It’s time to unveil the beast! For my master thesis I am developing a rapid prototyping tool (as stated in starting to cook) named Level Master 2000*. The project is in cooperation with the guys from Broken Rules, the makers of And Yet It Moves. It’s really nice working with them, as they always give useful feedback.
For the last weeks I’ve been researching and playing around with the PushButton Engine, and my first impression is very good. Now, time is nearing to get my fingers dirty for sure!
What you see here is a first prototype of the user interface (click on the image to get to a flash demo):
Elements explained:
- Component composition: this is an auto-complete input. Try it with e.g. “Comp”
- +C is add the component to the selected entities
- +E adds the component to a new entity
- - deletes the selected component or entity
- Magnifier brings up the component browser, in case the auto-completion is not enough
- Search Entity: will also be auto-completion based
- Duplicate entites will probably work via right click context menu and standard keyboard short cuts of course
- All the transformation & collision editing will happen via icons in the viewport, directly above the to manipulate object
I hope that’s not too confusing right now, I’ll post more detailed information about the individual features when it comes to implementing them.
*: Many thanks to Meisi for the ultra cool proposal on how to name this beast! It sounds so retro, that it can only turn into a true masterpiece…
btw: the name is inspired from the Dilbert tv series. they had a machine called the “Grand Master 2000″, which was only superseded by the competitors product called the “Grand Meister 2000″
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i just browsed the book Game Coding Complete (3rd). you might be interested in chapter 20 which is about creating a small 3D level editor in C#.
Definately! Thanks for the tip