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Editing the Editor

by Daniel Balmert · in Torque 3D Professional · 11/03/2011 (11:56 am) · 6 replies

Since I finally upgraded to pro, there area few areas I'm curious about.

Is there a way to develop custom tools, windows, and UI for the editor itself? I'm sure an in-depth look at the engine would probably give me the answer, but I figure someone has written stuff already if it's possible and able to confirm that it is.

For example, if I wanted to create a specialized "map editor" tool specific to a top down adventure game, would I be able to write a gui that would open inside t3d that would ease some of the map making workflow? Or, for example, if I wanted a custom class manager (player, weapon, items etc.) that would allow me to create, edit, and manage the classes on a high level (rather than objects individually, or having to edit scripts all the time), is this achievable through scripts and/or source editing?

Thanks for the help!
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Torque Owner Nathan Martin
TRON 2001 Network
#1
11/03/2011 (2:30 pm)
Indeed all of that is possible using just TorqueScript and the GUI editor built into Torque (press F10 to bring it up). Note that a lot of the Dialogs and Frames within World Editor are procedurally created and setup deep within the World Editor's TorqueScripts, so quite a bit of subeditors you normally see in the World Editor aren't going to be available for editing or creation using the GUI Editor alone.

Torque 3D Owner Daniel Balmert
Default Studio Name
#2
11/03/2011 (6:49 pm)
Where can I find the world editor's script files? I've been trying to find examples of menus or gui elements being called outside the editor. I know I can create them inside the editor, but I'm trying to find examples of them being used within the editor itself.

Thanks for the response!

Torque Owner Nathan Martin
TRON 2001 Network
#3
11/03/2011 (10:00 pm)
TorqueScripts of World Editor, GUI Editor, and others can be found in their respective directories under <GameProject>/game/tools. <GameProject> being your Torque game project such as the default install location of the FPS Example Torque game project is normally C:\Torque\Torque 3D Pro 1.1\Examples\FPS Example if you didn't pick a custom install path. As for your own projects, they're normally under the My Projects directory instead of the Examples directory within Torque's install path.

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#4
11/04/2011 (5:16 am)
If you have the UAISK, TJ made some additions himself to help edit his AI markers. As for editing classes, the Datablock Editor is already there....

Torque 3D Owner Daniel Balmert
Default Studio Name
#5
11/04/2011 (10:52 am)
@ Nathan:

Awesome! I found it with those directions. The road/river editor were well commented enough that I could follow it.

@ Richard:

The datablock editor would probably serve me for what I'm considering. Thanks! I always forget that the datablocks are a really great way of "constructing" an object.

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#6
11/04/2011 (7:27 pm)
If you read through the new Tutorial (esp. Lesson 5) you will see that I'm a big fan of SAVING YOUR DATABLOCKS every step of the way - SNSO is the rule to live by. And, in case I forgot to mention it - save your datablocks.

[edit]

Also not mentioned often enough for my taste considering the potential for confusion and lost work is the need to hit the ENTER key to make any datablock field change stick. If you change a field, hit ENTER when you've finished in that field, then go to the next one. If you change any value you have to hit ENTER to ensure that the Datablock Editor saves that value to your datablock. And then, don't forget to SAVE YOUR DATABLOCK before moving on to the next thing.