I've been tinkering with a new windows GUI map editor instead of voxed and was after some comments on people's views before I put any more work into it. (Thanks for Sean Barrett/nothings for the description of the file format - saved some time porting over to C# :-)

Unlike voxed, this map editor is "2d" in that you see the slices of the map on screen and can move up and down the layers (i.e. from the water to the sky), clicking where you want to add new cubes and so on, you can then preview the 3d in voxed as usual

To explain, this image shows an early alpha of the code having loaded the map saved via F1 from an in progress game of the excellent Bridge Wars maps.

http://i.imgur.com/vJCFL.png

Its kinda cool to go down a few layers from that image and being able to see "in" to the map and see those tunnels that people having been making :-)

Do people think that this sort of 2d approach is going to be usable? Is 2d good enough? What are your thoughts?

It's too hard to edit it in 3D way.

To be honest I can't think of a better way to construct a multi-layer map than 2D with isolated layer views. A long as we can view the final work in 3d (even if in another program or whatnot) to fine tune the details then it's as good a system as we're ever likely to see.

Ugh C#.

The maps are not too big (512x512x64); a 3D editor like voxed wouldn't be too hard to make. With C/C++ and OpenGL, I doubt there would be any speed problems.

Make sure to add layer views for the XZ and YZ planes.

I'm not sure if this will be perfect, but anything will be a damn sight better than Voxed

USE BLENDER! :D

I want this, I want this a lot.

Awesome - glad to hear people are interested.

I rewrote the slice rendering engine a bit to use hardware acceleration. Working on getting saves to work properly at the moment, then will put in some features to create some new maps easily - right now I am planning on somehow integrating/porting STB's generators to create "new" maps in the editor based on the generator ready for tweaking, as well as doing heightmap imports and simple "empty" maps (e.g. single flat layer, only water etc). Thinking about doing a thing where you can just point at a server and suck the map down too - get the feeling people will get the arse with that though

Current shot of interface with hardware accelerated slice: http://i.imgur.com/k0RW3.png

this looks awesome, great work man!

Using VB's C# editor?

Er no - using Visual Studio 2010's C# editor. VB is the language, not the IDE.

Yeah sorry, thats what I meant, I'm just used to calling it VB cause we only work in basic at school.

This looks sick! Good job dude.

That is a great idea and I glad you implemented it. I have some ideas for levels but my art skills are limited. I am betting this tool will make it easier for me to make my masterpieces

I am SOOOO HAPPY someone smarter than me is creating this. I will definitely pounce on the chance to make maps with this. Voxed is... just not worth the time to learn for me, even after printing out all the instructions. I'm sure it can be done in a day or two, but I'd much prefer something as accurate as your programs seems.

This looks cool. If I find the motivation and time at some point, I'll probably do something similar for pyspades using PySide/PyQt. What license do you intend to use for your editor?

Also, you can already fetch the map used by a server with pyspades (in case you need a reference), but keep in mind that the code is GPL ;)

In any case, good luck!

any news?

macros would be a nice addition

...

What the fuck.

DO WANT WDF finally a fucking solution to my keyboard not haveing th Insert key
ALL FUCK THAT SHITTY VOXED