I decided to skip the “meaningless text
about my progress” part, and I won’t even mention cats. I’ll rather write about
the Track Editor this time – fortunately I have something to write about. I
don’t want to waste more characters on the introduction part – I already wrote
more than 2 lines of nothing, and another 1.5 is wasted as well just to notice
that.
The icons are just temporary. I drew them :
)
Here is a windows binary version of the
current state:
You can also download the newest source
from project’s github repository (but you have to build that for yourself, and
Irrlicht is required):
https://github.com/mcsab/stk-editor
What should you expect from the Editor?
Crashes. Terrible GUI. Nice cats. I suppose that is all.
Here is a quick
list of the existing features: there is a categorized model library, which can
be extended with new models. You can pick the models and place them on the map.
Later you can select, move, rotate, scale and delete them as you desire. You
can also draw terrain, and paint texture. There is also a tool to create
driveline and road mesh.
There are 2
cameras. The default looks down, and it can be controlled with the w, a, s ,d
buttons and the mouse wheel. The other is a free camera from Irrlicht. It works
like the camera in Maya: press and hold mouse buttons and move mouse to control
it. Editing anything isn’t possible while the second camera is active
currently, but it will be replaced or modified to support some actions too.
There is a panel
at the right side of the window, which contains the required things for terrain
manipulation. It can be done with brushes.
At the moment
there are 4 textures to choose from. The amount of usable textures in the
terrain is limited to 4 as well, but you will be able to pick 4 desired textures
from a list later. 4 brushes can be
picked at the moment.
The first can be
selected by clicking on the spade icon: you can use it to create mountains,
hills, valleys. Hover your mouse (it’s safe, there aren’t any cats so far) over
the terrain to do so - red highlighting will guide your brush. To do some changes,
you have to press and hold left/right mouse button. But be careful: the selected
texture will be applied to the modified area as well. You can use the
checkboxes and the text fields to limit the terrain’s height to a specific
value/interval.
The remaining
three brushes have something to do with textures. Their buttons are placed next
to each other under the spade icon. The first is a soft brush: use it to mix
different textures. The second is a hard brush: it replaces textures with the
selected one, or erases the selected texture from the affected area. The third
one changes brightness, but the surface can’t be brighter than the original
texture.
There are
buttons to switch between panels at the top of the toolbox. The first was the
terrain panel, the second is the model library. We already have an unimaginably
high amount of objects to choose from, feel free to select a cat you like.
Hover the cursor over the terrain: the cat will most likely follow your mouse,
but fortunately it cannot jump, so it will stay on the ground. Press left mouse
button: the cat doesn’t see your mouse anymore, so it keeps still.
It is an important
part: if you want to modify something, you have to select it first. Click on
the cursor icon in the toolbar – this will activate the selection tool. Now
click on objects. If you find it cool to modify more than one object in the
same time, press and hold ctrl while selecting them.
Once you
selected something, you have the power to change its position, orientation or thickness. All you have to
do is to select the right icon, press down a mouse button, and move the mouse.
I hope something happens. Hold ctrl and click on other objects to select them
without switching back to selection mode.
Move: holding the left mouse button down while
moving the mouse lets you modify the position along the x and z axes
(horizontally). Use right mouse button to modify height. If shift is pressed
before you press left mouse button, the position changing is limited along a single axis.
You can rotate the object around the
x,y,z axes. It works exactly like moving.
Scaling works almost like the others. If shift
is pressed, it will scale in every direction symmetrically.
Click on the remove button to remove
selected objects
Undo/Redo:
some actions are reversible, but not everything. You can’t cancel terrain
modification.
The third panel contains a few gui elements related to roads. It is
possible to create a single driveline, and more road meshes. Road meshes don't
To create a road or the driveline, you have to define a spline with its
control points. There are three buttons with red background on the road panel.
Click on the first to place control points. The second doesn’t do anything
currently. Click on the third to leave the creation. Every control point is
visualized as 3 spheres in the viewport. Move the red one to change the point’s
position, that will modify the curve as well. Moving the blue one will change the road’s width, and moving the green
one will change the road’s orientation.
You can create new road meshes with the imageless button. Use the upper
combo box to choose which road you want to edit.
If a road is active, you won’t be able to select any other object. The
button in the toolbar between the eye and the car (yes, that is an eye and that
is a car) switches between road editing mode and normal mode.
It is all for now, i hope you like it : )
