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Hah, it doesn't happen very often that I agree with absolutely everything someone just said. Seriously, you're right about everything so I don't have much to add.I know most people don't seem to be for this "portal DS" project, but I'm making some good progress so here's a short (and crappy quality) video :
I like both the Portal idea, as well as the FPS Editor, and don't see why they can't exist side by side. There's a lot of overlap between two projects, so much of the development on one should carry over to the other. I actually had the same thought of this potentially being used for a portal-type game prior to it being mentioned, though I wasn't sure how viable it would be given the limitations of the DS hardware. It looks like it's coming along pretty well so far though.
In any case, I got around to trying the Editor the other day, and I must say it's really quite neat. While there are certainly a lot of things that could be added or improved, the interface itself works rather well, and is easy to get working with following a quick glance over the tutorial. I did notice some things I wouldn't mind seeing improved though, that I thought I'd mention here.
First, is that compiling levels can take a rather long time with larger, more detailed rooms with multiple light sources. I suspect the vast majority of this time is spent computing the light map, so it would be nice to have some basic control over the light mapping process. For example, there could be a quick-compile button that skips rendering the lightmap altogether, just setting all surfaces to fully-lit. There could also be another option that renders a less detailed lightmap, so you can get a basic idea of how the lighting will look with a full compile, but in a fraction of the time. Another thing that would be nice to have would be a progress indicator, even if it just updates the approximate percentage complete after each light is processed. Maybe a readout reading "1 of 7 lights processed" or something like that. Displaying the total compile time at the end might be useful too.
It would also be nice to see skyboxes added. The skybox itself could just be a simple hidden cube with fully-lit textures covering the walls, floor and ceiling, and surfaces set to a skybox material in the level could show the view from the center of that cube. The skybox's textures could be edited outside the editor. It might also be cool if directional light could be emitted from such surfaces, with the direction and intensity of light configurable. On a somewhat related note, being able to set an overall ambient light level for a level would be useful, allowing areas not within a light's radius to remain somewhat lit.
A basic pixel art editor to edit materials directly in the editor could be nice too. I'm sure sure are other things I noticed that I'm just not thinking of at the moment as well. : )
As a quick note about the game, the select button is a bit awkward for opening doors. The select button tends to move around between different DS interations as well, so it may be more awkward on some systems than on others. It would make more sense for doors to just open automatically when bumping into them.
On a side note, that is the weakest-sounding gun ever. It's like a staple gun. Due to the lack of audio-visual feedback, I didn't even realize I was shooting it at first. : P
Right now the portal clone project is taking priority, but I do plan on getting back to FPSmaker afterwards. I have to use a slightly modified version of the engine for the portal clone, so not all modifications/additions can translate to FPSmaker, but pretty much everything regarding the editor should overlap. (although portal would have specific entities, like switches, cubes, platforms...)
So yes, a "quick compile" mode is planned, same for the skybox and material editor. I also do realize that using select to open door is very uncomfortable (on my FAT DS it is anyway), so yeah, automated doors probably would make sense. I was thinkin either that or a button on the touch screen. And yeah, the gun SFX is terrible, I had a problem when adding it and I was unable to isolate it in time unfortunately. It will be fixed, and I've already added a particle effect for when the player shoots walls (and I'm thinking about adding bullet impacts and maybe blood splatters, too)