Posted by Kepone on January 10, 1998 at 02:34:25:
In Reply to: JED, etc. - update posted by Alexei Novikov on January 09, 1998 at 14:37:42:
> - Textured 3D preview
> - Texturing and stitching tools
> - Bug fixes
After playing around with JED for awhile, I for one am less pissed off at
it than I was the first day. Partly because I'm used to Quake editing with
brushes rather than the destructive creation (Is that an oxymoron?) method
that JK uses. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it and am extremely
glad that JED even exists. You guys at the Code Alliance deserve a big
round of applause for working so diligently on this app.
I'd like to offer up some requests for future versions. These may or may not
be necessary, and you may have planned some of them. Still, here are my
thoughts at 1AM on what I'd like to see in JED from a mappers perspective.
(Ignore duplicates from above, this is stream of consciousness...)
-3D preview with realtime Texture alignment in the preview window.
-Multiple selection of surfaces for changing a whole bunch of textures at once.
-Ability to view Top and Side views simultaneously.
-Best tips, pointers, suggestions from this bboard to be included in the help
files. (Woo hoo!)
-Easy adjoining. For instance, it would be wonderful to be able to select
two surfaces and click a button to adjoin them rather than writing down all
the vertice coords by hand and pulling your hair out because you missed
a number. I'd like to just tell JED 'Adjoin these -two- surfaces, no matter
where they are at' and let it do it's thang.
-Customizable colors for the grid, background, sectors, surfaces etc...
-Alphabetized thing templates, or some directory structure to make finding a
'Thing' easier.
-Detailed explanation of each 'Thing' and what it looks like and does. It'd
even be nice to have a 3D preview of 'Things' in the selection window with
a blurb about what the heck it does.
-Have JED warn you if you're choosing a texture that doesn't look right with
the current colormap.
-Alignment of 'Things' via the 3D preview window.
-Ability to 'Save As' rather than JUST 'Save'
-Ability to set up the episode.jk stuff inside the editor. Perhaps a checkbox
with fields to fill in for level name, single or multi etc...
-Grid with lines instead of dots. Makes lining things up easier.
-More intuitive consistency checker with suggestions for fixes.
-Ability to set the default texture for all sectors, from the get go.
-Item editor smaller and built into the toolbar somehow. That pop up item
editor gets in the way sometimes. If it was always present, but 'out of the
way', it would be easier to manage. Up along the top would be nice, I'm sure
it wouldn't need much room, but I'm not the programmer. :)
-Ability to lock movements to one plane. Example: If you just wanted to move
something vertically without it affecting the horizontal by accident.
-Explanations for all the flags etc... perhaps built right into the dialog
with something like an OnMouseOver event. (Possible?)
-An OK button on the dialogs, rather than remembering to hit ENTER all the
time.
Whew. Ok, that said, I just want to re-iterate my thanks for everyone at the
Code Alliance for creating an editor for us. I know that most of these
suggestions are either being worked on, or are impossible, but they're just
what I was thinking while working with JED. As a Level editor, I want to
focus on design issues and environment rather than quirks of the editor.
I DO realize that JED is still a beta, so don't think I'm griping in the
least. :)
Thanks!
Kepone