Dungeon Master Forum

Here is what I mean:
http://dmweb.free.fr/files/CSB-Scan-Hin ... e%2041.png

Would it be great to have this isometric perspective for dungeon building instead of the typical top down view? I just thought it would look great, and i cannot think of any constraints evoked by the change in perspective other than you do not use the square area of the monitor 100% or that you sometimes wished you could turn the dungeon (obstrusion of walls or added confusion when spinning the dungeon).
Anyway with today's hardware, an editor could probably easily handle "better" graphic representation... just wanted to hear some opinions on if you think it would be good to use or not good..

Have you already finished ConfluxIII?

You seem to have too much time on
your hands.

Hmm, I have not finished it... some parts maybe.. can confluxIII
really be finished ? Will get back into conflux someday, it has
after all got some replay value !!

and, yeah, I have a bit too much time on my hands,true.
but this will hopefully soon get into "order" again; if all runs well
by next month! But I consider all this not a complete
waste of time, I train english and in effect it could be job relevant !
(I want to study cross-media design - with later emphasis on
game design or new media; but I am not accepted yet and I could
also "fail". It's not easy to get into design, you need a portfolio as
well as pass a further test)

well, found another matter with this isometric view.
Staircases need to be rendered according to the alignment, else it
would not look right.

dungeon keeper used this method for the gameplay, where you build a dungeon in real time. It needed walls you could see through though in front

Seems alot of effort

Didn't someone have a dungeon editor where you converted things in real time in the game engine? Add an automap so you could see what you were doing, and that might be cool

thanks for the input beo. Lets me think about a party that destroys walls, levitates and is generally ueber.

Walls can hide the open tiles behind them, confusing the view. You need special graphics for the wallitems/flooritems if you want it to look pretty, and it doesn't do anything that a bird's eye view editor wouldn't, as far as I can tell.

The first priority for an editor is to be useful. I see no use for isometric views, sorry.

(That DDD map is kind of hard to read, too.)

I agree. It seems to be less useful, and more work.

That said, if someone made a DSB editor and it was isometric, I certainly wouldn't say no..

Sophia wrote:someone made a DSB editor

Who is going to do this? Why has it
not been done? What should the output
of such an editor look like? The input?

Paul, do you mean by output / input technical issues?

Okay, how would you outline an editor - since you already did
"it" and have programming experience you could provide some
guide if you want. I would certainly appreciate your input.

I am sure Sophia would also know how to make it, but
discussing would not hurt? maybe there are some things
that need to be considered. Also there is already an editor, by
Remy.. don't know whether it has to be started completely from scratch or from there on...

Would the fact that DSB is scriptable change an editor
(DSBuild?)

I can only say what I think would be good features for an editor
for DSB. It should have a txt window that "parses"/checks the lua lines for errors and also to modify standard items imported
from out of a library.(standard stuff already done).
example:
So you click on door, wooden, bashable and put that where you want, then change some to be more resistant or add another
graphic

I avoid to comment on the technical stuff, but I would think
this editor should do the basic stuff (isometric or not) and
certainly the things I did not consider!

Parallax: I see your concerns. However, isometric view
does not disturb the view 100%...
in fact it could work well, I took item graphics of csbuild
and they are ok with isometry. see here: rather hard to read...


edit: this one is probably better:

Paul Stevens wrote:Who is going to do this?

Remy started writing an editor, but he seems to have disappeared. I also had my own abortive effort, but I've been busy lately and I'm no expert with Windows API stuff.

Paul Stevens wrote:Why has it not been done?

At least for me, the main reason is probably lack of time. Secondary is lack of expertise. That's probably true for a lot of others who would do such a thing, too. Perhaps it's reversed for some people. The rare breed that have both the time to do it and the necessary expertise probably don't care enough to bother.

Paul Stevens wrote:What should the output of such an editor look like? The input?

I would think both the input and the output should be a properly formatted DSB dungeon.lua file. It'd also be nice if it could read DSB's objects.lua so it knew what files to use.

Remy's editor had its own internal "intermediate" format that worked well, but it couldn't read Lua-- it could write it only. That meant you had to edit a different file to use your custom objects in the dungeon (a pain) and you couldn't import .lua dungeon files (an even bigger pain). If we could get a source code release that could be fixed but I don't know where he is now-- except probably somewhere with better things to do than some editor for some random DM clone.