SLADE v1.12 Released

I've released v1.1 of SLADE. No more GTK :P

Anyway http://slade.mancubus.net for details/downloads.

EDIT: Updated to v1.12 ;)

That is much better. Finally I can dump that GTK crap again. ;)

I have a few small suggestions for improvement though:

1. On the linedef and sector property dialogs it would be nice to have the descriptions of the linedef/sector types next to the special numbers. Currently they can only be seen in the status bar which at that time is probably not the focus of the user.

2. Can you somehow eliminate the need to load all the graphics when opening a level? It should be fully sufficient to load them when you intend to display them. After all this is an editor not something time critical that doesn't want to be interrupted by HD access.

3. In 3D mode it might be a good idea to enable all directional keys for navigation in the map by default. WASD may be something preferable in a game but in an editor the functions should be assigned to the keys designed for this purpose as well.

Graf Zahl said:

1. On the linedef and sector property dialogs it would be nice to have the descriptions of the linedef/sector types next to the special numbers. Currently they can only be seen in the status bar which at that time is probably not the focus of the user.

That's something I've thought about doing but never gotten around to :P It should be very simple to add.

Graf Zahl said:

2. Can you somehow eliminate the need to load all the graphics when opening a level? It should be fully sufficient to load them when you intend to display them. After all this is an editor not something time critical that doesn't want to be interrupted by HD access.

I have plans to rewrite the textures system, and when that happens they won't all be loaded at startup any more.

Graf Zahl said:

3. In 3D mode it might be a good idea to enable all directional keys for navigation in the map by default. WASD may be something preferable in a game but in an editor the functions should be assigned to the keys designed for this purpose as well.

It's not hard to simply go to the input preferences and change the controls :P

SlayeR said:
I have plans to rewrite the textures system, and when that happens they won't all be loaded at startup any more.

If you do that could you change it so that it can deal with cumulative TEXTUREx lumps? Right now it can't handle ZDoom WADs that only define the new textures but take everything else from the IWAD's definition.

It's not hard to simply go to the input preferences and change the controls :P

I said 'Default'. The current default configuration is not particularly intuitive and rather rigidly restricted to right-handed people. The keyboard has directional keys for a reason. ;)

Graf Zahl said:

If you do that could you change it so that it can deal with cumulative TEXTUREx lumps? Right now it can't handle ZDoom WADs that only define the new textures but take everything else from the IWAD's definition.

Yeah. The only reason it doesn't at the moment is because I've never seen a wad with such a TEXTUREx lump :P

Graf Zahl said:

I said 'Default'. The current default configuration is not particularly intuitive and rather rigidly restricted to right-handed people. The keyboard has directional keys for a reason. ;)

Well setup the controls how you think the default should be, save the configuration and post it, and I'll include it with SLADE :P Looks like I also need to decrease the turning speed in 3d mode heh.

Graf Zahl said:

3. In 3D mode it might be a good idea to enable all directional keys for navigation in the map by default. WASD may be something preferable in a game but in an editor the functions should be assigned to the keys designed for this purpose as well.

Everything is correct there.

SlayeR said:
Yeah. The only reason it doesn't at the moment is because I've never seen a wad with such a TEXTUREx lump :P

I can help you there. Does it need to contain levels or will a texture-only wad be sufficient?

Well setup the controls how you think the default should be, save the configuration and post it, and I'll include it with SLADE :P Looks like I also need to decrease the turning speed in 3d mode heh.

Use the cursor up key to move forward and the cursor down key to move backward. IMO more isn't required.

SlayeR said:

Looks like I also need to decrease the turning speed in 3d mode heh.

To increase!
The maximal speed in SLADE is less than sensitivity 8 in Quake (winxp + no mouse accelerating)

To increase!
The maximal speed in SLADE is less than sensitivity 8 in Quake (winxp + no mouse accelerating)

Heh, well it was an ok pace for a game, but it could be very hard to hilight a small wall without moving the mouse otherwise.

I can help you there. Does it need to contain levels or will a texture-only wad be sufficient?

No it should be ok. I just didn't know that TEXTUREx lumps _could_ be cumulative.

Use the cursor up key to move forward and the cursor down key to move backward. IMO more isn't required.

That should be easy enough to add. I don't even need to remove the wasd default controls. It's actually possible to set more than one key for an action, but for not you can only do it by editing slade.cfg and adding duplicate entries in the key_binds section.

Here's a WAD. One level is included. Maybe you recognize its origins. ;)

http://grafzahl.drdteam.org/other/005.zip

I can crash the program repeatedly by trying to move a single vertex when there are no lines in a level. It's not a very common situation, but I thought I should mention it anyway.

Looking pretty good so far. I had some trouble with getting the previous versions to run, but this one has no problems anymore.

There isn't any documentation, is there? I couldn't find any, at least. Right now I just have to find all features with trial and error. [edit:] Ok, I found the list of commands in preferences. I think that will do well for now.

One more thing:

The meanings of the thing and line flags are currently coded in the source. Don't you think it might be better to define them in the config files?

For example, Eternity and GZDoom use thing flag bit 9 (512) as 'Dormant' in Doom format maps and Strife uses the flags completely differently.

Line flags in Strife are also different than in the other games. Some ports might also have some specific flags.

Reading thing/line flags from game configurations (rather than hardcoding them) is already on my todo list ;)

Fixed that vertex moving crash (it checked for overlapping lines without first checking that there were any lines in the map at all :P)

SlayeR said:

Heh, well it was an ok pace for a game, but it could be very hard to hilight a small wall without moving the mouse otherwise.

It not a problem if you do not use an old COM mouse :)

Nice work Slayer. This version of SLADE is the best yet!

I think you've sorted most of the GUI/usability problems out in this release but I've not spent an extensive amount of time with it yet, so I'll let you know if I find any problems.

One thing I always wanted in DoomBuilder was a script/regular expression facility. How much can be achieved in SLADE's console?

Wad Manager\New Map\MAP01 => Crash

P.S. How can I edit line properties?
It would be very convenient if it would be accessible from dialogue of a texture choice in 3d mode

entryway said:

P.S. How can I edit line properties?

I found and changed it to mouse3

SlayeR said:

No more GTK :P

Thank you jesus!

entryway said:

Wad Manager\New Map\MAP01 => Crash

That's because it's not meant to be done that way. I should really disable that button when no wads are open. The 'new map' button adds a map to the currently selected wad. The button you want is 'new standalone map' which creates a new wad file as well.

entryway said:

It would be very convenient if it would be accessible from dialogue of a texture choice in 3d mode

That could screw up stuff in 3d mode so it probably won't happen.

DaniJ said:

One thing I always wanted in DoomBuilder was a script/regular expression facility. How much can be achieved in SLADE's console?

I eventually plan to add some kind of scripting system to SLADE. Maybe similar to WadC. Not much can be done from the console yet :P

Ok, I'm almost done rewriting the textures system. Cumulative TEXTUREx lumps work properly now and startup time is infinitely faster ;)

I have a question for Graf though, how does GZDoom handle PNG patches with alpha channels?

It's all untested. Alpha channels are properly copied to the texture but so far I haven't implemented any system that flags a wall using such a texture as translucent. If you use a patch with an alpha channel as an overlay on a non-translucent patch it should be blended properly - but again, I haven't tested this yet because there didn't seem to be any need so far. ZDoom can't handle it anyway.

Here's the code:

else if (penew[v].a!=255)
{
	buffer[pos  ] = (buffer[pos  ] * penew[v].a + penew[v].r * (1-penew[v].a)) / 255;
	buffer[pos+1] = (buffer[pos+1] * penew[v].a + penew[v].g * (1-penew[v].a)) / 255;
	buffer[pos+2] = (buffer[pos+2] * penew[v].a + penew[v].b * (1-penew[v].a)) / 255;
	buffer[pos+3] = clamp<int>(buffer[pos+3] + (( 255-buffer[pos+3]) * (255-penew[v].a))/255, 0, 255);
}

SLADE v1.11 is now available ;)

Wheeee, the problems with moving/looking around in 3D mode I reported with earlier versions are gone :)

bump of the month.

boris said:

Wheeee, the problems with moving/looking around in 3D mode I reported with earlier versions are gone :)

Heh, I'm not even sure what I changed to fix that :P


Aaaanyway, SLADE v1.12 is up now.

SlayeR said:

I have plans to rewrite the textures system, and when that happens they won't all be loaded at startup any more.

Make it optional.

It's already been done, since v1.11 :P I might make it optional, but really, the way it works now is much better than loading them all at startup. Actually the thing that takes the longest isn't loading the textures themselves, but rather the searching through the IWAD hundreds of times to get to required lumps etc :/

SlayeR said:

Actually the thing that takes the longest isn't loading the textures themselves, but rather the searching through the IWAD hundreds of times to get to required lumps etc :/

Hash lookup rules! This is something that is easily optimized.

Graf Zahl said:

Hash lookup rules! This is something that is easily optimized.

I thought about doing something like that, but first I have no idea how to do it, and second I don't think it's majorly important.