[Open Letter] Grimrock 2 Mod Tools

[Leki]

This is already supported in LoG 1. You can find all monsters and theirs animations in asset pack - this one: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6304 is custom skeleton who uses mixture of asset pack animations of skeleton archer (let me say 'legs' and walking) and custom animations ('hands' - sword and shield + special animations).
This one: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6572 is "asset pack spider" with his model and animations (used for "floor movements") + custom animations for "ceiling and wall movement/attack animations".

Except that it is all in native game format, and impossible to convert to something editable in Blender; not without a commercial tool like 3Dstudio and/or custom scripted exporters.

I meant having the data in a readily importable standard format like FBX, or other.

Well, for fbx format, there is John's GrimFBX http://www.johnwordsworth.com/legend-of ... k/grimfbx/ and it works for Blender as far I know, because maneus made his servoskull monster with it (model and animations). If you made model with bones and skin, you can name the nodes as original model has and you can use asset pack animation (human archer is that case - new model - original animations). There also is 30 day trial for 3dsMax: http://www.autodesk.com/products/autode ... free-trial as far I know and you can use it to convert models and animations to fbx using wallasaurus max script: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5440025/GRIMRO ... NCTIONS.ms. You can use it in https://www.virtualbox.org/ as well...

[Isaac]

Well, for fbx format, there is John's GrimFBX

John's GrimFBX is fantastic; we talked a lot during development, and while he was hammering out the FBX export code. It would have been impossible for me to export my AutoSmith robot [in time ] for the ORRR2 foundry room, if not for the early builds John sent my way.

Autodesk has a free converter tool as well. It can convert Collada to FBX and back... but then the hope is for the asset pack to have the default monsters in an importable form that keeps the vertex weights intact... the whole point of wanting the assets is to add animations to the ready-rigged monsters ~without having to include a copy of the mesh rigged with different [custom/original] vertex weights.

[antti]

One cool addition in the editor is also tiles which replace the old wallset-system. So instead of just drawing a generic floor and a generic wall whose appearance in game is defined by the wallset, you have different tile brushes that produce different floors and walls and those can be mixed within a level as you please. The tiles themselves also have some nice features built in like support for different party footstep sounds for different surfaces and texture blending and height maps (for sloped surfaces) which are especially handy in outside areas.

And since we've been concentrating a lot on balancing the game recently, we also added a "locate object" dialog with which you can search through all the levels (there's also a "current level only" option) for specific objects and see how numerous they are and where they are located. You can also select the objects from the dialog.

Other minor things that I can think of:
- the editor's map view can be zoomed
- you can rotate a whole level cw/ccw
- stairs can have custom destinations (instead of transporting the party directly above/below as per default)
- better controls for playing sounds (starting, stopping, fades)
- timers have an option that they can be active only when the party is on the same level
- ...and you can often avoid using a timer altogether by using delayedCall()
- you can toggle which levels are active in editor to improve the speed of refreshing the preview
- the editor preview has a mute button

[Komag]

That's a whole bunch of NICE!

[pulpum]

the ULTIMATE dungeon crawl / dungeon crawl editor...

[Leki]

antti can you share one more thing, please? We know that multifloor level will be supported.
- can we make multilevel let me say: -3, 0, +3, +6 in "one scene"? let me say if I wanna make a ship with board levels - can I see all boards from captains cabin in +3, to main board on 0 and cargo space on -3?
- can we reach these "one scene levels" only with ladder or with "stairs" as well
- can we set up water position, I mean in one scene at level 0, then waterfall than river at +3?
- is water cell based or water is only on/off in specified level and is allways on 0, so we cannot make "dry" hole (like opened grave") if watter is on.
- is water independent shader? Can I use it for water elemental monster, or non cell based water area (eliptic fountain)?
- if game is based on island, there is "map end" limited by ocean tiles (water tiles) I guess - can be map end bordered with smth different? I mean if I wanna make floating island

[antti]

- can we make multilevel let me say: -3, 0, +3, +6 in "one scene"? let me say if I wanna make a ship with board levels - can I see all boards from captains cabin in +3, to main board on 0 and cargo space on -3?

Yes, it's possible.

- can we reach these "one scene levels" only with ladder or with "stairs" as well

You can reach these areas with stairs too if you use the custom destination I mentioned earlier.

- can we set up water position, I mean in one scene at level 0, then waterfall than river at +3?

Water height is always at a single height in a level. Rendering water reflections for two different elevations in the same view would be twice as expensive.

- is water cell based or water is only on/off in specified level and is allways on 0, so we cannot make "dry" hole (like opened grave") if watter is on.

It's based on the tiles so you can have holes with and without water in the same level.

- is water independent shader? Can I use it for water elemental monster, or non cell based water area (eliptic fountain)?

I'm not sure... Even if it were possible to use the shader, I suspect the results wouldn't be very good in practice but of course I'm not going to stop you from trying

- if game is based on island, there is "map end" limited by ocean tiles (water tiles) I guess - can be map end bordered with smth different? I mean if I wanna make floating island

Oh yeah, totally.

Btw, let me guess: you want to make an airship mod? Cause that would be rad!

[JohnWordsworth]

Thanks for the updates Antii - the new editor sounds fantastic! I have already sketched out a dungeon on grid paper to get working on as soon as it's available.

[Leki]

Thanks antti!

Btw, let me guess: you want to make an airship mod? Cause that would be rad!

I have WIP "airship mod" - player and his crew will travell between folating islands. The idea of airship is based on intro images from LoG 1 so I hope my assets and story will fit into Grimrock universe

SpoilerShow

[antti]

Thanks antti!

Btw, let me guess: you want to make an airship mod? Cause that would be rad!

I have WIP "airship mod" - player and his crew will travell between folating islands. The idea of airship is based on intro images from LoG 1 so I hope my assets and story will fit into Grimrock universe

SpoilerShow

Yes, that sounds like a good fit for the universe! And I really like the idea too.