ChronoCrash Modders Tools 0.6.30

[Piccolo]

Don't test this on original files.



Hey guys,

OpenBOR Stats is a very useful piece of software for a lot of us, but it is getting a bit old, and MatMan, its creator, seems to have quit.

So, long story short, I just started to develop a new project for OpenBOR / ChronoCrash modding.

Here's what I have in mind right now regarding features & goals :

- An OpenBOR Stats like "entity editor", but one that strictly preserves plain text format, indentation, comments, scripts and such. For me it is the main issue with OpenBORStats (to the point that I never actually save a file with it), it is a not a plain text editor and can mess up text files due to how it handle them (it converts your files and completely rewrite them).
- A rock solid code-edit style editor for all the other text stuff (levels, scripts, ...)

- Cross-platform, built around Python3 and Qt5
- Will be updated to support future syntax (if and when the ChronoCrash engine happens)
- The source code will be available so that other people can contribute and most importantly so that the project can be reprised where it left by someone else if I were to disappear !

So I certainly don't plan to recreate everything OpenBOR Stats do (at least right now and myself) especially as my time is quite limited these days.

It is still in its early stages (started it last week) but developement is going well and I'll probably release an Alpha version with a basic "Entity Editor" in the coming week.

Of course if anyone has interesting suggestions for this tool, I'm all ears.



Ok so here's a first alpha version for this, includes a text/code file editor + a basic entity editor (actually I think that instead of building a GUI editing tool with a basic code editor I built this as a code editor with GUI editing features, I prefer it that way).

Download ChronoCrash Modders Tools v0.2

Can't do much yet and probably filled with bugs but that'll get us started.

Don't test this on original files.



Any feedback/suggestion is appreciated. You can post them here, but if you can, please use this todo-list page.

You'll need to register here to use this (the form is in french but it's just a simple login/mail/captcha form). Then when you are registered go here to login with the password that were emailed to you. After that you're done and can use the todo list page.



Some info :

- the file selector on the left can list the files "registered" in your mod or list all the files that you actually opened (library mode vs opened mode ; you can change mode through the top icons)

Some tips :

- double-clicking on a word will highlight its occurrences in the whole text
- If you place the mouse cursor over a "frame data/chars/..." line in the main editor, a tooltip will show a preview of this frame and the number of this frame in the animation (very useful to set landframe, quakeframe and such)
- If you select several lines in the main editor, the overing tooltip will indicate the number of frames contained within
- F2 key is a shortcut for searching a file in the File Selector (on the left)
- Ctrl+D allows you to comment the selected lines (uncomment => Shift+Ctrl+D)
- you can expand/collapse treeview nodes by middle-clicking them.
- if you put a comment next to the start of an anim block (e.g. "anim attack1 # Light punch") it will be processed and appears as the animation "Label"
- Binding GUI tutorial (to create grabs)

 

[DCurrent]

This is great! There's actually a character specific editor out there. I liked it better than OpenBOR Stats. Had a fantastic animation editor interface. If you haven't seen it I can send you a copy.

Unfortunately it wasn't stable at all and just like you mentioned loved to mangle text files. Formatting destroyed, script tags striped, .png calls ignored, and so on. A stable editor would be a huge addition to the community!

 

[DCurrent]

That's not an editor app. My slam script has a built in debug mode you can use to edit slams in game. The problem is that it can't work alone. You had to have all of my other scripts too because they depended on each other.

That's why I have been rewriting them to work like objects. I've finished a couple, but haven't made it to binding (what you need for slams) just yet.

DC

 

[Piccolo]

This is great! [...] A stable editor would be a huge addition to the community!

Thanks And yes I think we could use an editor that has good functionnalities and still preserves all formatting.

There's actually a character specific editor out there. I liked it better than OpenBOR Stats. Had a fantastic animation editor interface. If you haven't seen it I can send you a copy.

Hum I might have stumbled on it several years ago, I'm not sure. Anyway I wouldn't mind a copy to see what it can do, if we can merge all the good ideas into the same tool, all the better.

 

[O Ilusionista]

That is good news. I still feel that OpenBOR can have a better editor (no offense). I was trying to convince Virtualltek (the creator of Fighter Factory for Mugen) to create one tool for OpenBOR, but with no success until now.

You can take some ideas from Stats itself (some are good) and even from Obeditor (pretty good for stages). For a GUII, I suggest you to take a  look at Fighter Factory, because its brilliant http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/fighter-factory-3-0-1-final-137126.0.html

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

DC what ever happened to your slam editor program you developed ? Was never released

I was thinking about that script myself, but DC already answered.

On that note, I'm with DC, a new modding tool would be a big help. I mainly use Stats when I'm porting a Mugen character, but I almost exclusively use OBEditor, and they can be unstable at times. If a tool could have the text interface of Stats, but the simpler point and click interface that OBEditor uses, and be more stable, that would be the bomb right there.  8)

x)

 

[Piccolo]

Ok so here's a first alpha version for this, includes a text/code file editor + a basic entity editor (actually I think that instead of building a GUI editing tool with a basic code editor I built this as a code editor with GUI editing features, I prefer it that way).

Can't do much yet and probably filled with bugs but that'll get us started.

Don't test this on original files.

Any feedback/suggestion is appreciated.

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Downloading now, though I'll have to figure out with one of me mods to copy and test this on, but good work all the same.  8)

EDIT:
I figured out how to add my data folder to this thing, but when I click the button with the path to my data folder on  it, it just cuts off. Also, any instructions on how to use this thing I should know about?

x)

 

[aL BeasTie]

Nice work, I like it so far, thou the interface/GUI is kinda strange thou,  it's not really any less awkward than stats.

(actually I think that instead of building a GUI editing tool with a basic code editor I built this as a code editor with GUI editing features, I prefer it that way)

Agreed.



Requests/Ideas

- skins/colour settings for the GUI - it would be really awesome to not have to stare at all this white anymore.  A darkmode should be built into the GUI imo thou.

- coloured script formatting like Notepad++ - custom user settings for this, i miss the purple

- ability to handle multiple modules at once (so they can be added to a list, and chosen after launch)

- option to minimize to tray instead of quitting (stats style behavior)

- screen to view entire mod file/folder structure

- duplicate entity function - creates a copy of an existing entity

- character/entity templates - merely .txt files, these would be setup by the user and could be mod specific.  This would allow creating on the fly, and save you a lot of typing
Basic examples - ENEMY, PLAYER, OBSTACLE, PROJECTILE, FLYING ENEMY, STATIONARY ENEMY

- opening .PAK files decompresses them and prompts you to create a project folder etc.

- drag and drop visual level editing (at the least something visual that can be used to see where things are and get offsets)

- built in OpenBor Manual and openbor stats style database (manual can be periodically saved to a chm help file with some work, this could be a automated process)

- built in prefab scripts/Script Index - contains community scripts, as a community we can work on what's included and make sure things are up to date, the user could also add to this.    These would be for reference mainly, and would save time going looking for those scripts when you need them. (somewhere I have a early version of such an index in help file format)

@ DJGameFreakTheIguana - it should load the editor once you click the folder path. 

 

[TheGamePlayer]

how about a trainer for the openbor games. infinite health,infinite lives.

 

[maxman]

Very nice tool!

You can add a glossary similar to OpenBOR Stats which includes all the stuff. I know it's a lot of work, but you can add them in the future installment(s).

Just to give you a notice about bbox that is not 2D. So, according to utunnels, 2 z's are like min z and max z in levels.txt.

bbox is not a 2d box, it has its thinkness, so instead of the default setting, you can change it manually.

bbox  x y width height z1 z2

If we go with default setting, we can leave the z's blank. But if we go with the 6, we could use it.

 

[aL BeasTie]

Somewhere there's an archive of the openbor stats database MatMan released, the harder part would be updating all the information to be current.  But this could/should be a community effort.

 

[Piccolo]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll try to process all this.

- skins/colour settings for the GUI - it would be really awesome to not have to stare at all this white anymore.  A darkmode should be built into the GUI imo thou.

Ok so built-in dark mode and color settings edition, should not be a problem to do this.

- coloured script formatting like Notepad++ - custom user settings for this, i miss the purple

This should already be enabled in the main editor if you open file with code-ish extension (".c", etc). I actually started a parser descriptor for model files so that we have color highlighting in those too I'll be sure to allow color selection for this too if you're interested.

- ability to handle multiple modules at once (so they can be added to a list, and chosen after launch)

Should be feasible. I could simply allow to view the initial page anytime again and it should work. I don't know if you have something more fledged in mind.

- character/entity templates - merely .txt files, these would be setup by the user and could be mod specific.  This would allow creating on the fly, and save you a lot of typing
Basic examples - ENEMY, PLAYER, OBSTACLE, PROJECTILE, FLYING ENEMY, STATIONARY ENEMY

Oh man that is so needed, I always try to do it manually but end up using a too complete model and removing plenty of existing stuff. This is really a good idea.

- drag and drop visual level editing (at the least something visual that can be used to see where things are and get offsets)

I started a prototype that has graphical wall edition. Still lots of work to do though, but it's on the way.

- built in prefab scripts/Script Index - contains community scripts, as a community we can work on what's included and make sure things are up to date, the user could also add to this.    These would be for reference mainly, and would save time going looking for those scripts when you need them. (somewhere I have a early version of such an index in help file format)

That could be interesting.

I figured out how to add my data folder to this thing, but when I click the button with the path to my data folder on  it, it just cuts off. Also, any instructions on how to use this thing I should know about?

x)

If you really can't open it, I'd appreciate a copy of the mod you're trying to open for debugging purposes.



For now I'll just start the color settings stuff, I'll probably create a system to import/export themes.

 

[aL BeasTie]

Cool glad you liked the ideas, some of them would be for the long term, if you keep this going for a while.

For reference, a dark theme like photoshop would suit best IMO.  ;D

EDIT:

also here's what I meant about the text

chrono

notepad+

I like the stuff in red thou - we could also highlight a lot of known openbor stuff, like animation names, ANI_IDLE etc.

Another idea you might want for the GUI is the ability to set different fonts for the editor, so it doesn't just use whatever the current windows theme has.  A separate one for the text editing and another for the menus etc.  The menu would be more for cosmetics, but being able to set the text editing font would be practical.

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

"If you really can't open it, I'd appreciate a copy of the mod you're trying to open for debugging purposes."
It's one of my old mods, Comics Damage. I'll send it to you soon, as well as a link to Sonic Revolution since I'm spending more time on that.

x)

 

[Piccolo]

Thanks for the in-depth references Beastie

I just uploaded a new version (same link) which includes a theme system for the editor (the "surrounding" will come later).
It uses standardized theme descriptor files. I included two (you can change the editor theme via the "Theme" menu). 

There's still no GUI editing for these theme files included but you can create one easily (should be placed in themes/editor/ )

With it you should be able to set the colors you want.

The important parts to edit are the first two sections : [Default Item Styles] and [Editor Colors]

For example you can edit the dark theme ("Solarized (dark)" ) and change the highlighter parameter of this line :

Data Type=ff268bd2,ff268bd2,,,,,-,-,,--

to a purple color (use something like this http://html-color-codes.info/ to get the color code, just be sure to remove the # ) so that data types (void, int, float, ...) are in purple

The important color parts are in [Editor Colors] section.
The color codes are r,g,b in this section.

Color Background
Color Highlighted Line
Color Selection

I'll probably implement a similar theme system for all that is not the editor (but there will still be two distinct files)

"If you really can't open it, I'd appreciate a copy of the mod you're trying to open for debugging purposes."
It's one of my old mods, Comics Damage. I'll send it to you soon, as well as a link to Sonic Revolution since I'm spending more time on that.

x)

Ok good

 

[Piccolo]

So I assume you did not passed the mod selection step ?

You have to click the add button and select the data folder of your mod.
Then it will be added to the list and you have to click on it to get started.

 

[aL BeasTie]

Cool stuff, I'm setting up a theme right now, I just can't work out which setting is the default text colour.  :

 

[Piccolo]

Cool stuff, I'm setting up a theme right now, I just can't work out which setting is the default text colour.  :

Normal in [Default Item Styles]  ;D

Also I'm uploading yet another minor update with Widgets theming and a fix for DJ's mods.

Ok updated, DJ there was two problem with your mods. One was really a bug (missing the support of item type entity) and the other (Sonic mod) was because your models.txt filename is in uppercase (MODELS.TXT). I decided not to support filename case insensitivity, this is just too much of a mess system wise.

EDIT : Well maybe I should as the engine does, and does it for frames too. That is why the frames don't show up with your mod, the letter case is not the same in the .txt files as they are actually on the disk.

 

[maxman]

I tried saving the character txt but I cannot. Seems impossible for me to save files especially .txts. Dunno how I can save it.