Mutant Storm level editor

#1 I don't know of one. Would I be right in saying that maps are just a LUA txt file? In which case, it probably wouldn't be too hard to look at them and figure out the format.

The only annoyance I can see is that there's no visible way to load custom levels (correct me if I'm wrong, guys) so you'd be constantly over writing pompom levels. Ask miles if he'll cobble up a command line modifier to load in a custom level! He'll say "no" and you'll cry! It'll be great!

#2 He might say yes

it would be better to have it as a menu option though

basically the level editor just needs to show the shape of the level
(from the selection we've made)

and then area boxes for where the beasties are going to be launched
which beasties and over what time frame

then output that as a lua file
see the level lua files in the script directory

(though playing with them wont work, as we've embedded them in the exe to stop any naughtiness for the high score tables)

#3 Is the spawn rate/time fixed for spawn areas? ie, you can only spawn a desired number of beasties by defining how long the areas spawns beasties for?

#4
Miles said:

(though playing with them wont work, as we've embedded them in the exe to stop any naughtiness for the high score tables)


Bugger!

You must have changed this in an update though as I was able to create some custom levels in the past (level 64 ;) )

This looks like it would now need some input from PomPom - a situation I was hoping to avoid as you've probably got more important things to do.

Cheers,
PaulCunningham

#5 If i remember rightly, it goes
spawn 10 robots starting at time 0 over 10 seconds
i.e 1 a second

id need to provide
a list of co-ords for the level shapes
a list of beasties
and something ive probably forgotten

had a quick look at reading directories
ie having a missionpacks directory
with the various 'missions' in there
seems ok

would then need to do something
about the high score tables

#6 Wow, that would be a great feature. =)

#7 I actually just started on a level editor today. Not sure how many people will be able to use it as it's using the .net framework to make the programming a bit more straightforward.

I'll let you know when it's ready (hoping to have it working by the end of the weekend..) and if anybody is interested (and has suitable OS + .net stuff) I'll find some way to make it available (probably email as it's quite small).

#8 Sounds good. Would it be possible to just play a single level then? That would really help for me and my sound modding (still working on the Rez and Mild sound mods)

#9 Shinji, if we do put out an editor along the lines of what Miles is saying, it should be pretty simple to set up a single level MissionPack if you wanted to test your sounds.

As for the high scores, I guess we would need seperate tables for each MissionPack, which could get a bit messy.
Maybe we could have some kind of user rating system, where MissionPacks with a high enough rating would have thier own highscore table?

All very exciting stuff! :)

#10 It's almost ready. Just need to use the level co-ords (thanks Miles!) and set up the path an enemy can travel. Half a dozen tweaks after that, the seal of approval from PomPom and out it goes... Hopefully that should be tomorrow as there was just too much tweaking needed to get it done today.

As the levels are just normal text files, they could be distributed through posts on the forum?? I could probably make a dialog to save levels from pasted text if anyone thinks it would be useful..

*edit* it IS almost ready but I'm gonna hold off releasing it until it's possible to use the levels in Mutant Storm... *edit*

#11 Will there be a new version of MS that will allow for us to load user made missions? Is that the plan? =)

#12 Wow is this finally going to happen? its been on the wish list for a while now :)

Will this editor let people edit the original MS levels undetected to make them easier?

#13 Aid: The editor I'm making only creates new levels atm, it can't load existing ones. It could be added, but I figured they take next to no time to make so there wasn't a great deal of point to it. Plus it somewhat prevents what you say occuring..

#14 Aid, I hope not!
The original levels should remain protected, as they are embedded inside the main exe. :)

#15 Nice one Neal! :)

The excitment grows!!

#16 Mutant Storm "Mission Packs" sounds brillaint.

If ever a game deserved a level editor its Mutant Storm :)

EDIT: This forum is about 100000000000000000000000000 times better than the previous one :0)

#17 Isnt it just! :)

#18 Oh yes....this forum is quite a bit nicer than the last. for one, I don't have 10,000 windows to close after going thru all the new entries. altho if I try to find it from GG's site, it's a pain in the ass. the link from pompom's site is far more direct.

ok, a level editor made with limited usage by people IS kinda a pain. Still, it's more than what we coulda hoped for until recently.

next up! I'm less interested in making my own monstie-spawning routines than I am in building new arenas. Unfortunately, getting MS to run them would probably require more effort from Miles than the "load pre-built arena/custom monstie sequence" part. Is there ANY chance of being able to do this? No worries, I won't be totally heartbroken at a "no". It's just that I'm getting my old job back, which gives me almost 8 hours of paid free time a day...and last time I spent 60+ hours of it building a model of a chaingun. why? I don't know. I want some focus.

alright, enough blabbing.

#19 "ok, a level editor made with limited usage by people IS kinda a pain. Still, it's more than what we coulda hoped for until recently."

Hospanky, not entirely sure what you mean by this?? If you're talking about the OS's the editor will work with and the need to have .net, I'm sorry about the situation. It's just that it is much easier to work with .net.


If there are a lot of people with this problem though, I could see about using a more compatible programming language...(java i guess?)




-About .NET-
It does run under Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT w/ SP6, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP

You can get hold of it from here:
www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e...

The download is a bit big at 23mb unfortunately..

#20 23 meg = big?

errr...
sorry. BIG....big is the DE map pack for ut2K3. 23 megs, no biggie. if anyone can pull and install .net, then it doesn't sound like much of a problem, really. to be honest, I have no idea what .net is, just that it's something you don't HAVE to install, and something in the back of my mind is suggesting that maybe at one point, there was a REASON to avoid installing it.