That's the "manual" to this little program in the Wild/Tools/ dir, the so called ObjectEditor. First of all, the answer: this is a simple program to assemble scenes and to change little things in the objects, but it's NOT an object modeler. Its purpose is to assemble the objects that you create with any other program, and then you convert (with Dxf2WABL for example). I made it to assemble the DangerStone scene (you'll see in the next release) wich needed some translations, and I can't change handly 1000 points values !! So, I did this.
First, you should know the 3DWorld doc, to understand things here.
NOTE: Some features may be STILL UNAVAILABLE, EVEN IF DOCUMENTED HERE: I've written the manual, THEN I'll code!!
This manual will be more like a tutorial, I think the ObjectEditor is quite simple to use and you won't need a lot of time to manage it...
When you open the program, you get a public screen, with 3 windows:
- The ViewWindow, the one that lets you see the results, or select things, or...
- The Control window, wich lets you toggle other windows.
- The Import/Export window, that let you import or export files.
Here, you can:
- quit the program by closing the viewwin.
- load a file to edit it.
So, select the input format (just for now, the cyclegadget is not active, and WABL is used always... when I'll have some more formats I'll make it work...) and click Import. Then select the file... after a few seconds you will have the scene displayed.
Now, let's open the other 2 windows: the ToolsBar and the Mover.
- the Mover one is to move things, depending of what you are doing.
- the ToolsBar contains all the editing funcs, and the selecting tools.
In the ToolBar you have:
- Global group, wich has the commands good for any edit mode, so those Add,Remove,???
- EditMode cycle, wich lets you select what you are editing. At start, it's Scene.
- The specific editing groups (Scene,World,Arena,... depenging by EditMode)
- The selection part. You have 9 selections possible: any of these can contain a free number of OMOGENEOUS objects, so all points, all sectors, all aliens, NOT a face and a point and a light and so. By clicking on one color, you select the current selection to work on. You have also a special selection, wich is the White one: you can select, with this, only ONE object, by scrolling the scroller or by clicking in the ViewWin. Then, you can add it to the current coloured selection, using the Add button.
- The selection commands, those Add,None,All... to select things quickly: Add adds the current White selection to the current, None clears the current selection, All selects all (wow ! :)).
Now the specific editing modes:
- Scene.
You can load a palette or move the camera. The Mover moves the View, and if you set in the cycle "Camera View" this point of view vill be saved later. If you don't, the point of view stored is not touched.
- World.
You can just set the Player: you select using the White selection and you press the button. Always, when only one object is needed, you add using the White selection.
- Arena.
None yet! (nothing defined specific for Arena, but Arena is also an Alien and also an Entity !)
- Alien.
None yet!
- Sector.
None yet!
- Entity.
- Nebula.
None yet ! Note that Nebula also is intended as the selection of all the sector's points, so you can edit as points.
- Wire.
None yet !
- Shell.
Simple bsp tree: takes directly the Wild-made one.
Split balanced bsp tree: makes the bsp-tree of the shell, also splitting things if needed, and trying to balance it better possibly.
Set BackFace culling: for closed shells (all shells should be closed, but...) you can optimize viewing using BackFace culling, wich eliminate the back faces. Using this you start from a face, OE will ask you is you see it or no, and then will automatically proceed and set correctly points to have the correct BackFace culling.
- Point.
Color: change the points color.
Flags: sets flags.
Mover moves the points relatively to the sector's ref.
- Edge.
Flags: sete flags.
- Face.
Texture control: opens a window to control the placing of a mapping. You should use this selecting more faces, maybe the full shell. There are 3 mapping types, explained then.
- Light.
Spot: select the point (with White selection) to use as spot.
Intensity: obvious.
Color: more obvious.
- Texture.
Load Image: you can load a 24bit chunky image ($aarrggbb a=alpha, not alway used) for the texture number you want. (add more using the Add command, from globals).