma Explorer, which is just a little zip file

Now, let me share with you bugs that I know about... Keep in mind that I'm not too terribly interested in bugs at this time (unless they're major show-stoppers)!

* You can't open two ages with the same PageID/Location at the same time... So no PotS Phil's Relto and MOUL Tsogal at the same time!
* The "Render Object" feature does very little other than waste some CPU cycles (unless the object just *happens* to be in the default viewport...)
* The DrawableSpans reader will probably choke on MOUL and Hex Isle... I haven't spent time debugging that.
* Myst 5 and Hex Isle have some... Issues... With the LogicModifier and Envmap editors
* The Mipmap reader will barf if it finds an uncompressed texture
* The "Blend Flags" in the layer editor LIE... Meaning, they're not hooked up to the data yet.
* The Layer Editor is a bit... Buggy... On MOUL

You should also note that Plasma Explorer is licensed under the GNU GPL3, so the source code is available in a subversion repository here. You should use the trunk revision 1. Plasma and PlasmaExplorer are the relevant VS Projects... Ignore the other project, it does nothing useful (yet...)

Thanks for the interest and good luck!

Another edit, these are the editors that are supported: ClothingBase, ClothingItem, ClothingOutfit, CubicEnvironmap, DrawInterface, GMaterial, Layer, LogicModifier, Mipmap, PostEffectMod, SimulationInterface, and VisRegion

Tsar Hoikas wrote:Anyway, you guys (may or may not) know that I have been working on a tool to replace PRP Explorer

That's where I started drooling.

Downloading the files, I'll try that as soon as I can.

Yay, we get Plasma teaching now. Woohoo

Awesome!! forgive my newbieness, but... what does it do? I thought at first that it was annother program like plasmashop, but when you mentioned rendering, it appeared to be an easier age designer then blender... anyway, whatever it is, good work!

Question:

Does this mean I HAVE to use the latest DirectX SDK? Or can I run with the March 2008 release i'm currently using?

Nah, I actually developed this on the March 2008 SDK.

It just needs to be recent-ish. From 2007 and beyond will likely work.

Thanks Tsar Hoikas!

You just saved me some work!

Major show-stopper: FormatException when opening a file. Not everyone is using a dot as a decimal sparator.

Fix involving only 3 lines (in AgeDescriptor.cs):

Code: Select all

      using System.Globalization; //<--------------------add this
      (...)
        public void Read(string file) {
            //Normal stuff
            CultureInfo culture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US"); //<------------------add this too
            fAgeName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(file);
            fAgeDirectory = file.Replace(Path.PathSeparator.ToString() + Path.GetFileName(file), "");

            hsStream s = plEncryptedStream.Create(file);

            //Break it down! (Dot dot dah do deeYAH...)
            while (!s.IsEOF) {
                string[] line = s.ReadLine().Split(new char[] { '=' });

                if (line[0] == "StartDateTime") {
                    fStart = new DateTime(Convert.ToInt64(line[1]), DateTimeKind.Unspecified);
                } else if (line[0] == "DayLength") {
                    fDayLength = Convert.ToSingle(line[1],culture); //<--------------and change this
                } else if (line[0] == "Page") {
                    fPages.Add(new plAgePage(line));
                } else if (line[0] == "MaxCapacity") {
                    fMaxCapacity = Convert.ToInt16(line[1]);
                } else if (line[0] == "LingerTime") {
                    fLingerTime = Convert.ToInt16(line[1]);
                } else if (line[0] == "SequencePrefix") {
                    fSeqPrefix = Convert.ToInt32(line[1]);
                } else if (line[0] == "ReleaseVersion") {
                    fReleaseVersion = Convert.ToUInt32(line[1]);
                }
            }

            s.Close();
        }



Thanks! I tend to look over things like that :\

That fix will be included in my next commit to the subversion repository (you also made me realize that fAgeDirectory isn't being set correctly).

Please ensure that you use globalization for file paths as well. In order for the program to run under Mono on Mac or Linux, the file paths need the / character rather than \ (Windows).