Research Composite Editor upgrade - Age of Empires Forums

Topic Subject: Research Composite Editor upgrade

« Previous Page 1 ··· 3 4 5 6 7 ··· 11 Next Page »

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 01-23-09 09:00 PM ET (US)

� This thread is old. New thread is at: http://aoe.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aoecgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=4,6295,,10 . Go there for newer, better stuff.

) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) _ Composite Editor _ ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

To download Composite Editor 0.9 BETA,
^{░███████ ░ ██░░░░░ ██████ ░ ░███████ ░ ███░░███░ ░░░░░ ██░░░░██ ░ ███████ ░ ████████░ ░ ███████ ░ ███
███░░░░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░░██░░ ░ ███░░░░░ ░ ███░███░░ ░░░░░ ██░░░░██ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ██░░░░██░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ███
███░░░░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░░██░░ ░ ███░░░░░ ░ █████░░░░ ░░░░░ ████████ ░ ███████ ░ ██░░░███░ ░ ███████ ░ ██░
███░░░░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░░██░░ ░ ███░░░░░ ░ ██████░░░ ░░░░░ ██░░░░██ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ██████░░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ██░
███░░░░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░░██░░ ░ ███░░░░░ ░ ███░███░░ ░░░░░ ██░░░░██ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ██░░███░░ ░ ██░░░░░ ░ ░░░
░███████ ░ ███████ ██████ ░ ░███████ ░ ███░░████ ░░░░░ ██░░░░██ ░ ███████ ░ ██░░░████ ░ ███████ ░ ███}
, then immediately click "Download File".

The Improved Editor was getting old.
Chariots were pwning it.
The Market and Pit upgrades were not good enough.
It had a bad acronym.
There was only one choice left...
Upgrade to Composite Editor.

All features made by patching the original .dat.

The purpose of Composite Editor is to provide designers of Age of Empires and Rise of Rome Expansion scenarios a tool to unlock the restrictions from the games' Scenario Builders, while the scenarios edited using Composite Editor are compatible with the original, unmodified ("vanilla") game. This allows the designer to ship the scenario or campaign without having to include a mod. Any feature that requires installing a mod to work is outside the scope of Composite Editor.

Again, feature requests are welcome.

Wish list:
- Automatic Terrain Rendering
- Invisible unit control (flares, cliffs, IDs, etc.)
- Paint hidden terrains
- Paint water on elevations
- Unit placement on Fog and any other restricted terrains
- Place building foundations
- Separate file with snapping to grid enabled

(things to fix)
- Walls taking priority when selecting
- Cliffs/shallows covering up other units

Progress so far: (AoE)
- All units unhidden
- All units may be placed freely on all normal terrains
- All units including buildings unlocked from grid
- All units place-able to the edge of the map
- All units can be placed and overlapped densely
- Random generation of terrain objects disabled
- - Direct painting of walkable water
- - Custom forests and minimap painting without having to delete random junk
- Complete Missile control: place, move, rotate (except catapult balls because they're circular), delete
- "Jumping" rotation of tree stump disabled
- Dead units can be moved and rotated
- Invisible units revealed and can be moved
- Trees can now be moved
- flag rotation
- shallows rotation
- cliffs control - move, rotate - including invisibility control and unlocked hidden angle

Progress so far: (RoR)
- All units unhidden
- Units can be placed on any terrain regardless of type (except for certain hidden terrains)
- Units unlocked from grid
- - Buildings unlocked from grid
- Units placeable to the edge of the map
- Units can be placed densely, overlapping and other effects
- Random generation of terrain units disabled
- - Direct painting of walkable water
- - Simplified minimap painting (you don't have to delete random junk anymore)
- Random rotation of tree stump disabled (it won't jump anymore)
- Full dead unit control
- Full Shallows control
- Full Flag control
- Full Cliffs control
- - Toggle invisibility
- - Unlock hidden angle
- Full control of missiles (except for invisible missiles)
- All regular units and some other special units also have full control.
("Full control" means you can freely place, move, rotate and delete a unit almost anywhere without restriction, down to one unit per pixel. Note some units have only one angle so there isn't anything to rotate. Units cannot be placed or moved onto certain hidden terrains.)

Current version: 0.9

Anticipated release date of next version: No updates will be released until after my science fiction campaign is released (reconsidering this).
Also, I will not update Composite Editor or anything during a designing contest, to be fair to those who have to finish early for whatever reason.
(There is a contest - Obscure Historical Campaign Contest - going on right now. Entries are due by January 31, 2010 (exact words "Deadline is the END OF JANUARY 2010 "), but there is talk of extending it.)
^{Voting weights for release time decision Shareholder: weight (reason) Gumble: 4.5 (established precedent) MRCHEEZE: 3 (cheeze rhymeze withze threeze) Ninetails: ~4.5 (9 tails times 50% average on coin flip - actually anywhere between 0 and 9 as determined by nine coin tosses) zapdotep: ∞ (final decision)}
If you didn't use the huge link above,
(Download Composite Editor from Granary here
http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=2150)

There are many units in AoE, and lots of complex data. Though I go through the lists with great care, there is still a small chance that I missed something. If I seem to have missed anything, please post here. This is why it is still "BETA". It's not finished yet. If they're not brought to my attention, any bugs and omissions I don't notice could be left in the final product.

Many thanks go to Trisolo aka Scenario_T_C for inspiring and making this possible with his awesome Enhanced Editor and AoedRoRd utilities!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The best stuff I made for Age of Empires:
　Composite Editor 1.1 Rated 5.0 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (Utility)
　Coke vs. Pepsi Rated 4.4 ★ ★ ★ ★ ⅖ (Multi player scenario)
　The Map of the World (Real world map)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 11-15-2013 @ 03:57 AM).]

Author

Replies:

Gumble
Clubman

posted 04-20-09 09:45 PM ET (US) 101 / 255

??? I have been using the composite editor for rise of rome... How does that work?

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 04-21-09 00:05 AM ET (US) 102 / 255

You were using Improved Editor.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gumble
Clubman

posted 04-21-09 01:59 AM ET (US) 103 / 255

No I never downloaded the Improved editor. I have been using the beta version of the composite editor. I have noticed however that rise of rome units never appear in it.

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 04-21-09 02:23 AM ET (US) 104 / 255

Oh then maybe you accidentally used a empires.dat file intended for AoE. I specified in each folder name whether it is for AoE or RoR. They are:

Composite Editor 0.7 AoE
Composite Editor 0.8 Demo AoE
Improved Editor 0.6 RoR

I included Improved Editor for RoR in the Composite Editor download because Composite Editor doesn't exist for it yet. I started work on the RoR version a month or so ago, didn't do anything for a while, then recently did a lot of work on the AoE version.

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 04-21-2009 @ 02:41 AM).]

MrCheeze
Clubman

posted 04-21-09 03:37 PM ET (US) 105 / 255

Okay! I finally thought of a good reason to put back the align to grid bug!

If you're placing cliffs by hand because you don't want them to align (to the 3x3 grid), you'd need it so that you don't have to place them in the exact right place on your own!

"Mrcheeze your genius but not quite a Gumble-kind-of genius." - Gumble
"We're all friendly here except MrCheeze but he means well" - Ninetales (Not exact words)
"Gumble has no words for you, you’re boring now. -underrated- that’s a joke, Gumble is OVERSTATED." - Gumble
(Not even sure what he was saying there)

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 04-21-09 03:53 PM ET (US) 106 / 255

That is a good reason, I didn't think about the difficulty of using the unlocked cliffs. This would be needed since the other editors wouldn't allow you to move them even though they'd have the "snap to grid." If this feature could be thrown back in for the cliffs it would be great.

| The Slave Pits (4.8) MMC 1st Place | The Fate of Inraya Teaser (4.5) | The Parting Gift | Computer Wars Pack |
"Never experienced any of his revolutionary scenarios, but dang if he isn't charismatic when he speaks!" -Aro
Voted AoEH's Most Helpful Forumer 2009!

Ninetails, of all the forumers you seen to have the inabillity to feel hate against your fellow man. A noble trait, treasure it. -Gumble

[This message has been edited by Ninetails (edited 04-21-2009 @ 03:54 PM).]

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 04-21-09 09:44 PM ET (US) 107 / 255

Ok, I'll add making a separate empires.dat with snapping to the grid to my to-do list. This will take several hours of work to implement. I haven't figured out what code values control this yet. Many features were made by simply applying large amounts of patches and hoping something cool happens. Right now my priority is to work out the irregularities in the features currently under development, finish the RoR version, and write documentation, in that order. So an option to snap to grid while retaining most of the new features will happen sometime later, after I finish the more immediate tasks.

Edit: I'll be away for a week or so. Don't hesitate to post though (so you don't forget). I can read them when I get back.

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 05-01-2009 @ 01:55 AM).]

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 05-01-09 02:04 AM ET (US) 108 / 255

There are now over 60,000 patches in the RoR patch file.
It is now "compiling". Wait several hours.
While waiting read this:
http://xkcd.com/303/

...

Several hours is over. The long-awaited RoR version of Composite Editor is here.
Download!

I would appreciate serious testers. If you would like to help test, choose the feature(s) you want to test from the list in the OP (originating post) and post it.

...

Several more hours have passed. Has no one noticed?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 05-01-2009 @ 11:42 AM).]

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-01-09 01:04 PM ET (US) 109 / 255

I've noticed! I'll test flag and shallows control sometime later today.

Nacht Jaeger
Clubman
(id: RCM7525)

posted 05-01-09 08:05 PM ET (US) 110 / 255

Newsied.

Nacht Jaeger - Ex AoEH Angel

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-01-09 09:52 PM ET (US) 111 / 255

One problem so far is that the shallows and cliffs are always on top of other units, making it hard to position things correctly.

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 05-01-09 11:46 PM ET (US) 112 / 255

Are they on top of other units regardless of position, or only when the center of the other unit is more towards the top of the screen than the center of the cliffs/shallows?
The difference will tell whether or not this can be easily fixed without losing the rotate feature.

What is it like with and without the 1.0a patch?

@Gumble: - Does this selecting bug persist in Composite Editor now?
- The game engine automatically rotates walls whenever a scenario is loaded. I suggest testing the walls with the original empires.dat to see what they would actually look like when playing.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 05-02-2009 @ 01:31 AM).]

Gumble
Clubman

posted 05-02-09 00:20 AM ET (US) 113 / 255

One problem I have noticed (In the Improved editor) that walls always seem to be prioritized when you select objects near them which moves them out of postion. This is probably the most frustrating bug of the editor and I would like anyone to remedy it. Plus any moved walls automatically change the other walls connected to them into "corner Stone walls". Another problem.

Too many people say far too much about Gumble. They also claim Gumble says far too much which isnt true.

One man's truth is another man's lie. Seek TRUTH to escape this moral mire.

'Experts' try to analyse human behaviour and the human condition and make grand conclusions. - Its the same as the guy who explains why a joke is funny and kills the joke.

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-03-09 10:03 PM ET (US) 114 / 255

Cliffs are on top of everything, shallows are behind other objects like walls and units, but are on top of things like rocks and grass clumps, making it difficult to design swamps or canals.

Suppiluliuma
AoEH Seraph

posted 05-05-09 04:57 PM ET (US) 115 / 255

As long as people designs and continues to improve the tools to do so, this game won't die. Thanks to zapdotep.

HMFSFM
Clubman
(id: Da KiLLeR)

posted 05-23-09 06:06 AM ET (US) 116 / 255

One problem so far is that the shallows and cliffs are always on top of other units, making it hard to position things correctly.

Yep, I've seen that too. In the mini-map, cliffs are like watterfalls(instead of being brown they are black). I love the missile control, because it gives you more ideas with the designing, but I actually dislike this new editor because(like TailSpray said) the cliffs and shadows are always on the top of other units, so you can't make no swamps or place buildings/trees/people on swamps

. I'd love if you could update it, because I really like the missile control.

Killer, HMFSFM �
AoE Portuguese Designer
"Combining good map design and personality since whenever it was that he exploded onto AoEH, blowing away all the known rules of designing!" - Ninetails
【► My Age of Empires 1 Projects:◄】
|The Adventures of Zenor 1 - The Skull of the Realm - 4.1|The Adventures of Zenor 2 - The Fall of Artratus- 4.1|

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 05-24-09 10:05 PM ET (US) 117 / 255

I am revising the wish list and adding these requests.
Keep 'em coming.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by zapdotep (edited 05-24-2009 @ 10:53 PM).]

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-25-09 12:12 PM ET (US) 118 / 255

Okay then, how about smooth unit placement on hills? Probably impossible, but you asked.

Can't you create an extra .dat file that assigns the hidden terrains to the existing brushes?

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 05-25-09 03:35 PM ET (US) 119 / 255

Okay then, how about smooth unit placement on hills? Probably impossible, but you asked.

Can you explain further? I thought it was already possible (you just have to be really careful when placing units on elevations)?
Now that I think about it, I recall there is a bug in the editor that causes units to be placed in a totally different location. This happens when there is a change in elevation under the mouse pointer when you move the screen. (This is usually done by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen, and the screen moves in the direction of the side of the screen the mouse is on)
One way to work around this is to move the screen with the mouse pointer on a constant elevation. You can move the mouse up or down the elevations without moving the screen. When the screen position does not change, you can move the mouse and place units on elevations exactly where the preview appears. I think there was another way, but I don't remember it.

Can't you create an extra .dat file that assigns the hidden terrains to the existing brushes?

"paint hidden terrains" is already in the wish list.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-25-09 07:06 PM ET (US) 120 / 255

I was just thinking that you could turn off the attribute that causes units to snap to a certain location on the elevation and making it difficult to place units with any precision.

My idea about the hidden terrains was just an idea of how to implement it, that's all.

zapdotep
Clubman

posted 05-28-09 01:12 AM ET (US) 121 / 255

I will check up on that.

...

Attention.
I want to resume work on my campaign sometime around Tuesday next week. Before that I would like to make one last update to Composite Editor. Once I start on the campaign there will not be any updates to Composite Editor until the campaign is complete. Therefore, if you want something not currently in the wish list, please post it ASAP.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fisk
Champion of AoEH
(id: Fruktfisk)

posted 05-28-09 12:22 PM ET (US) 122 / 255

Yeah, when I'm placing things they seem to spawn a little bit more to the right and a little bit further down than the shadowy image thing, is there anything you could do about this?

//The warrior of Isola

"I lack quotes that demonstrate Humor Intelligence or anything about me."

Pineapplefish
Cleidopus gloriamaris

MrCheeze
Clubman

posted 05-29-09 06:17 PM ET (US) 123 / 255

For the record, I'm 99% sure it's impossible to paint hidden terrains by editing terrain.txt, I once switched ALL attributes of grass and fog and switching back to normal dat turned the painted "fog" (really grass) back to grass.

Ninetails
AoEH MMC Winner
(id: TailSpray)

posted 05-29-09 06:25 PM ET (US) 124 / 255

Of course, because it seems that all you did was create a mod that changed grass into fog and when you no longer had the mod installed, everything changed back to normal. I'm suggesting that Zappy try to find whatever it is that tells the grass brush to paint grass and change it so that the brush path somehow points to the fog (or some other) terrain.

MrCheeze
Clubman

posted 05-30-09 05:18 PM ET (US) 125 / 255

No, but I'm saying nothing that starts with terrain_x_blah affects which # terrain gets painted. One of those "head2"'s might but I doubt it, they show no pattern.

« Previous Page 1 ··· 3 4 5 6 7 ··· 11 Next Page »

Age of Empires Heaven » Forums » Scenario Design and Modding » Research Composite Editor upgrade

Top