Step by step noob friendly tutorial that explains on how to make a game with visual level editor?

I'm doing the Begginer's Guide, but i don't like the idea of editing a level by code. There's any easy guide that explains how to add a visual level editor in a game?

Comments

  • edited October 2018

    Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), Orx isn't like engines like unity. One of Orx's strengths is that everything can be done in code and config without the need for an editor. You can also use the built in Orx Console if you need to test things like object placement.

  • edited October 2018

    Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), Orx isn't like engines like unity. One of Orx's strengths is that everything can be done in code and config without the need for an editor. You can also use the built in Orx Console if you need to test things like object placement.

    Yes, the fact that it don't comes with a prebuilt editor make the engine flexible, BUT using no level editor seems to be too difficult... i am asking how to implement a visual level editor of your choice (or how to create one), like the one used in Mushroom Stew, or Tiled/Overlap2D.

    I've read about "ScrollEd" in the tutorials, but, i can't understand how to implement it in a game at all. The tutorial acts like a level is a separate file, but in the Begginer's Guide we use a single "ini" file for everything. Maybe i need to read some other tutorials before?

  • @Ubiz said:
    Yes, the fact that it don't comes with a prebuilt editor make the engine flexible, BUT using no level editor seems to be too difficult... i am asking how to implement a visual level editor of your choice (or how to create one), like the one used in Mushroom Stew, or Tiled/Overlap2D.

    If you want to use Tiled, @sausage made a map converter tiled->orx and @ainvar wrote an exporter that's integrated directly inside the editor. I also wrote an example on how to convert regular one-object-per-tile to a blazing fast shader-based tile rendering at https://bitbucket.org/iarwain/tilemap

    Regarding Scrolled, I wrote it almost a decade ago for Mushroom Stew so it might not be in a fully working state with a recent version of orx. I had the plans to rewrite it entirely next year while probably adding more features to it in the meantime. In the meantime, I'd be happy to help you get the old version working if you're interested but the Tiled approach is probably the path of least resistance there as I won't be able to quickly reply any questions until the end of next week.

    What kind of game would you like to make? Depending on your goals, a text-based approach might work great as orx support resource hotloading and you can see the modifications live as soon as the files are saved on disk.

    Here's an example of such a text-oriented level editor as used during the development of Legend of Grimrock: http://www.grimrock.net/2011/09/09/building-the-dungeon-part-ii/

    mapDesc([[
    ########
    <..#####
    ##.#####
    ##.##..#
    #.....##
    #.o.####
    #...####
    ########
    ]])
    
    setWallSet("dungeon")
    
    -- set party's starting location in the dungeon
    startingLocation(6,3,3)
    
    -- let's spawn some entities!
    spawn("portcullis", 2,3,2)
    spawn("alcove", 1,5,3):addItem(spawn("leather_boots"))
    spawn("torch_holder", 2,6,2):addItem(spawn("torch"))
    
  • Oh yes, I forgot about the converter and @ainvar's exporter. Those are good options. But I am also very much looking forward to the updated ScrollEd. It will be another nice solution when done.

  • @iarwain said:

    @Ubiz said:
    Yes, the fact that it don't comes with a prebuilt editor make the engine flexible, BUT using no level editor seems to be too difficult... i am asking how to implement a visual level editor of your choice (or how to create one), like the one used in Mushroom Stew, or Tiled/Overlap2D.

    If you want to use Tiled, @sausage made a map converter tiled->orx and @ainvar wrote an exporter that's integrated directly inside the editor. I also wrote an example on how to convert regular one-object-per-tile to a blazing fast shader-based tile rendering at https://bitbucket.org/iarwain/tilemap

    Regarding Scrolled, I wrote it almost a decade ago for Mushroom Stew so it might not be in a fully working state with a recent version of orx. I had the plans to rewrite it entirely next year while probably adding more features to it in the meantime. In the meantime, I'd be happy to help you get the old version working if you're interested but the Tiled approach is probably the path of least resistance there as I won't be able to quickly reply any questions until the end of next week.

    What kind of game would you like to make? Depending on your goals, a text-based approach might work great as orx support resource hotloading and you can see the modifications live as soon as the files are saved on disk.

    Here's an example of such a text-oriented level editor as used during the development of Legend of Grimrock: http://www.grimrock.net/2011/09/09/building-the-dungeon-part-ii/

    mapDesc([[
    ########
    <..#####
    ##.#####
    ##.##..#
    #.....##
    #.o.####
    #...####
    ########
    ]])
    
    setWallSet("dungeon")
    
    -- set party's starting location in the dungeon
    startingLocation(6,3,3)
    
    -- let's spawn some entities!
    spawn("portcullis", 2,3,2)
    spawn("alcove", 1,5,3):addItem(spawn("leather_boots"))
    spawn("torch_holder", 2,6,2):addItem(spawn("torch"))
    

    About the TiledToOrx converter, it seems to be Windows only (and closed source) so, it's a no-go for me :( About the exporter, where i can find it? It still works? Having ScrollEd working on recent Orx versions would be nice too.

    I want to make a metroidvania. I'ts interesting what they did for levels in this game, but i think it wouldn't work as nice for a platformer.

  • You can find some community-driven tool repos here: https://bitbucket.org/account/user/orx/projects/TOOL

    That also includes TiledToOrx: https://bitbucket.org/orx/tiledtoorx

    Regarding the exporter, you can check it here: https://github.com/thegwydd/tiled
    I know there were mentions of it being merged upstream but I didn't follow that. @ainvar should know more.

  • Yep, as @iarwain mentioned, that's the repo for my exporter. It's open source, and .net framework 2.0 so it will work on mono. I might even change it to dotnetcore for better platform support.

    But it's really at the end of it's life due to @ainvar 's plugin within Tiled itself.

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