Do we have a way to export map tile geometry?

[Holy_Diver]

I was just wondering how you guys are able to make new map tiles that mesh with the originals, if you are able...

I know for instance Todd made that patch that fits between the outdoor grass walls, and the ice set in DD that looks very similar but with terraces you can walk on.

So I'm wondering if From' provided a tool for that, or if you just eyeball things, or what??

[Verdite]

I do alot of eyework when it comes to scaling and the like. I could knock up a few for you if you'd like, which ones do you want in particular?

[Holy_Diver]

I kinda just wanted to know what you all were putting up with. I think soon I'm going to start reverse engineering the map files, which will probably include the individual tile files, though I'll begin with the .mpx files. I'm guessing the data in the .mpx files in more or less the same as the individual files.

I'm going to be doing a real push to really improve the quality of the all the games we have so far. I feel pretty strongly at some point once the tools are available we're going to have to start coordinating some action around making the tile sets way more robust. The inside tile sets are pretty spartan, and the outdoor set really needs at least twice as many tiles before you could call it fully functional. Unfortunately there were no outdoor areas in the KF1 remake, so I think because of that the outdoor set was never properly vetted.

But yeah I was thinking the other day about some very simple stuff, like why there is no way to put the outdoor steps tiles in the middle of a 1m slope. To be honest all the ground pieces would probably benefit from twice as many polygons... the lighting on them is really more like a craggy cave wall.

[Verdite]

Thats one of the reasons why i started making my own map pieces from scratch. Outdoor steps are easy and when the time is right i could make a universal set - one that fits in with any outdoor map. I dont use any map pieces from the original SoM set.

[Holy_Diver]

I can understand that from the pov of making a game from scratch. But as a KF fan like all the KF games, 90% of Som's charm to me is the artwork that comes with it. But we've no functional tools for working with that stuff (atm) unfortunately. Original games are interesting but I'd much prefer to see people riffing on the stuff that comes with Som / building a collective toybox at some point. Even you were asking for tools to export the Som stuff right?!

We'll get there... or anyway, as long as I'm alive expect Som to get better with age (including the games made with it)

And as long as we have a place to meet, if you ever don't hear from me, either I am dead or banned

[Verdite]

Thats a heavy commitment, though i suppose the speed is on your side.

Yes id really like a mdl to x converter. All the stuff i make is mingle-able with SoM's original map pieces except for indoor ones. Most of my stuff has indoor and outdoor funtionalities so they can be used for both.

[Holy_Diver]

Thats one of the reasons why i started making my own map pieces from scratch. Outdoor steps are easy and when the time is right i could make a universal set - one that fits in with any outdoor map. I dont use any map pieces from the original SoM set.

FYI: That's the funny thing. There are already outdoor steps, there's just no way to blend them into the slope pieces. The only pieces that blend into them are the outdoor grass walls and technically the outdoor 2x2m columns. I'm sure if the From' people had tried to make a game using the outdoor set it would've been more robust.

[Holy_Diver]

I was just thinking... when I start tearing into the .mpx files it will be very interesting to see how the "map optimization" works. I'm sure once I figure it out I could generate a better optimization regime / re-optimizer. It might even be interesting to have a tool for tweaking problem areas by hand, or even manually optimizing certain areas if that makes sense.

I did not say so before, but my plan is I think for detecting the map tiles, instead of trying to automatically dissect them, it will probably make more sense to scan the .mpx files as Som opens them. Originally (before I realized it might be possible to autodetect them on the fly) I was going to slap together a tool for generating the keys Ex uses from the .mpx files, but it's more simple to just scan them in at runtime (or maptime) I think, and more in keeping with the way the key system works so far.

Offtopic: while digging thru debugger output today I noticed some of the messages that som_db.exe spits out. One of them referred to an "Event Leaf" literally with the word Lifu phonetically spelled in katakana. I'm guessing John never saw that, or forgot he did... it would've been a very strong argument anyway back when we were arguing the best words for some terms. I still prefer Stage to Event Leaf ... but I'd rather stick to the original language... especially where English lone words are involved.

Still the computer scientist in me... technically the events don't branch, so they can't have leaves. Though John pointed out a book can have leaves, though that's pretty damn archaic usage I think