AB3D2_LevelED Help required

[abu_the_monkey]

Having gathered together the components required to build LevelED for AlienBreed3D2 and uploading it to github

https://github.com/AndyLoft/AB3D2_LevelED

version control is an issue as .amos source is a binary format

while it (the source code) can be exported as ascii, when using the 'merge ascii' tool to reimport the code, something goes wrong and the source is no longer buildable.

Why does this happen? am I doing something wrong? is it related to one of the extensions?

I hope this description is not to vague.

any advice would be appreciated.

note! the extensions I have are not identical versions to those used for the original but are the best I could find.

[Karlos]

Do you want any bug reports or feature requests here? Actually, I suspect the issues section of the repo is the best placed for that.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Do you want any bug reports or feature requests here? Actually, I suspect the issues section of the repo is the best placed for that.

which ever is easiest, but both is ok

[abu_the_monkey]

i did start adding the 'issues' and 'enhancements' you noted/suggested last night but bank holiday w/end cheer got in the way

[Karlos]

Yeah, this clement weather too. And kids

On topic again, I did stumble across a GitHub repo for a tool that can extract plaintext source from Amos, but I don't know how good it is or isn't. I wonder how feasible it is to just write a two way tokeniser/detokeniser if the existing tooling isn't usable.

[abu_the_monkey]

@Karlos

regarding the issue you raised on github (#4), I can't reproduce what you described using the 'save level' option but you are working on much more complex levels, please give this build a spin.
the only difference is that all disk operations from the title bar menu select button 6 before doing whatever it is they normally do.

not related but, I have found that the asm builds of ab3d2 are more tolerant of changes being made on the fly in one instance of winuae and testing in another, where as the c version can fail to load a level after editing, have you noticed anything similar?

[Karlos]

I've not had a failure loading a level in either build. This could be something entirely external, for example, I'm running WinUAE under wine on Linux, perhaps the filesystem differences help in some way.

What I have noticed is that sometimes, the editor generates a corrupted graphics file for the level, resulting in bad texturing in the level. It's definitely the output as rebooting the game instance doesn't fix it, only rebooting the editor instance and making a change to the level to force it to rebuild the graphics file seems to fix it.

This has only happend a handful of times so far and happened in v303 also.

[Karlos]

Will check the new build tomorrow, been afk all day

[Karlos]

I've started adding feature requests. No rush on those at all.

[abu_the_monkey]

may have a fix for moving the control points that currently causes a hard crash.

@Karlos

did you have a chance to test the last build I posted?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

may have a fix for moving the control points that currently causes a hard crash.

@Karlos

did you have a chance to test the last build I posted?

I'm afraid not due to work deadlines

[abu_the_monkey]

@Karlos

no worries, here is a version with a mod for moving control points.

I do not have a great deal of experience setting up control points but I can now move then around the maps without it crashing.

[abu_the_monkey]

the 'save as ascii' option in amos seems to be a little inconsistent with its output (for me anyway) sometimes lines are indented and others they are not.
is this normal? or is it something I am doing/not doing?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

@Karlos

no worries, here is a version with a mod for moving control points.

I do not have a great deal of experience setting up control points but I can now move then around the maps without it crashing.

Roger. I'll skip straight to this build for testing.

[Karlos]

What a complete s***show or a day. Only got time to test now.

[abu_the_monkey]

we all get them chap I myself have had to take unpaid holiday today due to the rail strikes, again

still hope the latest build tests ok for you, it is still only a minor change and hopefully will not break anything

[Karlos]

I can confirm that the most recent posted iteration of LevelEd304 switches out to the the first empty tool slot before any save or build operation, which seems to be mitigating the common failures.

Moving control points also works!

Been using it to edit the double wasp courtyard in Level O. Because, what's better than fighting a pair of wasp bosses in a huge vertical area with almost no cover? Fighting the same two bosses in an area with a bit of cover but in near darkness and a fractured ground with lava pits.

[abu_the_monkey]

can you also delete the control points?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

can you also delete the control points?

Does the deletion remove all links to the point first? I can imagine that it would be possible to create a data structure that has a reference to a non existent control point, especially if it's all done using indices.

[abu_the_monkey]

not sure how it works (so probably best not to do for now). the code, while not badly arranged does jump about in places and not having any modern tools to show all the functions and make it easy too follow is a bit of a ball ache.

on another note I did try extending the screen size to 800*600 and on first impressions seems ok (there may be pit falls that await) never really understood why it was in an overscan size in the first place