Seriously - what needs to be improved?

[Shrinker]

I really want to know what you all think from Serious.
(please do NOT make replys like "cool game, best game ever, e.t.c.)
I mean say, what you don´t like and needs to be improved and what you like and so on...

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Please.

[Crackmaster]

It's an awesome game....:) Honestly, the grouping functions in the editor NEED to be improved. Currently, when I've got several things selected, and I try to rotate them, they rotate around their own axes. Not good. They should rotate around the center of the "box" created by the selection of them. Kinda hard to explain--like in Worldcraft. Anybody here know what I'm talking about?

Secondly, when I hit Ctrl-Z, I wanna be able to undo the last THING I did, not just the last CSG thing I did. Merging vertices accidentally, and then not being able to undo it without having to redo a whole bunch of other crap is really annoying.

I'd also like to be able to "draw" brushes--again, like in Worldcraft--but that might just be me; I'm used to additive geometry engines. No biggie (definitely not as important as the other two suggestions), but something to think about, no?

[Bwian]

I think I probably agree with you about the grouping. Perhaps different rotate buttons for rotating about the 'middle' axis.

There is a snapshot feature that you can use to go back to that specific spot. To understand what's really happening when you undo, it goes and takes back everything until the last csg operation (including that operation). So, if you add a room, then move a bunch of entities around, then undo, it will remove the room and move your entities back to where they were right before you added it. I believe that you can set it to be able to undo deletion of any entity, which is on by default if I'm not mistaken.

You can hold Shift+Ctrl while making your CSG brush and drag on the edges to size it before you add/join it to the world. This should help if punching in numbers is tedious.

[Max]

I will have to say my biggest request BY FAR would be the brush copier. Another idea I had would be to be able to scale (down or up) by degrees a sector, meaning the whole brush. This would be for making detailed small objects. (mathimaticly difficult I imagine.)

(oh... and a forum spellshecker  he-he :) )

[Bwian]

If you copy your brush to a new world, you can right click the editing views and choose to mirror/stretch the entire world, which would consist of your brush. Copy that back into your first world and place it where you want.

There does need to be a certain freedom of brush manipulation after the CSG action that could be done without inserting things into other worlds and bringing them back in after changes.

[Max]

Thanks again BWIAN. Mirror and stretch rules!

It's only been right in front of me all the time. :(

[Iirion Claus]

I think that Serious Sam is an excellent game, with a powerful pack of editing tools. I don't think the game itself needs any improvment (other than more levels, maybe) but the Modeller requires some redoing, espacially the entire UV Mapping and Grouping issue.

[Smashed]

In SED, there needs to be more polygon surface options, such as a "ladder" (I think everyone wants this) "metal" (it doesn't look right when you shoot a solid thats supposed to be metal and little chunks of rock come off of it.) "wood" and some other different types of surfaces.  Also, there needs to be options to choose gib types for destroyable architecture other than just rock.

Another problem I have, and I'm not quite sure how to fix this, is losing small brushes in a large map.  This wasn't so much of a problem in Worldcraft, UnrealED, or Q3Radiant because the areas you were making weren't so big.  With SED, however, its a new problem because the areas can be huge, and if I make a .2x.2x2 brush in a 1000x1000 map, it is very hard to find.  I find myself having to write down in a .txt file the coordinates of different objects so that I can find them, and know where to put new brushes when I make them.

Like Irion said, I think the modeler needs the most work, especially with the UV mapping problems.

[Michael Harris]

Smashed,

Regarding finding small brushes in large worlds.......

Assuming that the brush is joined in, rather than added in, so as to be independent, one can then immediately (or later) name it via its Name property and then subsequently sort for, identify and select it from within the "Select By Description" feature (see the button with the spreadsheet-like icon, up in the toolbars) and then click the Center Selected Entity button (middle of bottom tool bar) to jump to it in the color perspective view.

[mr luc]

Just one thing.

A lot of options we can set are all 'predefined' for us. I want to be able to MANUALLY tweak a texture scroll speed, for instance. And things like 'Add', and 'add pulsating', etc -- why can't we tweak those? Couldn't we have some options there, adjust the variables by hand if we so desired?

Hmm, other than that, I can't think of anything. I'd just like to see, in general, less presets and more low-level power.

[Davor Hunski]

Lot's of great ideas, here, guys. I have them noted. When we will have some time, we will do something about it. Can't promise, but will try.
Cheers!

[Boxcarwilli]

Crackmaster - Hitting CTRL-W adds a step in the undo buffer, you can hit CTRL-W after every vertice edit that way when you hit Undo, it will undo sequently to each CTRL-W that you did. :)

And great suggestions, especially the roate around a center axis instead of it's own for multiple selected entities.

[Bwian]

An idea I posted in the coding forum a while back:

Virtual tree export/import:

I suppose an easy way of allowing exporting would be to have something in the right click menu for a virtual tree folder, and export all items in that and folders 'under' it.

For instance, under the main folder, I have 'Textures - Fortress' which has the different levels I am creating under that (ie, 2fort, Push, etc), and I could export the 'Textures - Fortress' folder with everything else. Other users would merge just that mini-tree.

Just my ideas for the UI for getting it to work. Feel free to do whatever you think is best, of course.

[sock]

My problem is that I've used QERadiant to much for too long. There is so many features I would love in the editor.

* A proper working undo feature. I know it has said before but the current undo feature is just a nightmare. If I make a texture change, brush movement, accidently add to wrong entity/layer, I just want to roll back 1 STEP ONLY. At the moment I have to save almost every 5 mins!

* Proper texture alignment. Buttons to fit texture to poly shape etc. Manually putting in values and guessing is hard work and time consuming.

* Texture locking. How can you turn it off.

* being able to view more key/values for entities at one time. I know about the "I" key but I would love this as a floating window. Trying to understand the original levels is madness.

* Grid measurements/ruler lines on the 3 windows. I know you can move the cursor around the window and some co-ordinates r printed in the bottom right hand corner but I would love numbers on the grid lines.

* Snap to grid functions. Still cannot find this one. :(

* Virtual folder works really wierd. When I select on the list for eg. textures it does not update the bottom part of the window. If I double-click on the directory it shrinks the top sections to like 1/2 lines and makes swapping between directories hard work. I now see why each original map has all the textures needed for the level in one folder.

Sock

[Smashed]

You can align or fit textures in polygon mode by right-clicking on the surface, go to "mapping" and using the options there.

There is no "snap to grid" in SED, because there is no static grid.  It changes with the level of zoom you are using.

[Davor Hunski]

I agree with many of your posts. And I hope that we will try to meed allmost all of your requests. Sock, you listed more than few great ideas, I have this post watched carefully. Will try to do something. BTW, did you picked up our latest patch? How do you find our new mapping auto allign functions? What can be added for even better functionality?

[LeChuck]

(Edited by Green Monkey at 2:01 am on June 24, 2001)

[mr luc]

Oh, btw, I really agree on the 'let us turn off texture locking' thing. I mean, if you're trying to make multi-story areas/buildings, this is a MUST.

[DiEgo]

I've notice that SS has trouble with round things... not spheres, but rounded surfaces. Because everything just looks so blocky.

[Bwian]

I'd like the ability to set a template monster's health multiplier, and speed multiplier. The ability to do this, combined with size multiplier, would allow any size boss, and let them travel at the correct speed for their size. Currently, monsters still travel the same speed as their normal size couterparts, and have the same health irregardless of their size.

[BillyBones]

One of the presets I would like to see taken away is the movement speed in free-look mode in a window.  I find that this is a much better way of navigating the maps, but not if you have huge, wide open space.

[sock]

Smashed: Thanks did not see that one. What I really meant was that the buttons are on the "Q" window under the texture section. But knowing about the right-click will make it easier for me. :)

There is no "snap to grid" in SED, because there is no static grid.  It changes with the level of zoom you are using. This is what bugs me, why not allow fixed grid sizes regardless of the zoom as an option. Making detail brushes would be easier. Instead of zooming in and out all the time.

Here's a few more ...

* When I'm creating outside area's and want to have default texture properities like "Directional Shadows" and "Dir Ambient" I have to manually select them after creating a brush. Anyway of having brush templates when you create new brushes? So you can quickly assign certain values to new brushes.

* The shadow's caught me out initially. If I moved a layed brush, the shadows don't update. This is not a great problem but the button on the toolbar does not work unless the shadows have been removed. You have to right-click in the window, discard shadows and then manual re-create with the shadow update button. Why not do all the above with the one button.

Sock

[sock]

Quote: from BillyBones on 10:00 am on June 24, 2001
One of the presets I would like to see taken away is the movement speed in free-look mode in a window. *I find that this is a much better way of navigating the maps, but not if you have huge, wide open space.


You can, but it only seems to work with a wheel mouse. I just have a 3-button mouse so getting to that feature is hard work. :(

[Bwian]

The snapping and grid settings are one of the things I first noticed when using the editor. I'd like to increase the grid complexity by twofold across the board, and snap should have the same sort of increase. If I could control it better, that would be cool. The problems arise when I'm editing in a top view zoomed out a bit so that I have about 20m by 20m showing, and I need a snap of at least .5m (and perhaps .25m). I'd have to do the zoom in/out thing.

Also, when moving a brush in 2d views, I'd like it to not snap in any other view. Sometimes, when working with xy 2d view, and you're zoomed out, if the brush is located in a spot in between your z grid, it will jump up or down to meet with it. This should not happen, and the brush should be locked in that direction (ie, the 'z' of your current 2d view)

[sock]

My wish list ...

* When creating new brushes, why does it always use the center of the new brush as the origin?

It would be useful if you can have a corner as the origin not the center of the brush. It would be much easier to modify and create new brushes, because when you change the dimensions it does not shift the new brush around so much. You could create the brush, move it into position and then safely change the dimensions without it constantly re-centering it everytime you make a change.

* Having up/down buttons on the "Q" window for the dimensions of the brush linked to the grid settings, so when you want to change the dimensions/rotate angle/scale it is quicker than re-typing the amount everytime until it is correct.

* Having texture alignment on new brushes. (Before adding to the world or as a new layer). At the moment I'm creating a sample brush as a template with the texture aligned and then creating the new brush next to it so that I can get the dimensions right.

* A 3 point cutting system for creating new brushes as layers not world brushes. I really really miss this feature so much. I know its possible to create complex shapes by adding brushes together but having a 3 point cutting system would seriously help me.

eg. I wanted to create a brush with one side only sheared but had to create a square brush first, then a sheared brush, csg subtract the two and finally sector join to get rid of the debris.

* vertex manipulation of a new or existing layered brush, so I can quickly twist a new brush into shape and lock on to a grid so it snaps together with the existing architecture. I accept you would have to re-optimize the brush afterwards but it is much quicker then csg subtraction + sector joining to get rid of csg subtraction debris.

* On moving brushes to be able to see the origin point on the brush as a dot or as special marker. At the moment you have to show links and follow the blue line until you find it close by. Or select the brush and drop a marker.

A Little bug ...

* When you are in entity mode (blue) and copy and paste some brushes around, the new brushes do not show up in the top left drop down box for entities. If you look on the "N" window they exist but not in the "Current brush" drop down box. The only way I can solve this at the moment is to re-load the map.

Sock

[GaryP]

Can I get in on this too?

When I hit Ctrl-Z, I wanna be able to undo the LAST THING I did.  It just erases the last brush I put in.

I'd also like to be able to "draw" brushes with the mouse,  like in Worldcraft.

I'd like to be able to resize a brush AFTER I added it.  (I always add, in layer mode).
How about a "fit texture to poly" button.  I'm never sure what to type in to the stretch box to make the texture fit.

An update of the help file would be GREAT!  What each button does, in detail.

(Am I peing too picky?)

On the other hand, I love the game, the graphics, and that it comes with an editor.  After you've played thru the game, the most fun is creating your OWN places to fight.

-Gary

[mr luc]

Hehe, a lot of people hate the 'undo' feature. The interesting thing is, you can set that. It's in your preferences. For instance, *I* like to have it in the default mode when I'm adding features to an already lit scene, or when I'm lighting it, so that I can delete ugly looking architecture or major changes *without* changing my already finalized lightsets.

[mr luc]

Oh oh oh. I just remembered the biggest one.

When I have Worldbase architecture that is detailed, sometimes lighting will shine right through my wall and affect architecture on the other side of the wall!

Here's the deal. My Worldbase architecture is very, very simple -- but I want to have a narrow 'lightstrip' running along the wall, and for lighting and navigation purposes I do not want it to stick out from the wall. Therefore, I've decided to just cut this 'lightstrip' out of the worldbase, which is the best solution I feel.

Problem? Problem is that to achieve the lighting affect I want, my lights have to be placed *inside* this narrow slot, and when I do that the editor apparently just decides that, what the hell, they're close enough to the wall that they may as well shine through into the next room over!

In fact, ALL of my gripes with the editor (and believe me, I don't have that many; it's easily my favorite editor of all time even as it is) are about lighting. The rest is just sort of irrelevant to me. For instance: WHERE ARE MY SPOTLIGHTS?? If I want a light to shine in onse direction and one direction only, right now I have to use terrain to create a hood around the light. Maybe this isn't important to mapmakers in UT or Q3A, but after mapping in DromEd for Thief 2, where lighting really affects gameplay, I got a huge respect for the importance of directional lights.

And unless I've overlooked something really, really obvious, both in the Editor or in the original missions, I can't seem to make a directional light without using world geometry to make a hollow tube to place my light in. It's a massive, massive, massive pain in the ass. Seriously.

[Earthling]

There IS this "directional" type of light...

Edit: I really should test stuff before I post it... :) Sorry for the inconvenience.

(Edited by Earthling at 2:14 pm on June 26, 2001)

[mr luc]

Hehe no I mean like a spotlight. Not like sunlight.

[Hammor]

I really miss the power of Armin Rigo's Quark (editor for quake series). *The world was a heirarchical tree of entites and brushes. *You could have a "folder" that contained a couch and that folder was contained in the house folder which was contained in a valley folder. *If you wanted to drag the house, you would select the folder and then drag the whole house, including entities.

There were special groupings for subtraction, so one room would be a solid block minus some holes for the windows and doors. *Then the hallway would be a different group. *If you needed to move the hallway you'd drag it and the hole block.

It was SO much easier to rearrange the architecture.

[Michael Harris]

Hammor,

A couple of things that might be equivalent to what you discussed.....

To build a brush that will retain its independence (ability to be moved, copied, deleted on its own).....when you go to create its initial primitive.....join (L) it, instead of adding it...and probably name it something unique/distinctive.  This gives it its own worldbase, thus providing the independence desired.  If it needs to be a complex brush made out of several added/subtracted primitives, make sure you have that newly created independent first primitive brush selected, then add/subtract additional primitives to it.  They all wind up lumped together as a single brush, which retains its independence.

For a given brush, you can assign it a "parent".  This lets you create a hierarchical tree.  Move or delete the parent and the same happens to the child brush(s).  Move or delete the child brush(s) and the parent remains unchanged.

So you could construct a complex brush house/room (box minus room and window/door spaces) that retains its independence......and create a complex brush couch that retains its independence.  Then set the couch's parent to be the house/room.  You can still move the couch relative to the house/room, without moving the house/room.  On the other hand, if you move the house/room, the childed couch moves with it.

Create the hallway as a separate independent complex brush and you can move it independent of the house/room.

Recent discussions here in the forum recommend employing a lot of joins (maintaining a lot of independence) early on.....then later perhaps locking stuff together.

[IndiQa]

One thing I have noticed in SED and would like to see implemented. If you rearrange all the little toolbars at the top of the screen to say give you a bit more vertical area they do not remember the positions. Next time you open SED they are back to their original locations. This is not a big problem only a convienience issue. I am learning the editor and as I become more skilled I should have more constructive feedback.

All in all I do have say that SS has brought back to life the essence of FPS gaming that died when the Quakes/Dooms/Descents/UnReals became engine/graphics showcases instead of immersive gaming experiences.

IndiQa

(Edited by IndiQa at 8:02 am on June 28, 2001)

[Smashed]

Aha, I've thought of something else.  A brush "drawing" tool.  

Sort of like the tool in Worldcraft that allows you to create a brush visually without having to fool with values and coordinates.  I know you can make a primitves and then drag vertices around, but that is a bit of a hassle.  You could just click and drag in the 2D windows and your brush will be exactly where you want it, and the size you want, (This would probably just work with conus primatives) and then just add/remove/split like any other primitive.

This shouldn't take that much to code in, but would speed up brush creation greatly.

[Smashed]

Keep this post alive because its full of great ideas.

[NoMercy Rider]

This one might not seem to much of a problem to you guys or I don't know if it has been stated before, but I would like to have a grouping option. I think the virtual tree shortcuts are pointless, so I think grouping should replace it. I think it would be so nice to select all the entities in the certain room or a certain wave of enemies with a simple push of a number 0-9. It would simply work by pressing ctrl+the number you want the shortcut to be while your entities you want to be grouped are selected. I don't know, maybe no one else wants this option, but I do.

[Shrinker]

thank yo for all the replys - i´m gone for the next months (my flatrate is running out) - but then i´ll come back with a DSL flatrate :)

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i´ll miss this forum

[GaryP]

Is there a way to group objects like a modelholder2 and a light into a group, so if ya wanna copy them, ya don't have to keep re-selecting them?

[Shrinker]

another idea for the serious editor:
...a right-click drag texture menu for it like in RADIANT...

[toastar]

GaryP: I think you can create the brush the 'WorldCraft Way' by holding CTRL and SHIFT and dragging from the side you want to make bigger. You can also shear your primitive with the right mouse click, which is also a very convienient tool.

[Donos]

Hello -

I don't post very much, and I'm just now learning the editor.

The only suggestion I have is the ability to drag a box on the screen to select multiple entities. You know, like in Windows, where you drag a box to select multiple files and such. Currently, when you click and drag the mouse it draws a weird line, and I don't know WHAT that is.

Thanks

[Crackmaster]

That line the editor draws is the freehand selection tool. Just drag a circle (or triangle, or any other shape that fits your needs) around the objects you want, let go of the mouse button, and they're magically selected. Very useful ability, I say.

[Bwian]

Also, there is the VERY powerful "browse-by-volume" button on the top toolbar (it's officially called the 'entity selection' toolbar I think). It creates a green solid that you can drag around and resize using the left mouse button, and then you can use the entity list browser (the keyboard shortcut is 'n' I think) to list the entities completly contained inside the volume. I use this a lot for torchfire+light+torchmodel selection, and it makes it very easy.

[Donos]

Thanks for the response about the drag thing, I find myself using that all the time now :)

I was just using the editor, and thought of this.

In a room in my level, there's a bunch of torches. Suppose I want to adjust the amount of light they give off. I can shift-click each light entity from each torch, but this is time-consuming and inefficient.

What would be nice is to drag a ring and select all the torches, and then have some way of telling the editor, "out of all these entities I have selected, deselect everything but light entities". So it would be very easy to select every light source in the room, and adjust them.

Maybe there's already a way to do this, but I haven't heard of one.

Edit: Oh, missed the part about the entity list browser thingie by pressing 'n'. That pretty much solves my problem :)

(Edited by Donos at 4:07 am on Aug. 12, 2001)

[Shrinker]

wui! i thought the shape-selection thingy is only a little paint program for creating my own textures :)

[DiEgo]

One thing that I think needs to be improved: being able to put every type of symbol into a message. Conversations in my movies are strange without ?, commas, ect.

[Quoth]

more freedom on changing the attributes of monsters would be nice. it wouldnt be hard to implement & it would be really cool, cos atm it's a bit pointless to make a 40-foot werebull if they only hurt the same as normal ones.

[matthurne]

Something that bugs me about Serious Editor is this; if I change my window config to "6"(I haven't changed any of the configs)when I go back to "1" certain entities disappear and the only way I've found to get them displayed again is to close the map and re-open it.  Weapons and ammo seem to always be there, but background viewers and lights, for example, just up an disappear!

[Matt Grooves]

phew, that's a lot posts to read through to make sure I don't repeat anything! sorry if I do.

a small usability request, what about small icons in each window that toggles the view of enemies, pickups, lights, textures, shadows etc. I know this can be done in each window setup, but sometimes you might want to hide (but not disable) editor light models, for view purposes, but keep everything else on there.

also I toggle editor models on / off everytime I playtest, having a small icon in the editor window would make switching faster, thus speed up map development.

touchfields and bouncers.

I don't see why you need to have a touchfield / bouncer entity selected THEN add a primitive to create it.

why not just be able to select a block and tell it to be a touchfield / bouncer.

or at least the ability to be able to modify the size of a touchfield after it's been created.

in fact, bouncers, it would be great to be able to add a 'landing point' and bounce speed and let SS work out the rest.

oh yeah, a GREAT idea from my mate regarding the actual game. when in coop mode, having an option to turn off 'players hurt other players' but still have the EFFECT that they're been shot! that way you can still get the satifaction of taking them out without killing them! great fun!!!

cheers
matt

[Matt Grooves]

almost forgot, being able to set the hotkeys up for EVERYTHING in the editor would be nice, some keys I don't like as they are.

and PLEASE get rid of this loadng map bug (where the editor just bombs out!)

cheers
matt

[DiEgo]

Matt Grooves: The reason touchfields and bouncers are like that is to define how large and what shape the touchfield/bouncer should be, allowing for more variation with minimal difficulty.

matthurne: Press 0 instead of 1. 1 is like 6 except it keeps the models and entities in the grid boxes. 0 resets all screens to show entities and models.

[Kev]

SED *really* needs a clip tool! As it stands, the scissor tool doesn't work on solid brushes in SED. What's up with that?! Make it work with solid brushes too!!! How can you live without a clip tool?!

[Matt Grooves]

DiEgo : yeah, I know, but you could easily have an entity flag on a brush that says something like 'is_touchfield'. the way it works now is limiting, not being able to re-define the size after creation for one.

[GaryP]

Hey Davor, are you talking about the right click functions?  Align to longest, shortest?  It is great.  I can not get the U and M to work sometimes.  They give me strange entries when I press Q.  Something with a # in it, in place of all the settings for poly.

[toastar]

GaryP: I believe that has something to do with projected mapping or something.

I have one small beef with the sED.
When there are too polies with alpha layering enabled or transparency, the one that is supposed to be behind the first one appears in front of the one behind it. This also happens with models, effects such as bubbles and blood, etc.

[Ebenol]

It want potere the speech allo Spain person!
YES!

[Shrinker]

i need a manually moveable and rotable grid!

[Earthling]

MovingBrushes are the way they are because upon adding geometry to them, the point where the little globe is becomes its axis.

[addman]

i would like to see what bwian said on the first page-
health multipliers, and speed multipliers on enemies

[DiEgo]

they have health multiplyers... in SS++.

as for speed... check the step height thing. i think that changes speed.

[LightbringeR]

I don't know if this is a bug (I think it's not), but it's quite an annoying thing:

When change one coordinate of a moving brush via "Q" menu, other coordinates alter too, so my brush moves somewhere I don't want it to move. This happens, when I continually change all three coordinates, for exapmle, to simulate flight of an airplane. So, every time I change coordinates, I have to return brush to its proper place. I don't know why this happens (maybe because of some brush geometric center issues), but I think this should not happen.

Thanx & sorry for my poor english.

[Bwian]

The coordinates are all relative to the place where the 'globe' icon of your movingbrush was located to begin with. This is the 'center' of the brush (even though you might place a single block a far length away, say 24m), and all movements and rotations are based upon this 'center' point.

You can create a new center by placing a new movingbrush entity where you want the center to be, and CSG-add the other entity (your brush) to it. You may have to replace any or all markers that used to be associated with the brush as you now have a new movingbrush (named whatever you set the name of the new one as), and change other entities' 'target' attribute to the new one if you had buttons and such for the brush.

[Psycho]

At first: the game was too short (5 hours on normal)
Sam's animations were horror (the monsters were rally good but sam...). The editor crashes a lot !!
There is a mod called SeriousSam ++ (something like that) and this mod has some really good things included (health multiplier, ladders...)

[LSD]

I just came up with an idea... how about another render mode that has the speed of fullbright, but uses depth shading, or a simple global directional light like in radiant and worldcraft. This would be useful because I often go into fullbright to get better performance while editing, but it's almost impossible to see what you're doing in fullbright, especially early in a project when you're using temp textures. A simple directional shading mode, that overrides the lighting in fullbright mode would make it a ton easier to see, because you would get a bit more clues as to the shape of things without worrying about it being dark etc. or lightmap performance.

[mlwood37]

The only thing i would like to see is more DM levels than just 1. Thought that was taking the piss a little excuse my language.

[GaryP]

How about a directional light that acts like a directional light?  I thought directional lights would work like the spot light entity in Half-Life.  This would really give the game some cool effects.
BTW: The new texture commands in the last patch rule!  I like them.  Ctrl-K and Shift-Ctrl-K lock it to the top or bottom?  Left or right?  I can't remember.  Anyway, it would be nice to be able to shift textures left, center, or right.  And top, center, bottom.  Kinda like a word processor.

The more I use the editor, the more I like it.  WorldCraft is farther away.  I like the way the engine thinks; no more leaks.

[Acolmiztli]

i would just like to see some nipples in the logo. Thats all.

[TimTabatey]

I'm a newbie on SED coming from Worldcraft and what I dislike is that the movements in the 3D-Window also influence the 2D-Views. Also I prefer the Worldcraft-style that the camera rotates around its own axis and not some focus, e.g. you texture one wall in a room and then want to turn around to paint the opposite wall and the camera moves out of the room, depending on the focus.
But basically SED is the best Editor available, regarding its power and SPEED. I think the fact that you cannot alter existing brushes are a result of the CSG-strategy of SED (like UnrealED too). In Worldcraft you may change existing geometry but the results are compile times of more than 12 hours for complex maps. So I can live with this "shortcoming" when I can test my map in seconds.

[GaryP]

Hey TimTabatey.  Boy, can I help you.  You're gonna love this.  I came from WC also.  Press the escape key and the 3d window floats, using the asdf and mouse buttons.  That's how I move around.  You can go up/down/sideways/in/out using this method.

If you need anymore help, just ask.  

And go to texture mode (p), and when you have a texture highlighted, right click and pick mapping.  There's a lot you can stretch and do there too.  Oh yeah.  If you don't have the patch, then go get it.  It adds more stuff to the editor.

[TimTabatey]

Thanx GaryP, you saved me.
But there's a problem I have that seems familiar to others, I got a Kyro II card and serious editor crashes all the time. I already have the patch installed but nothing's changed. Is it an unstoppable Bug or is there hope, apart from getting an nVidia product?

[toastar]

DiEgo: Step height controls how high the monster can climb up a ledge (For example, if you set it to 64, the monster could climb up walls, and if it was set to .001 or something, the monster could only walk on one plane)

[mr luc]

Well, the one revision I would really like to see for the Serious Engine is one to its object system -- if anyone is familiar with the way you could edit the object Hierarchy in 'DromEd' (for Thief level editing) they'll know what I'm talking about. You could add any property to any object anywhere, you could save the Hierarchies as separate files and use them for different maps. For instance, in the object editor I could change the skin on a model, add a particle attachment to any of its joints, and resize its bounding box -- all with a few powerful combo boxes and text fields. While the CSG part of DromEd -- the actual world geometry creation -- was pretty ancient, the power it put into its object system gave us almost Mod-like power from within the editor itself.

[tommygrunt]

I'm newbie to SED and map making in general so place excuse my little knowledge.
I think the way you can move lights about in realtime is awesome.  

However, I think it would be good to have a special light for 'global light' so that I could easily place a sun in the sky.  I would prefer NOT to have to tag all the polys for this, it should just calculate for the entire map.

This would be good to use for the sun and also when you want to edit with SOME light quickly instead of using fullbright more.
I find it a bit odd right now, particularly if I have a mixture of indoor and outdoor in my level.  I tend to select ALL the polys but then tunnels that should receive NO light get lit because I have to turn up the shadows.

Also, is there a way to diffuse the light?  So that you get the effect of sun shining through clouds?

Can you move set lights to move?  So you could have the sun go up and then down casting long shadows?  That would be awesome.
I hope this makes sense.

[SteelHORN]

Best map editor ever.  The mmi rocks, the fact you can move, rotate, zoom and select with just the mouse and a key is excellent.

I dont know if its a bug, but i've found the 'select texture > set colour of texture (palet window)> select other poly's > OK >  original texture properties copied to new polys' really useful.  Not all properties are copied over though. I'd like to have an easier way of selecting the layer i want to add/subtract to aswell.  If there is another way I missed it.  

I miss being able to make custom entities like in UT too.  You need a mod to do the smallest of changes, and to release a mod and not a map just sounds too big.  Not tried it yet though, maybe it's not as big a thing as I think.

[mr luc]

No I agree 100%. That's what I was saying about the Dark Engine, above -- although it looked pretty dated, it had an Object Hierarchy system as powerful as UnrealEd's but far simpler.

[HighMaintenance]

bigger box for naming. I write descriptive names. They get cut off at the end.

When you choose entity view for camera it would be helpful to have the view respond to the FOV field.

[forager]

I have to entirely agree with HH about the FOV being reflected in the view for that particular camera or camera marker.

As well, I want to be able to change animations for attachments from an animation changer entity.
(I wrote to Davor, who said, either get a coder, or, get in line), so, one day, perhaps this will happen.

I also agree that the shadows sun stuff is slightly counter intuitive, especially if you have interior and exterior areas and your using fullbright on terrain, but, I've no real skillz at doing shadowing so far so It maybe just
a question of working out what to do.

I love the way the mod system works, it's simply great, however, due to the lack of people who are c++ gurus,
more access to engine functionality via the editor or a scripting language, would be great, because some of us could do more stuff without getting held up by not having a c++ guru we can call on.

Some form of lip sync would be great. Even a specially named sound file, which would trigger a models animation when wavefile activity was determined in real time. That would rule.

I still consider the engine the most exciting I've had the pleasure to play around with, but access to more functions and features without a coder I would rate as  
highly desireable.

[Cable]

I like Serious Sam a lot, but it's not perfect. Some models are really bad and badly animated. Also all of the model textures. The game is too short, but very addictive. The editor is as good as it can be and the weapons are cool.

So, it's ****in good game!!!
BTW, I know how to "adjust" the texture movement speed.
Simply stretch the textures, and it will look like it is going faster/slower.

[HighMaintenance]

entity for controlling the speed and wait time of multiple brushs. Like an animation hub. Parenting moving brushes kills performance. Changing individual speeds is time consuming.

Ability to make markers render small or large similar to lights. For finding when zoomed way out so path tracing easier.

Thanks

(Edited by TheHappyHomo at 12:41 am on Nov. 30, 2001)

[SirLamer]

I think speed measurements for Movingbrushes should be meters/second, not the number of seconds it take to go to the next one, because this way if you have a series of moving brushes or something it maintains the same speed throughout.

[Earthling]

Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, the movingbrush speed is done as it is to synch sounds better. Of course, a meters/second option ALONG with the current option would be nice.

[Bwian]

I'd like some acceleration functions, myself.

[Earthling]

Acceleration? Would you mind clarifying? Something like gradual speed growth when moving from marker A to marker B?

[HighMaintenance]

acceleration = f/m = increase in velocity over time

so ya, varying speed over distance is acceleration. Or deceleration. ;)

[Bwian]

Yeah, exactly what you think. Currently you'd have to make multiple markers that create hiccups in speed when you change them. Acceleration would be much less noticable.

[XabiB]

TimTabatey, I have the same problem with kiroII. Its kinda anoying. My first priority would be a kiro2 patch for SS, I dont care if the patch comes from powerVR or from Croteam, but I have to use another computer than mine to use SED.
I have the last patch, and last drivers. Anyone knows something??

[SirLamer]

Another thing:

an entity that could change the value of any field of any other entity (except for those that would make bad things happen)

I think I mentioned this elsewhere before.

Also, I have a voodoo 3, and I use the WickedGL drivers because I have to, but those same drivers make the editor crash, so I can't use them when editing, meaning that I can't add lighting on this machine because my map becomes a disco party.  SO!  Please make it so that the editor doesn't crash when using those drivers, or fix the game so that it doesn't need 'em.

Or, if this is the responsiblity of Wicked3D for some reason, then... damn.

But obviously, if you cruise the forums for a couple minutes, you'll see that a lot of people have this problem.

(Edited by SirLamer at 5:18 pm on Dec. 2, 2001)

[Bwian]

Unfortunately, the game was created in mind for only cards that support Open GL fully. The voodoo series relied on using 3dfx's Glide (basically, heavily modified OGL that ran faster on their cards). Developers are increasingly coding to the regular standards, in order to reach the most people, and the voodoo series just doesn't have the best full OGL support.

The soon-to-be released patch for Serious Sam will have Direct X support, which should really help people using Voodoo cards.

[SirLamer]

Will the editor support DirectX, too?