I have been using the Esenthel Engine for a few years now and have finally upgraded to 2.0. I have seen complaints and issues from others about the transition which I have either not run into or are non-issues for me but the new file system and general loss of control through out the editor are a huge loss for me.

Why are all the raw file name's encoded to ids? For internally in the pack file I don't mind but hiding the raw files from the programmer a huge slap to the face. I have spent over a year putting together toolsets relying on the file names of mesh, physic, skeleton, animation, and material files that no longer work.

On top of that now if I want custom files in the pack files I have to manually add by right clicking saying new raw file, then right clicking again saying to update and pointing to the file i want added. I have hundreds of script files that I want packed that can no longer happen now.

What happened to the simple tools you had previously in 1.0? I personally don't use your object classes or your editor as I have my own highly customized editors. I would really like the ability to export out mesh, physics, material, animation, and skeleton files on their own then pack the entire data directory into a pack file for use in my game.

I really enjoy using your engine and appreciate that you are tailoring it to beginner programmers and artists but please don't close it off to experienced programmers in the process.

Hello,

Thank you for your opinion.

Quote:Why are all the raw file name's encoded to ids?

So you can rename them, reorganize them (put into different folders) at any time without breaking anything, this is a -huge- benefit for big projects with development over many years.
So you can get automatic support for collaborative editing, -huge- benefit for multi developer teams.
So you can get automatic game publishing, -huge- benefit over the development process and publishing for multiple platforms.
You can still access element file names/paths through Editor Network Interface.

Quote:On top of that now if I want custom files in the pack files I have to manually add by right clicking saying new raw file, then right clicking again saying to update and pointing to the file i want added. I have hundreds of script files that I want packed that can no longer happen now.

The solution is very simple:
either PAK all the files into a single PAK file, and include just that.
Or programmatically include all the script files via Editor Network Interface.

The tools in 2.0 are much more simpler and more advanced, there are just new ways to do things.

I'm working on a new documentation and will explain everything there: http://www.esenthel.com/?id=doc
It's good that you're asking questions, so I'll know what topics to cover.

In the meantime I recommend purchasing the license and taking advantage of the Editor Network Interface

Thank you and good luck.

Thanks for the quick reply. I will be looking into purchasing a licences with-in the next week or so as soon as I get my tools and game in a functional state.

I have a two other questions. Currently I use a file selector in my tools to locate the mesh, phys, mtrl, and other files that I want to assign to an object or script. With the encoded file names this is if not impossible just un-user friendly. I was poking around and see that the source file name is stored in the data file in the project root. Is it possible to query it for the encoded name, source name, and possibly file type of all the files? If there was a way for me to get at this programmaticly I could have the toolset parse and add the files to my database which could then be used to populate drop down boxes with user friendly source file names.

Thinking about it this could potentially solve my second issue I was thinking of when my script files include another script. All i would need to do is modify the import script c++ interface to parse that table to get the encoded file name.

Is this functionality only provided through the Network Interface?

Hello,

For simplified raw file importing, for next release I'll add so that unrecognized file types are automatically imported as "raw file" elements upon drag and drop into the project.

For your questions:
please check the "16 - Editor Interface/2 - Elements" tutorial as it explains everything.

Thank you