Map cobbling tool

[Sajt]

Haven't officially started this project yet, but I have nailed down a .MAP renderer (which was the hardest part). Currently it's incorporated into my game engine but it will be ripped out to make this standalone tool, which will be available on Subversion when I get a webspace.

This tool will be a rudimentary 'level of levels' editor. You import entire levels as .MAP files and can move them around, or rotate them at 90 degree increments (yaw only). So if, say, you wanted to put all of Quake singleplayer into one big map, you could use this tool. Import all the maps, create some connecting pieces in a map editor and import them too, remove a few brushes (like the backs of the dark doorways), fiddle with some entities (mainly changelevels), and export! Then try to find a compile tool that can handle such a massive level.

Some things will be handled natively, such as renaming target/targetname pairs to mapname_targetname, and changing slipgate changelevels into teleports. It remains to be seen how well having thousands of monsters waiting around the map will work. It will also be interesting to see how this works out in multiplayer...

For screenshots of the .MAP renderer, see:
Shot of DM4
Shot of all 32 singleplayer maps together, running at 45 fps (now 53 fps) on my GF7800GTX
(the white textures are non-power-of-two ones that I forgot to scale up)

Of course when editing only a few maps at a time will need to be rendered.

The interface will all be SDL and OpenGL, no OS-specific GUI stuff. I don't know yet if there will be 2D viewports, but the 3D mode will have a few different control schemes - FPS noclip controls, Maya controls, WorldCraft controls, UnrealEd controls are planned. There will be a 3D snap to grid feature.

[Error]

that's pretty neat, of course that would require coding on QC's part... monster spawning and whatnot

[biff_debris]

This plus the id source maps is what I believe a number of people have been waiting for...

BTW, need more vids of your engine, Sajt -- that Statue of Liberty one kicks ass =D

[Up2nOgOoD[ROCK]]

Sajt, nice job! I think this is a great idea.

I was wondering if you think it would be efficient to get "Ben" from http://www.bspquakeeditor.com/ to enter BSP into the opensource community and open up a SVN. This way maybe you could integrate your tool into BSP and you two could collaborate on the project together?

Just a thought

[Sajt]

Hehe... I have been ruthlessly suppressing natural urges to take this thing a step further (i.e. add map editor features). It's to be exceedingly simple. I don't know how exactly it could be integrated with the BSP editor, but maybe something interesting would be possible. (That is, if he's willing to release the BSP code, most of it being written by his predecessor, I think)

[Tobias]

Hi!
just registered here to give a maybe important hint.

I read this thread and also agreed that such a tool would be nice to have.
However, I just had some free time and cobbled e1m1-1m3 together. In a texteditor I prepended the mapname to every target / targetname, switched trigger_changelevel to trigger_teleport and info_player_start to info_teleport_destination with a new target/targetname pair. Then I did some copy/paste in Worldcraft to combine these 3 in one map. (BTW, if you continue with all the other maps you also would had to pay attention to the textures metal5_2, plat_top1 etc that differ between some levels. these would have to be renamed, too)

It compiled in 7 minutes on my P4 3GHz, resulting in a 3.5 MB bsp. As I supposed it didn't open in GLQuake, so I opened it in DarkPlaces. Here's a screenshot: http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/9382/dp000000ss4.jpg

Now the reason for this post: First when I read about this idea, I thought that combining all maps wouldn't really make much sense. From the size of 2 or 3 maps upwards, this would simply be too big for DM.
But as some people mentioned it would make sense for SP since there would be no need loading a new bsp when exiting a level, which would be nice for projects like QDQ. This argument convinced me, too.
But when I just ran through my e1m1m2m3.bsp I realized that there's a big problem that IMO noone has seen yet: When you get items like the silver or golden key, these will also open these doors in all forthcoming levels because you won't lose them on level-exit.

So does it still make any sense to compile a huge level containing all 4 episodes?

Edit: Oh, I just noticed that you already lose the keys when opening the doors. So if they're needed in a level this fact should be no problem in the next ones. But maybe there are keys where those doors can be circumvented. In these cases the keys could be used in the next levels which wouldn't be the case when playing an "uncobbled" episode

[Lardarse]

Skipping a Key door is only possible in a few places, but where ti is possible, I see no reason to try to stop it. Although it does cause a problem in Episode 2, where the gold key in e2m4 could be used to make a fast exit in e2m5...

[Tobias]

Well, those new opportunities would maybe be more interesting than a reason to suppress this effect
But in the strict sense this would be no way to complete the regular, retail quake. So maybe this conflict could be solved via QuakeC, simply remove all keys when the player advances to the next level through a teleporter (but this way there was still a trick needed, how to distinguish those teleporters from regular ones)...

[scar3crow]

when the player advances to the next level through a teleporter

I disagree with this, only because to me, the point of having all the maps in a single BSP isnt to go "look we got all the maps in a single bsp" but to have them flow from one to the other, which means only teleporting from one map to the other if the map ends via a slipgate.

I myself relish the thought of climbing the stairs out of the Castle of the Damned, through those archways and then into stone steps descending into cobble stone and through another archway to be greeted by a centerprint of 'The Necropolis', rounding the corner and snagging that grenade launcher for the first time.

This would call for more brushwork, but it makes the game a more cohesive world to an extent... Personally Id like to take it further, have large chunks being under the same physical sky... Id like to fly up and look to my left into the red hues of the Gloom Keep and then to my right towards that final bastion in the Grisly Grotto.

Part of me wants to revamp some aspects, making the sky be more of a true sky, along with properly bridging the archways from one area to another. And if one wanted to go Darkplaces only... an entity that crossfades the cd track from one area to another.

When you think of the maps from a global view... you realize they can be connected, and provide the visual for a grim landscape... scanning over the horizon to see the Wizard's Manse along with the Ebon Fortress, and that blue tower rising up from the Crypt of Decay...

Random thought, if the original beginning of the Dismal Oubliette is used, you know the winding cave that can be found in e2m10.bsp released by Romero, then it could be logically suggested that the sky at the end of e2m5 not be portrayed as being so close to the windows, since youre going underground - though Romero informed me e2m6 was made earlier on whereas e2m5 was a later creation and it wasnt for sure where it would go.

[venomus]

True. Although I don't think most of the Quake maps were meant to be 'connected' in the physical sense (at least, not seamless like in Half-Life), I don't see much point in combining them unless you can actually walk between them (and preferably have several interconnections that would open up as you go, revealing new monsters in old areas, etc).

[Dr. Shadowborg]

Okay, this is starting to sound more like Castlevania: Dusk of Quake rather than Quake: Unified Front. (i.e. my own internal codename for this map cobbling project) =P

Not that I'm saying the idea doesn't sound really badassed, quite the contrary.

[Error]

I'd like to see this happen, then someone do a speed-run through the entire things

[DieparBaby]

I'd like to see them all combined and Quake C-ed into a small, persistent MMORPG, if such a quake engine exists.

Also, if you want to avoid naming conflicts between maps just add "_<mapname>" to the end of the targetname,etc of the entities that need it.