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Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
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Tottel Offline
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Post: #1
Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Hi there,

A lot of people (myself included) are in need of a way of copy/pasting areas + objects to a new location. Either in the same world, or in a different one.

This tool lets you do exactly that! You can find it right here, in the Esenthel Store: http://www.esenthel.com/?id=store&item=117

I believe that a tool like this is pretty essential in a level designer's workflow. And since it is also a first version (it's likely that there are bugs), I don't want to charge anything for it!

I do want to stress that this is the very first version. I focused on functionality, so the GUI can definitely use a re-design at some point. However, I wanted to get a bit of feedback on the core of the tool first.

There will be more updates to this, so let me know what you think should be added or improved!

Note: This first version is the compiled .exe version of the tool. I thought that this would be the easiest to work with. However, I'll probably switch to distributing the source too at some point.
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2014 06:36 AM by Tottel.)
04-05-2014 07:13 PM
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Pixel Perfect Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
That sounds really great, as you say a pretty essential tool for a level designer. Look forward to trying this out and if it works well I'll quite happily pay for it smile
04-05-2014 10:13 PM
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Tottel Offline
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Post: #3
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Updated the first post with the link to the store item.

Thanks Pixel, I hope you like it. smile
04-06-2014 06:35 AM
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Pixel Perfect Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Just thought I'd provide a bit of feedback.

As a test I used this to copy my entire village and underlying terrain and I have to say
it's worked like a treat duplicating the entire village and all associated objects.

The copied objects just get there base level params set which is probably the way you'd
want it.

If you put this up for sale I'll gladly pay you for this Tottel. Excellent job mate!

Then there were two:

    [/b]
04-10-2014 09:16 PM
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Tottel Offline
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Post: #5
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Pixel: Awesome! I only tested it on fairly small areas with a couple of objects.. It's very cool to see that it works properly on your village too! grin
How long did it take to paste that?

Copying the object params is an extra option that I could add, if people think it would be nice.
Also, I'll just keep this free. Now that I have the engine source code, I'd love to add this straight into the editor.
And then hopefully have Greg accept it into the official branch. But then, of course it'll have to look more fancy. pfft

Anyway, I'm very happy that you like it!
04-10-2014 09:38 PM
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Pixel Perfect Offline
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Post: #6
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
It literally took seconds to paste. Probably in the region of 500 objects including the grass, I just clicked paste and it was there!

It would be a nice addition to the editor but thank you for making this available now, I really am most grateful. A very useful tool.

Cool for doing performance testing too by ramping up some representative geometry with a few easy clicks!
04-10-2014 10:31 PM
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Esenthel Offline
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Post: #7
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
If this tool would be to be integrated into the Editor, It would be cool if it would have extra functionality:
-ability to scale the terrain before applying (in XYZ dimensions)
-ability to rotate the terrain before applying (along Y axis)
-some simple real-time preview of what will the new terrain look like after applying
04-11-2014 12:27 AM
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Pixel Perfect Offline
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Post: #8
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
It doesn't make any attempt to stitch the terrain in to the target terrain either if the target terrain extends beyond the copied area. So requires a bit of work afterwards fixing that. Would be nice if this could be done programmatically too.
04-11-2014 08:01 AM
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Tottel Offline
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Post: #9
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Esenthel: Thanks for the suggestions smile
Pixel: I'll look into it! I agree that it would be pretty darn cool if it stitched as well.
04-11-2014 08:10 AM
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Pixel Perfect Offline
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Post: #10
RE: Free EE Store Item - Area Copy
Thumbs up on Greg's suggestions too.

With regard to the terrain stitching it would be pretty darn cool but probably quite tricky. Although, with some constraints I think it might be achievable.

Users would need to meet you half way on ensuring the height difference between existing and pasted terrain was not too great otherwise it just becomes impossible! In addition users would probably need to accept and be aware that there would need to be a strip area either side of the joined areas (with no objects) where the program could adjust height data to get a reasonable blending of terrain. No one would expect this to look visually perfect but users could make small manual adjustments afterwards to rectify that.

Again many thanks for your work on this so far ... great vision!
04-11-2014 11:44 AM
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