Thoughts on making a game editor
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/Thoughts on making a game editor
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| Hi all, I would love to get some opinions on this. What does everyone do in terms of making a game editor for your game? I created a clunky, bug filled editor using MaxGui. I've spent way too much time trying to create the editor and working around things like the canvas not updating, being laggy, etc. It's also my understanding that MaxGui is a tiny bit diminished since it's not being worked on anymore. I think my needs aren't special, the ability to have a staging area for graphics, place those objects in the game world, the ability to modify properties of those objects on the fly. I'm thinking of basically scrapping my current editor and just write the whole thing in Blitzmax. I don't have to keep figuring out gadgets, canvases, etc. Thoughts? I know this is mostly a matter of opinion but would love to hear it. |
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| My belief is that editors should be functional, not stylish. As long as they do the job they were designed for, then not much else matters. The only caveat is when the editor is being included as part of the finished product, then the editor needs as much polish as the game itself. |
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| If you want the experience or a very specific editor then code one, otherwise there will likely be something out there already that you can utilise. It's just a matter of finding it and then learning to work with it. I've made game levels with everything from notepad, paint, bespoke editors, high end CAD software, photoshop etc etc. Ultimately none of them made any difference. What I should have been doing is writing the game! |
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| [...] there will likely be something out there already that you can utilise. It's just a matter of finding it and then learning to work with it. I second this. 'Time' is your most valuable asset ever. If you can find tools that, even if separately, can generate the all the content you need, go for it. The content will most likely be in a 'generic' form so it can be used by a lot of different projects, so your task here will be creating the interface to interpret the content these tools generate - instead of creating the tools themselves (which generally costs more time). |
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| Thanks for the feedback guys but I do have to disagree with some opinions here :) Unless it's a quick utility, to take someone else's framework and try to adopt it for your own purposes will probably end up being a lot of work. Even if you take several utilities and try to stitch them together, all your going to end up doing is modifying it anyway. You may as well roll your own so it works exactly how you want it. I do agree though an in house editor doesn't need to be fancy, it just needs to work. |
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| Personally I'd say that so long as the editor is not going to be used by the public, make it just for yourself, quick and dirty, with an interface only you can understand and remember how to use. I would totally avoid maxgui, not so much for compatibility or interface reasons but like you said it can be a lot of work setting up windows and gadgets and all that lark. It can be much quicker to just decide okay I'm going to drawtext something over here and when I click within that `zone` of the screen it does something. But if you're making an in-game editor for the public to use then you really have to stop and plan and design it well for usability and simplicity and obviousness and providing appropriate functionality, not too complex, and style it so that it's in line with the game, unless you don't mind it being fairly boring and ordinary - more of an off-line editor, as opposed to extending the game experience. |
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