Sledge (Hammer Alternative) Alpha Build Created 11 years ago2013-07-27 02:24:39 UTC by Penguinboy

After i mapped for a bit i kinda want to have a editor that is more like a modelling program

Then check out this properly wacky alternative to Hammer, rufee:
Microbrush 2

Definitely not my cup of tea, but some pretty cool ideas.
Anything worth your time in there, Pengy?

Idk doesn't look too good, what i want is the ability to manipulate objects like in Maya or 3ds, make curvy pipes, bevel edges, create insane shapes and all that jazz, but eventually be broken down and compiled as brush geometry.

Make that happen on source and i will engrave "PB was my hero" on my tombstone

But first i want support for "custom texture creation on the fly" i might whip up an example to show what i mean later.

Im losing my mind here with all the possibilities.

This may be a crazy idea, but did you ever think of implementing instancing? As in there being multiple copies of the same object where if you modify one, all the others are modified in the same way automatically. It may even be possible to save that data too, perhaps as a shared object reference number, if I understood correctly what you said about the vmf format supporting additional data.

That would work very well for prefabs etc... I like it.

@Stu: That's definitely not a crazy idea, instancing will be added for Source support, and it will work with GS as well. Same goes for displacements, which will replace the need for the trimesh hack that Rim mentioned.

But instancing in Source is different from what I'm proposing from what I've read about it. It references an external file and changes have to be made to the external file. My idea was for it to be entirely self-contained within the one map, and that making changes to any one copy to the instanced object would affect all the others within the same map. And wouldn't work across map files.

There's nothing stopping me from making improvements to the system

Hey, I'm impressed and officially migrated. Just in time for

Just in time for what? The movie? Yom Kippur?

There's nothing stopping me from making improvements to the system

Don't mind me then. I'll be over here watching

Three minor things:

Would it be possible to close the error window using the enter key like in Hammer? In Hammer if I press Alt+P to open it and no errors are found, the close window button is already highlighted so pressing enter closes it.

Also, when using tab to switch between values in the texture window (like scale and position), could it be set to auto highlight the text in the box? I find the quickest way to change those values in Hammer is to tab through them and just type in whatever values I want, but the fact that it doesn't automatically highlight them, especially with the added decimal places, makes it take a lot longer having to manually highlight or delete the preexisting numbers.

And the {INVISIBLE and {BLUE textures show up as fully blue, even when hide null textures is toggled.

Hey, I'm impressed and officially migrated. Just in time for

...

That's really going to bug me.

New release! It's almost been a full month since the last one. In terms of new features, this release doesn't have a whole lot, but there are plenty of bug fixes!

There are also some reasonably major changes to how textures are loaded (in preparation for Source support) - WAD files are loaded from the game directories now (i.e. your game folder, and your mod folder). Any WAD files you have set up now will be removed, and your game WADs will be used instead! If you want extra WADs to load, go into the "Textures" tab of your game configuration settings, and add the files in there. You can add a folder to load all the WADs inside that folder.

The setting to load WAD files from your compile tools folder has been implemented, so you can turn that on and use zlht.wad without needing to add it manually.

Additionally, sprites and models from your FGD folders can be loaded as well, so you don't have to copy them into the Sledge directory, or into your game directories. Toggle the setting on in the "Entities" tab for your game, and then put the "models" and "sprites" folders in the same folder as your FGD file(s).

Full list:

Major features

• Added support for VPK packages
• Added support for VMT/VTF textures
• Textures are now loaded from the game files (they don't need to be added one-by-one)
• Additional WADs can be added from the "Additional Texture Packages" section in the settings
• Sprites, models and textures can now be automatically loaded from FGD and compile tool folders

Minor features

• Added a file browser in the object properties dialog for "sound" keyvalues
• Added a texture browser for sprite and decal types in the object properties dialog
• Added support for dragging-and-dropping files from Windows
• Added support for rendering sprite scale in the 3D view
• Added right-click class selector menu to the entity tool
• Add shift+arrow keys to move around the 3D view
• Added skip selection/visibility and stack size undo stack settings
• Added setting to change the size of the undo stack
• Added setting to fast-forward selection-related actions when performing undo/redo
• Add more detailed error reporting (line/char numbers) to the FGD provider
• Actions that don't modify state don't mark the map as changed
• Added an option to the Tetrahedron brush to place the top vertex at the centroid of the base
• Put up/downs next to all the 3D setting sliders for more precise input
• Implemented mouse invert settings in the 3D view
• Replaced HLLib file loaders (PAK, WAD, VPK) with native .NET implementations (for greater portability)
• Added some additional compile options (individual tools can be turned off)
• Allow support for multiple keys with the same name in the object properties dialog
• Added support for Quake-style MAP format (as generated by WinBSPc)

Bug fixes

• Update bounding boxes, decals, sprites, and models correctly for entities when changing class
• Various fixes related to parenting and modifying objects
• Various fixes related to undo/redo not working as expected
• Zero value keys in transform dialog reset values to 1 if in scale mode
• Fix silly file associations to use the normal method
• Make the filter on the texture browser save the typed text properly
• Make "apply with values" right-click texture application work correctly when no faces are selected
• Various optimisations and bug fixes when loading MAP and VMF files

WAD files are loaded from the game directories now (i.e. your game folder, and your mod folder). Any WAD files you have set up now will be removed, and your game WADs will be used instead!

This sounds funky in theory, but what if I only use certain wads and ignore some useless wads that only add noise? I'm thinking cached.wad and the sort. There are 2-3 wads from the HL default install that I never add because they either are empty or have useless textures.

/me looks at the rest of the update

Yeah, the next thing I have to add is the ability to exclude textures/wads from the list, like Hammer 4 does.

Quite an update!

(in preparation for Source support)

Boner achieved!

ITT: Captain Terror gets aroused by software updates.

For Sledge Source support?! YES!

Well im getting an error with this new update (which sounds amazing btw!). I sent the error report with my name attatched but just to give you an idea, here is a SS of the message (as much as i can fit on screen since i cant scroll down in the error box):

http://i.imgur.com/qTNXG9w.jpg

not sure what it means and i havent tried anything to fix it (adding wads or anything). i wanted to get your opinion first.

thanks!

Can you look in your game and mod directories, and open each WAD file in Wally or GCFScape until you find the one that doesn't open? If you remove that, it should stop the error. I'll add error handling for invalid WAD files in the next version

I've been getting this error since the new update.

ahhhh ok i see. so the update uses ALL wads in the directory? good thinking, ill report back! (this may take a while...311 to go through heh)

@Dim: Hmm, looks like that's caused by a WAD file that has two items with the same name. I don't know how someone managed to do that! I'll have to make a fix for that as well, I'll see what I can do when I get home from work. For now, you can try to find the WAD that has two textures with the same name - removing that should stop the bug.

@COOBORKY: 311? Damn, that's a lot If you don't want to go through them all, I'll try to get a fix out later tonight (~12 hours from now).

i did find a wad (a 1 kb wad called null) that gave me an error but when i removed it, same error, for some reason. ill keep digging and see. and it didnt take nearly as long to go through all of them lol, just opened like 50 at a time.

edit: also tried renaming any wads that had spaces or dashes (not underscores) in the name. no dice. tried moving every wad except the ones i KNOW worked before out of cstrike, but with no success.

i wonder if one of the textures in a wad has yet another undiscovered bad character in the name? not sure. curious to see if you come up with anything later on tonight/tomorrow

I've removed every WAD Sledge was using, and then went through all of my WADs one by one, but they all gave me the same error when I tried to open a map.

I've just released an update, can you guys please try it out and let me know if it's working for you? Thanks for being patient!

I also added a fix for DiscoStu's dilemma of wanting to exclude certain WAD files, by adding both a blacklist and a whitelist. Here's how they work:

Blacklist:
Add texture packages you want to exclude from being loaded, one per line. For example, it might look like this:

halflife
cstrike

Which means halflife.wad and cstrike.wad will NOT be loaded. "cached" and "gfx" are always excluded automatically, as these are never useful.

Whitelist:
If you want to use Sledge the "old way" - that is, you only want to load a certain list of WAD files, you can use the whitelist. Using the example above as the whitelist, this time ONLY halflife.wad and cstrike.wad will be loaded, and no others. Leave the list blank if you don't want to use the whitelist.

Changes:

• Added error handling when trying to load invalid WAD files
• Added support for a texture blacklist (exclude/ignore certain texture packages)
• Added support for a texture whitelist (only load specified texture packages, ignore all others)

While you're on texturing, I had an idea that'd speed up workflow (for me at least) significantly.

Can you make a (presumably togglable) option that would automatically texture the 'new' faces created down the split during a clip with NULL/NoDraw and automatically align said faces to 'World'?

Reasoning: The new faces created during a clip in Hammer seem to be textured in the texture most prominent on the brush being clipped. I can't think of a single time where that's been the texture I've actually wanted, as trim textures for holes and NULL for detailing are almost always the better option. Setting it to NULL by default will easily show which faces still require texturing after a clip. Further, always aligning clipped faces to World by default will prevent any TEXTURE AXIS PERPENDICULAR TO FACE bugs often created during clipping.

Thoughts?

Edit: Or even just let the user choose a texture to be applied during the clip?

Can you make a (presumably togglable) option that would automatically texture the 'new' faces created down the split during a clip with NULL/NoDraw and automatically align said faces to 'World'?

^

This would save time, especially with making trims and such. Again, I would also like to see the toggles for face and Left+Top when dealing with off-grid stuff. (i know i can select the whole thing and click manually click them, i just think it would be nice)

I third this suggestion. Mucho time saving grande.

well my sledge works now but theres yet another little snafu heh...

the whitelist only lets me load 1 wad at a time. i added like 15 or so but only the first line works. the rest disappear after applying and either reloading the map or restarting sledge altogether.

the same seems to be true for the blacklist as well, only the first wad name on the list gets excluded (for blacklist).

at least i can load my map now! lol but yeah theres evil afoot here

I must admit that I only tested it with one WAD file >_<
I won't do an "emergency" patch for this one, but I will make sure it's fixed for the next version. Sorry for the hassle

@Archie: Could it use whatever texture is selected (i.e. appearing in the right bar)), or should it always use null/nodraw?

I almost feel like that would even be more frustrating, akin to accidentally leaving your brush tool on Cylinder when you want to make a block
For me, at least, just making it null every time would be the tits!

no worries penguin. there are a couple little things that i feel can be improved upon now that im thinkin of them:

the first being when using the VM tool on the default setting (IE white and yellow vertices are present), the selection box, when trying to select multiple vertices, should only select the white vertices. i didnt find it inconvenient at all having to manually select the yellow boxes to split faces (i NEVER use them to actually move or adjust the position of the brush).

so if changing that is possible or having it toggleable, that would be great. i know i brought it up before but maybe it got lost in the sea of suggestions.

the second thing is the, for lack of a better word, tolerance for sledge to select new/different brushes while in VM mode. what i mean is when i try to use the selection box to select a vertex/vertices of a brush, sometimes sledge will think im trying to select a totally different brush, highlight said new brush, and now i have to now go back and re-select the brush i was trying to edit before and its just a big pain in the butt and rather frustrating.

if there is a way to turn that off or toggle it in options that would be great. i cant think of very many times where ive even tried to select a brush in 2D mode (im sure i HAVE but its very seldom), i always like to select brushes in the 3D view.

and i guess a third thing, still going with the theme of the VM tool: it would be much more convenient if the box that pops up when selecting the VM tool would be defaulted to the right side tool bar because having to maneuver around that box while trying to edit ur map is just a pain. again ive brought it up before but you get so many suggestions, i get if things get overlooked!

DiscoStu's dilemma

Totally sounds like an ancient philosophical riddle.

also ONCE AGAIN my stupid entity sprites arent working _____ (ambient_generic, etc etc).

can you add an option to manually browse to the folder containing the sprites in addition to the "Load sprites and models from FGD directories" check box?

no matter where i put the entity sprites they still never want to work and maybe having this option to point sledge DIRECTLY to the folder containing them may help.

edit: sledge seems to be running rather sluggishly for some reason. a half-to-full second delay sometimes between clicking objects and especially selecting textures. it cant be because i have too many wads active because, until the white/blacklist is fixed, i moved all except for the wads i was previously using out of the mod folder (24 total in use, which ran perfectly before the update).

i wonder what could be slowing poor sledgy down D:

also it kinda sucks that the update deleted all my favorites will it do that every time or just this particular update?

I'm trying to align a point from a brush to a point on a hexagon made with the cylinder tool. It never aligns, even when I zoom in until it glitches, it will never match up. Is there enough demand for a "Snap to Vertex" option for VM?

Despite that, I love how I can uniform scale by holding CTRL. However, when I also held shift, I was expecting a uniform scale around center and it didn't happen. I had to screw with decimals in the transform dialog and never got the thing I wanted. I then started making a new piece from scratch only smaller.

When importing a OBJ mesh, check for errors. The invalid surfaces are often caused by the central point of a tetrahedron to be above the primary face of the brush. Simply moving it to a more suitable location fixes these errors. It's possible to load complex meshes with little reworking to make them function.

Also if you import a mesh, it will be hollow, having space and clip hulls inside it (and a lot of them too). You can make it solid by making a path from the inside to the void.

@Cooborky: Maybe I could figure out what the problem is if I tried using the same files that you are. Can you upload your FGD file and sprites folder, plus the settings file from the "%appdata%/Sledge" folder? Hopefully we can work out what the problem is...

When you edit a sprite entity, there's the option to "browse" for a sprite. Do your editor sprites (light.spr, speaker.spr, etc) appear in that browser? (they are supposed to)

I have fixed the slowness when selecting textures, so that should be fixed in the next version. Also, your favourites didn't get deleted, but I accidentally made a change that means that existing favourites didn't appear in the browser. I'll fix that in the next version too, so your old favourites will return again.

oh wow that new sprite brower is neat! and yes the entity sprites do indeed show up in the sprite browser, but still not in 3d view.

here is the main fgd that i use as well as the files you requested:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/kaxcgs

and cool! i was hoping i wouldnt have to go through and re-add my favs. good to know

on the subject of browsers, is there a way to make the models browser remember your last location in a folder instead of defaulting back to the main mod directory folder? too bad browsing for models cant be as easy as the way you have it set up for sprites now D: that would probably require a screenshot of each model huh (unless of course theres a way to render them in the browser )

After the update, i seem to be getting ~1 second input lag as well, while typing in the Texture Browser filter box.
Using 4 wads atm, about 100 Mb each.
Nvm, misread Penguins last paragraph....

The sprites are still not showing properly for me. They seem to scale compared to their default x1 size, but are very tiny in the 3D window, no way near their in-game size.

On the subject of right click texture application again.

Sorry to harp on about this but now that I've tried this out with the "apply texture and values" but this seems to work in the same way as alt + right clicking, aligning the texture to be perpendicular(I think is the right word...?) to the face selected which is certainly useful but isn't always necessarily what you want...

I'm being really picky, but it's what I'm used to...

Has anyone compiled anything with an imported OBJ mesh yet? I'm trying to and simply can't due to a bunch of invalid surfaces. Sledge says there are no problems.

EDIT: Hold on, the error report in the VM tool says that nearly every face is errored. Is the OBJ import broken?

Importing .obj has never worked properly for me in any goldsource editor, with any modelling software. Always had to do adjustments/fixes.

I've managed to get a small section of what I was importing compiled. Good to see that the edges were unified into nice smooth connected faces, so at least its accurate. Still, errors riddled it during compile.

That's the point where many devs decide it's functional enough and leave it as it is.

But Penguinboy is a competent dev and he won't let you down like that.

Can you upload a sample .obj file that generates the invalid solids so I can debug it myself? The couple of samples I used to test the import when I was coding worked without errors.

I made these. They're curved round pool shapes. They seem simple in my book.
Both are slightly different. Pool2 being properly proportioned to the sledge grid through calculated export settings.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8z5tbpxj1jsomik/testpool1.obj
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l2w42qltnso1jei/testpool2.obj

EDIT: Should mention that sometimes Copy-pasting the brushwork exposes errors. It doesn't show everything and still has problems.

Also, PB, when you made the OBJ importer, what kind of stuff did you imagine people would import? Are there any Do's or Don'ts regarding this feature?

EDIT 2: Got it.I suspect why your meshes work and mine didn't. I tried exporting with triangulation only, no quads or polys, and there are no errors anywhere to be found. Quads mess it up it seems.

So, my export settings are No Rotation, Scale at 0.01, and export as triangles. It works perfectly.

Model import test case: Cube.
Tested, works just fine.

Model import test case #2: Pyramid.
Tested, works just fine.

Model import is complete.

I'm trying objects or shapes that resemble things that may be applicable. It works enough for me where I want to put it to a true test and make some caves with it.

Yeah that whole thing about triangles doesn't want to be true for me today. I'm having to manually fix a mesh I actually need for something...

Just manually fixed hundreds of errors for the last hour. I hope this works cuz I really like the "Plan A" for this.

I was disappointed that when I tried something slightly ambitious, I didn't get the output I was expecting, even after trying a number of alternatives. It just imported weird. The points that is the bottom part of the tetrahedrons were above the face, making nearly every other brush invalid.

EDIT: Fuck sure whatever.Saved, closed, then opened the map again a bit later and this is what I got. I saved it as a MAP file. I give up. Fuckin done. PLAN B.

EDIT 2: Tried yet some more experimentation because I'm insane. It re-imported fine without error, but for some reason there are dozens of tetrahedrons that are facing that wrong way. Nothing is in error so yeah its just messed up. Back to Plan B.

Can't know if it's never heavily tested.

Rimrook: Regarding tetrahedrons facing the wrong way, in my testing the normals of the imported faces decides which way the tetrahedrons will face. Make sure that the normals of the object is aligned in the 3d software you're exporting from, if it then turns out wrong again just flip all the normals and export again.

I can't see the point in converting the faces to tetrahedrons to be honest, what's the reasoning behind it penguinboy?