Its not that techies don't care.... Its just the fact the tech lounge has been dead for almost a year now... lol
Looks cool and all, but I've mastered sonED2 so I don't think I would really need to switch programs, so yeah agreed with the above. Edit: I also find sonED2 alot easier than asm in that regard.
You're planning to have an in-program art editor aren't you? Wouldn't copy+pasting work? Or am I missing something?
So, since I got more feedback than I anticipated, I'm releasing a public beta. This beta does not have any tile/block/chunk editing, only has objects for EHZ and CPZ, and uses the KENS DLLs for compression (this prevents it from running on Mono on non-Windows platforms). The readme should adequately explain how to use it (I hope). Download (Mirror) Some notes about objects: Objects which consist of multiple sub-objects (EHZ bridge) will only show one sprite. This cannot be changed unless I rewrite the object display system, or create custom mappings for them. Springs and the Grabber badnik have no split mappings file due to being shared with another set of mappings, so I had to create files for them in S2LVL's folder. The 1up Monitor does not display Sonic's icon. This would require a custom art file. The display of ring groups is hardcoded to use object 25 (ring)'s art and mappings data, and to have 24 pixels between rings.
There definitely needs to be an editor with an easier/intuitive UI, so I hope you keep working on this. I stopped working on my hack because SonEd2 is ass-backwards. :s
FraGag suggested I add a new feature that SonED2 doesn't have: In this screenshot, I've done two edits: filling the waterfall area with the ground chunk, and putting one in the upper right corner. I click on the second item in the menu... ...and both edits are undone. So basically, it works the same way as every other program. Still trying to figure out how the tile/block/chunk/palette editor should work as well.
Alright, now that it doesn't crash on me and I can try it, I can say that I do like it so far. There are a few issues that I have bumped into. First, when double clicking to add an object, the window is a little too small. What I mean is I can see the top of two buttons, but I don't know what the say. Making that dialog box resizable would be nice. Also, when placing chunks, the images in the dialog box only show the a single type of background chunk multiple times (I tried it later and it seems to do this randomly. Its only happened on EHZ so far). Also, having it resizable would also be nice. Maybe it's just like that because it is in beta state. I really do like it, keep up the excellent work!!
Not seeing the OK and Cancel buttons is probably a bug in WinForms. Either way, I've made the dialog resizable and increased the default size. I also fixed the chunk select images, and that form should already be resizable. Now the only form that isn't resizable is the main form.
Why not? Making it resizable would be awesome. Full-Screen Sonic editing is yet to be mastered (I think).
Fine. I made it resizable, and added Alt+Enter for fullscreen. Although the bigger you make the window, the more it lags. Maybe if I used Blast Processing...
Beta 2: Added Undo/Redo. Made all forms resizable. Added fullscreen mode. Added copying and pasting of objects. Added object definitions for ARZ and DEZ. Added dropdown menu for object ID editing. A few minor cosmetic bugs: Grounders are all upside down. The Signpost has a pixel-wide gap in the middle.
Much better. Suggestion: Add a shortcut for acquiring the tile/object under the mouse, that'd be pretty useful, I've added it into Sonic Maker.
If by tile, you mean chunk, then that is done by right-click, as described in readme.txt. As for the object, you could just copy/paste.
Holy crap! A bit rough around the edges, but this is already a decent level editor with some solid ideas behind it. I'm noticing there is little in the way of keyboard shortcuts, but hope that's simply due to the early state of the program. Between this and the new special stage editor, I almost feel like getting back to hacking. Looking forward to future updates.
