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DLE-XP Suggestions Thread

This thread is intended for DLE-XP suggestions. No bug reports and no questions here please.

Please keep this thread clean. In case some issue needs detailled discussion, I will open an extra thread for it.

Diedel (a.k.a. karx11erx)

when moving between cubes and the sides within a cube, the texture tool doesn't always update as the focus changes. if the texture is the same, you can be fooled into changing the wrong light level or 1st/2nd texture. right now i have to switch the shading off/on a couple of times to make sure the highlighted side is the one shown in the texture tool. this does not happen every time but often enough to be a problem. is there a faster way to insure the highlighted cube/side is the one shown in the texture tool?

I will look into this update lag bug.

Edit: I have tried to fix that update lag in DLE-XP v1.5.16. Please notify me if it still occurs (in that case I will need an exact description in the form "first select cube X in level so-and-so, then select cube Y", or something similarly precise describing how to reproduce that problem).

I have also added improved cube selection cycling when left-clicking into the mineview: Just hold down the mouse button.

that's not how the lag occurs. hilight a cube.
now switch between sides. if you haven't edited a side the update of data is ok. if you edit the light values of a side, or adjust alignment of the texture then change to another side in the same cube, the hilight of the side switches but the data in the texture tool remains from the previous side. you then have to hit f5 sometimes more than once to get the updated data in the texture tool pane. sometimes seems to happen BETWEEN cubes too.
this doesn't happen all the time. i will do some testing to exactly pin down when and under what conditions it happens most.
edit: a quick check, reveals that perhaps the lag is no more. i had been concerned with other things and hadn't been doing any light/texture adjustments lately. problem seems to be fixed

NOW for my suggestion. would like to have a way to set absolute corner light values for marked selections. this way if an error is made using the light tool , a return to previous values can be effected. many times the light tool sets the values either too bright or too dark. also sets cubes to bright that are around a corner and shouldn't be that bright. if not possible perhaps could explain work around. thanks .

DLE-XP has undo and redo functions. Hit Ctrl+Z to undo a change, hit Ctrl+Y to redo it.

i thought that light level setting for the whole mine was too large an undo for it to be available. oops. didn't think to try it.

Actually, the undo function simply copies the entire mine data to a backup buffer. Up to 100 undo steps are possible (need quite some memory though )

how much mem does dle use itself? how much can it use for undo? i assume it utilizes the "heap" as needed so if you start something else it won't be able to save as much undo? be nice to know. i believe with just system idling and 1 gb to start with, i've got about 800mb free mem b4 loading dle.

edit: someone said an animated texture of graphic for dle is a group of graphics? yes? how is that created? join each graphic side by side? how are they named? are they named? with psp i think i can make them but don't know for sure how to set them up. want to make moving static for camera screens default 1st texture so will look appropriate for screen bezel framing.

would like to be able to adjust overall level gamma correction in dle so that the lighting in a level in dle can be what it looks like in the game.
(yes i can change the gamma in the game but i consider the standard light level as too dark and so would like to adjust dle to match.)

Level brightness depends on the individual config d2x-xl runs on. The exact same level is much darker on my WinXP pro box with a NVidia GF FX 5200 than on my WinXP home machine with ATI X800 XT PE.

which is maybe a good reason to have gamma adjustment in dle so that some kind of match can be made. then you can see what the level will light up like.

anyway, a second suggestion: how about access to the current level's .hog with the hog manager. is this functionality already there and i've missed it?
as of now with dle and dmb, you have to close the editor then restart and open a .hog file to access the hog manager menu.

Having additional access to the HOG manager would be very useful. It would be like having two tools in one: a level builder and a Hog manager.

Two suggestions:
Some new camera options with the mouse would be nice.
A briefing editor would be pretty cool, too.

There's good tools for that around, and it's just too much work for inventing the wheel another time.

Notepad and TXT2TXB are good enough for anyone.

You technically don't even need TXT2TXB - if you don't mind using the .tex extension and plain ASCII format.

any chance we can get a more advanced pog editor? something that can handel hi res textures, as well as animations and textures that are used for non level geometry (effects and robot textures for example). dtx2 seems to have some texture size limitations (seems to cap at 480^2) and im not sure if it supports 32bit.

also any chance of import or export option to load and save levels (or blocks) from some fairly standard modeling program format, such as 3ds?

DLE-XP can handle textures up to 2048x2048 (uncompressed 32 bit TGA). You can also overload animation frames with DLE-XP (wasn't possible with DMB2), so you won't need DTX2 for that anymore. Just check \"show frames\" in the texture tool, select the frame to be replaced, and overload it.

If you give me a description of the 3ds format, I might add a 3ds import function to DLE-XP (if it isn't too much work).

http://faydoc.tripod.com/formats/3ds.htm
http://www.the-labs.com/Blender/3DS-details.html
http://www.spacesimulator.net/tut4_3dsloader.html
http://www.morrowland.com/apron/article ... /index.php
http://thorkildsen.no/faqsys/cates/formats.html
http://www.whisqu.se/per/docs/graphics56.htm

sorry just a thought, I really think the undo option should be able to be turned off. It lags my system terrible but I have to admit I was glad it was there a couple of times but if you click save everytime you do something you absolutely want to keep you should be ok. Just a thought....

I kinda like the \"undo\" feature, reetus. It saved my skin several times. But that's just my opinion.

How about a trigger that'll cloak the player that activates it? To counter the \"unfair\" aspect of this idea, you could have any ship cloaked by such a trigger experience noticeable changes in the way it operates; his throttle slows way down, his weapons use shields instead of energy, etc. That way, a cloak trigger could complement other triggers (like speed boost or teleport), but can't be used to gain any kind of real advantage over other players. Otherwise, it could work just like the regular powerup.

Could that be done?

Yes, theoretically this could be done.

When opening a map with DLE-XP, the \"Delete\" button is a little close to the \"Okay\" button, and I finally accidently hit it, deleting my map (Thank god I had a backup). My suggestion is that it asks if you're sure you want to delete the selected file.

Turn expert mode off in the preferences dialog.

Diedel wrote:Turn expert mode off in the preferences dialog.

Oh, interesting. Expert or not though, that's a mistake anyone can make.

Thanks for bringing that option to my attention.

Expert mode is rather contrary 'verbose' than 'noob'.

This thread on PD talks about the \"Editor Tool Bar\" which DMB2 had a button that would bring it up... I miss seeing that tool. DLE-XP doesn't have a button for it and each time I exit DLE-XP it turns it off.

I know the same functions are done using the number-pad... but I like having the buttons, too.

A object positioning feature would be great.

Like to have a object have the same position as a nother you copy that objects position and past it in the object you want positioned in some sort of dialogue or button, that would be greatly appreciated.

Deidel I know I asked this before but I gotta ask again because it's killing me.....just killing me, would you please please please make an enable/disable undo checkbox? I'm beggin' ya!

All the good programs I've ever worked with has it.....Adobe Audition....Adobe Premiere.

It's the lag action. It just kills my system sometimes causing other programs to crash.

If you don't I guess I will just have to live with it but please oh great one, please make it happen

reetus wrote:Deidel I know I asked this before but I gotta ask again because it's killing me.....just killing me, would you please please please make an enable/disable undo checkbox? I'm beggin' ya!

All the good programs I've ever worked with has it.....Adobe Audition....Adobe Premiere.

It's the lag action. It just kills my system sometimes causing other programs to crash.

If you don't I guess I will just have to live with it but please oh great one, please make it happen

LOL - How much money you got?? J/K

Ha ha that's what I was thinking, I should offer the D-Man some money to make this happen!

invest that money into upgrading your system!

Come to think of it I don't think I've ever run DLE-XP on my computer without my hard drive at least 80% full. I have a celeron with 120 gig hard drive but I think it's my stock graphics card that sucks. I don't know too much about computers but I think it has to do with my virtual memory? (maybe).
It really only happens when I'm adjusting a texture.Click rotate about 15 times and everything goes to hell. Also deleting a lot of blocks using the delete button makes it lag... oh well. Other than that everything works fine, I mean I have managed to make 10 levels so far so I guess I'll just live with it. Or maybe an upgrade soon as the money is available.

yea, I was thinking like a faster CPU and a bit more memory. Not a huge over haul.

reetus wrote:Deidel I know I asked this before but I gotta ask again because it's killing me.....just killing me, would you please please please make an enable/disable undo checkbox? I'm beggin' ya!

Did you? I didn't notice, or I forgot. I have a life after all.

I am asking myself why I should ever do anything for you again after your recent e-mail to me, but I'll see what I can do.

A object positioning feature would be great.

Like to have a object have the same position as another you copy that objects position and paste it in the object you want positioned in some sort of dialogue or button, that would be greatly appreciated.(like what position in the mine and which way it faces-would be very helpful)

Diedel, maybe an easier solution would be to, instead of simply saving a copy of the level, computing a \"delta\" between the before and after states. Or when performing an action, save a record of the action into a linked list, and performing the inverse when asked to undo. For complex operations, or those you haven't gotten around to migrating to using the new undo tracker, track undos the same way.

I had thought of that, but it is very complicated and error prone.

Hello,

I'm not sure if this was mentioned eariler, but I think that when using the Tools->Curve Generator, there should be some visible on-screen method to stretch the red stretching lines created when the curve generator is invoked.

I had to go back to the old DMB2 manual and look up the keys for stretching the lines, I forgot them, haha.

Having said this, I think at the very least it should be mentioned in the online help manual for DLE-XP that '[' and ']' are the keys to do this. If you need the html for this I'd be glad to assist later on when I'm free.

Addition: I have one other thing to suggest: when the \"other\" cube is selected, namely the one that you can select using spacebar, and a different cube is then selected, the teal line representing the current \"other\" line is very very hard to distinguish from the dark green line. I think it would be cool if the line was more easily distinguishable so that when the curve generator for example is used then there is no ambiguity about which other line is currently being used. I think the line width of the teal line might be 1 while the line width of the green lines is about 2:



Thx

You are right. I need to check where I left them.

On the subject of the curve generator (I can't believe I didn't think of mentioning this earlier), do you think you can look into finding some different algorithms for it?

I remember I used to keep dropping back into DEVIL to do curves because it was more adjustible and generally produced more mathematically correct curves, without the bizzare corkscrew twisting DMB2 would do (even cycling with \"P\" I think). However, DEVIL wouldn't work in \"extreme cases\" (vaguely defined as the start and finish cubes too close, or some magic angle from each other). I don't know. I just think DMB2's curve generator is a pain for some reason.

Another thing I would find myself doing to compensate was using Descent Block Builder 2 to make curves, and import them as blocks into DMB2.