StuartK
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1. Allow tar mothers to be placed on floor squares. Just for editor convenience. It's a valid option (ingame it's possible to clear all the tar around the eyes *) it shouldn't be disabled.

2. Switches on pits, or in space. I can have switches surrounded by pits, but without switches /on/ pits, it's messing up my ability to create map art combined with interesting puzzles. Yeah, a cosmetic request which I can live without if it's too difficult.

3. Allow horizontal and vertical flipping of whole rooms, or selected areas. As an added bonus, it would be nice to be able to cut, copy and paste selections within and between rooms. I'd like the flipping options to allow me to align puzzles and room entrances easily, when I want a puzzle, but the room I've got is the wrong way around. Flipping whole rooms would be easier for keeping the whole room 'working' with the various game elements, though the room may still need to be tweaked, which I understand.

4. Freehand tool. A paintbrush - instead of dragging out rectangles all the time, pressing and holding the mouse button down and drawing a line would only draw the game elements in the squares the mouse went. Alot easier to design less 'linear' levels.

* or is it?

[Edited by StuartK on 07-06-2003 at 09:02 AM GMT: Challenge]

zex20913
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I don't like the freehand idea too much...that would take away from those of us who wanted to make linears. But is there a way to put things diagonally? I'm making a lot of that.

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mrimer
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No, there's nothing like these, except for copying and pasting sections in-room (press Ctrl-C while highlighting to select an area, then click to paste a copy of the highlighted region). But I like the idea of adding more editor commands that would save time and be commonly used. The trick is deciding how to add these features while keeping the interface simple. Could someone propose some ideas for editor commands and the UI for performing them?

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eytanz
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I can't think of more features to add at the moment, but I do have a UI suggestion:

Make a second tab frame below; one of its pages should be editor tools; the other should be the map. After all, most of the time when working on a room one doesn't actually need the map for anything - it's useful when you want to look at the bigger picture without going back to the main editor screen, but it's hardly crucial. In fact, if tabs are too complicated, I'd suggest getting rid of the map and making builders go out to the main editor screen to place a different room. It's not that big a hassle.

If there isn't enough room instead of the map, just make the object placement pallette a bit smaller. If you run out of room for something, add scrollbars - we'll probably need them anyway soon enough once more object types are added.


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StuartK
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zex20913 wrote:
I don't like the freehand idea too much...that would take away from those of us who wanted to make linears. But is there a way to put things diagonally? I'm making a lot of that.

I was thinking more along the lines of both (choose the 'brush' style from block, freehand, selection, etc, then choose the 'paint' from the various game elements) It's an obvious analogy to make with paint software, though there's a limit to the functions that would be useful in DROD. We don't really need a fill tool, for instance, or an eraser, since that functionality is always available.

Maybe a line drawing tool could be useful though Mark the start point and the end point, and draw a line between the two. A freehand tool wouldn't be perfect for diagonal lines, since you'd get a 'thick' line as the mouse cursor crossed over adjacent squares. Unless perhaps the tool were designed to not count squares where the mouse pointer only crosses over the corner or edge slightly.

Sokko
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Line drawing: Good.

Freehand drawing: Bad.


And that's my opinion.

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eytanz
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Well, if I had to choose only one kind of drawing tool, I'd vote to keep the rectangle one we've already got - it's the most versatile (since you can do straight lines with it). But if a variety of tools is implemented, this is my order of preferrence, from highest to lowest:

1 - (current) rectangular tool.
2 - Freehand tool.
3 - Fill tool (I disagree with Stuart - if you've ever tried to fill tar into a weirdly shaped area, you know a fill tool will be nice. Hardly necessary, but nice).
4 - Line tool. (The problem with a line tool is that it's redundant for straight lines (you can do them now), and diagonals usually require careful placement anyway - if you put diagonal wall in, you need to decide if you want to leave corners open or closed, or some of them open and some closed, etc. The product of an automatic tool will probably need to be corrected usually anyway; I think a freehand tool would be far superior.)


[Edited by eytanz on 07-06-2003 at 03:26 PM]

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StuartK
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eytanz wrote:
3 - Fill tool (I disagree with Stuart - if you've ever tried to fill tar into a weirdly shaped area, you know a fill tool will be nice. Hardly necessary, but nice).

You'd be able to fill pretty quickly with a freehand tool. A fill tool would have that ever present problem of 'leaking' so you'd end up having to enclose an area, fill, then open it up again. Unwieldy, IMO.

4 - Line tool. (The problem with a line tool is that it's redundant for straight lines (you can do them now), and diagonals usually require careful placement anyway - if you put diagonal wall in, you need to decide if you want to leave corners open or closed, or some of them open and some closed, etc. The product of an automatic tool will probably need to be corrected usually anyway; I think a freehand tool would be far superior.)

It would be useful for diagonal lines. The ability to copy and paste an area repeatedly would work for such a task as well, and would be better for crosshatching, or other patterns where a line tool might have been appropriate.


I'm all for multiple options to suit individual styles though, if the devs have the time to implement them...


I was just wondering how drawing tar would work with a freehand tool? Logically, we'd end up with a big mass of tar babies. Would there be a seemless logic to account for this? Some kind of reverse of the deletion logic which, when sculpting tar which would otherwise produce tar babies, instead filling in extra squares where tar is needed in order to make placement legal? There could be a tendancy to place additional tar squares to the bottom and the right, but this would not always be necessary when extending an existing area of tar. I started putting together a list of special cases, but there are quite a few...

mrimer
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I think Erik (Erik: please disagree if I'm wrong on this) doesn't want to allow placing tar mother eyes without any tar around them (although it can happen in game if you shave down the tar right). But otherwise it just doesn't look too pretty, like a rabid cat with mange.

I can see how having a diagonal line tool would be convenient, but I want to shy away from having a palette of placement tools. After having read several technical papers from the latest research literature on user interfaces, it seems there is an empirical concensus that having an "accessable" interface (where every option is available all the time, without having to select a special menu choice to perform an action) is much better. So, for example, maybe holding down "Ctrl" while dragging a placement region would change from a rectangular to a diagonal line placement. I'm thinking it would just snap to pure diagonal lines, kind of like placing serpent segments snaps to straight lines, rather than trying to fill in all the squares along a line between two endpoints -- because I think that's hard to get exactly right (you know, it would have the jaggies -- the technical term for the ragged edge of an aliased line of pixels), and you'd probably have to end up touching up a long line in several places anyway. And if you're only using it to draw short lines, that's no better than what we have now.

I don't quite understand what a freehand tool gives over plopping down tiny rectangles next to one another (by releasing and reclicking the mouse as you're dragging it around in the desired freeform area) to effect an overall non-rectangular region. Would it just save having to click the mouse as you move around? This freehand tool seems analogous to a pencil tool in a drawing program that lets you draw wherever you drag the mouse. In my experience, using a pencil tool while zoomed in so the pixels are large (analogous to filling in DROD room squares) doesn't really save time because as you scribble to fill in an area you always end up coloring "outside the lines" and you have to stop coloring and erase the spots where you messed up.

Hmm...a fill tool. Yeah, I can see how that could come in handy. I'm thinking it would perform a 4-neighbor (non-diagonal, as opposed to 8-neighbor) fill of squares of the same type as the one clicked on (based on the layer of the selected object). How about executing a fill command this way: click a square while holding "Ctrl". (As opposed to pressing Control while dragging the mouse to snap to diagonal lines.) I'm trying to stay away from spreading operations out over multiple "Meta-keys" for portability reasons. And there's fewer key configurations to remember that way -- commands are more intuitive when they're action based.

Any discussion is welcomed.

[Edited by mrimer on 07-07-2003 at 01:58 AM]

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eytanz
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A short biographical note, so you know where I'm coming from: I've never had any sort of academic training in UI design, nor have I read anything very recent about it. I have worked in jobs whose primary component was designing UI frontends for database applications for over 7 years, and have won some (in-company) awards for best interface design.

Note that my target users were all low-level end users, in the sense that they had no technical knowledge whatsoever. Whether this applies to editor users is perhaps pertinent.

My experience taught me several things:

1 - It is definitely the best to have everything on available at once, if possible.

2 - If not possible, it is still important to have an on-screen way to do anything important. It can be roundabout, hard-to-reach, or whatever. But any feature that is available through keyboard only, no matter how well documented, will not be used by over 50% of the userbase.

3 - Ideally, have both GUI ways to do everything, and faster keyboard shortcuts. That way you appeal to all kinds of users.

4 - Saving clicks is very important; many users (and I know this also applies to myself) vastly prefer clicking once and dragging to clicking multiple times. The loss in accuracy is worth it.

5 - The worst thing any interface can have is inconsistency. It is far, far better to use many keys than to use a single key for different behaviors.

One thought I've had:

Maybe have a definable brush-type for dragging - not a toolbar, but a single icon that, when clicked, opens a menu to let you select the brush-type. That makes everything accessible without clutter (since there's only one icon); you could still have keyboard shortcuts to switch quickly. The downside is that this may be harder to program.

By the way, the "everything must be on-screen" need also apply to deleting levels from within the editor; there's currently no obvious way to do that (yes, you can select the level and press "delete". That's not obvious. It also caused me once to accidently delete the whole hold because I was careless about what was selected. Deleting holds is possible from the "where" screen, so it's not as important).

[Edited by eytanz on 07-07-2003 at 02:44 AM GMT: typos]

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mrimer
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Thanks for your input, Eytan. It's definitely good to have your feedback.

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StuartK
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There's at least one puzzle in Dugan that requires the eyes to be shaved in an 'ugly' manner, so we see the pointy corners on the eyes. Like, as you say, a rabid cat with mange, but it's an interesting puzzle

Perhaps the tar mother art could be changed, so that the eyes are circles without the blue background, superimposed ontop of tar where it exists, or not if the first growth cycle has not been reached and the tar mothers are exposed. That might look better instead of the square eye art that is used at the moment. Tar mothers are not tar, just the same as tar babies are not tar. An eye on a corner or edge of tar would bulge out, but there wouldn't be a sharp corner. This wouldn't change any of the game behaviour, just improve the looks in certain situations. *shrug* Or perhaps it'd look even worse. Tar mother art which is context sensitive, depending on where and how much tar is around it? Each eye would need I think 9 additional frames, and I figure why not, when Someone is gonna be drawing a huge batch of DROD art sometime soon anyway


The reason I originally asked was for editor convenience, so I could place creatures where I wanted, then sculpt the tar around them. Without being able to place tar mothers, I have to place the tar first, then the tar mother (and then remove the tar again if I want to) then go back to the tar again. So all this condition does is change the order in which I have to do things. If it's possible, why make it difficult?


The other downside to imposing this and whatever other placement rules there exist (without an option to disable) is each one will restrict further the possibility of emergent, or unexpected (and therefore interesting) behaviour. For instance, I've seen Eriks proposed solution to the shrub drawing bug I reported, and it would make at least one of the rooms I've already created invalid - no more shrub mazes And who would have thought I'd actually have a reason to place an orb floating above a pit? Perhaps silly examples, and the rooms aren't great losses, but the important point is, if you restrict the combinations, you preclude the possibility of certain, possibly unique or unexpected, puzzles existing. So, the designer tries something else, but that original idea has been lost...


BTW Should tar baby placement be allowed ontop of tar? I'd prefer it be allowed, but there's some curious behaviour when clearing such a combination. You sometimes get squares of 'indestructible' tar blocking the way (though they're treated as normal tar on the next growth cycle) Try a 2x3 rectangle of tar, with tar babies on the back row. There might be some interesting puzzles there...




On the subject of a freehand tool, it need not be particularly inaccurate. How about allowing the tool to only count when the pointer is within a smaller square (or octagonal?) area within each room square? The border size, or sensitivity, could be tweaked. Diagonal lines would be easier to draw with fewer mistakes. If an individual still finds this too inaccurate or time consuming, they can go back to the rectangle. The point though is, I don't think in rectangles. It's possible to draw a circle with a rectangle tool, but it requires careful planning, rather than a simple swish of the hand. There's more to life than rectangles Dugans dungeon had lots of rectangles. I liked the levels with curves I'm trying some more organic mazes than level 13 at the moment - easier to play, and more interesting IMO. All those straight lines of level 13 just gave me a headache. But time consuming to make.

Sculpting tar could be far easier with a well designed freehand tool, I think. How do I draw a diagonal line of tar at the moment? Box, after box, after box... Instead of thinking about the puzzle, I'm thinking about the editor, and the puzzle I have to solve using it to get the result I want...



On the current implementation of selection boxes for copying and pasting. I just drew a large crosshatched area and wanted to expand it quickly. So I went to copy it, and drew over the lot with a rectangle of walls. Grrr. My mistake, but it would be very nice to have a seperate tool for such selections, so I don't have to use unwieldy mouse & keyboard combinations (click+drag+ctrl+C) There may even be enough useful tools we could have a seperate tab for selections only. Flip horizontally and vertically, nudge selections a square left, right, up or down, copy, cut & paste multiple different selections (have permanent slots for, say, 10) Paste floors only, or floors&objects only, or everything.



Another couple of things while we're on the editor.

How do I move the head of a snake, without deleting it and having to re-draw? Say I've just drawn a snake which fills the entire room, but the head is in slightly the wrong place... It would be useful if I could draw anoter snake, which, if I end it on the head of the previous snake, combines the two in a single longer snake.

And now I've forgotten the other one. Damn. I hate that.

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StuartK wrote:
I was just wondering how drawing tar would work with a freehand tool? Logically, we'd end up with a big mass of tar babies. Would there be a seemless logic to account for this? Some kind of reverse of the deletion logic which, when sculpting tar which would otherwise produce tar babies, instead filling in extra squares where tar is needed in order to make placement legal? There could be a tendancy to place additional tar squares to the bottom and the right, but this would not always be necessary when extending an existing area of tar. I started putting together a list of special cases, but there are quite a few...

There is an old series of fantasy turn-based strategy games called Warlords (IV is coming out soon, yay!) that allowed its users to make their own maps. I did a bit of that for a while--never put anything on the web, but tinkered around a bit with converting old Forgotten Realms maps. Anyway, my nerdity aside, one option that the map editor had was a "smooth" option. For example, you started out with a vast ocean, then placed a square island in it. When you smoothed it, it made the edges of the island look like a nice coastline, and the corners rounded. Rivers and roads were smoothed out similarly. Perhaps something similar could be done for DROD and tar? That is, when you place tar, it doesn't convert to tar babies until you hit a special "smooth tar" button. This might help with this problem. And when the user quits, changes rooms, or tries to playtest, it automatically smooths the tar (so that there won't be any weird problems). Not sure how easy or desireable this would be to implement.

Game on,

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mrimer
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The tar should no longer be turning to tar babies. If you're still seeing that, it's time to get a newer build!

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StuartK
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mrimer wrote:
The tar should no longer be turning to tar babies. If you're still seeing that, it's time to get a newer build!

No, in the context of a potential freehand tool. If it were not implemented properly, a freehand tar line would do either nothing, or create a long line of tar babies. The behaviour with the rectangle tool even if we don't get a freehand tool, could do with refining as well, IMO.

It would be my preference if each time a sqaure is clicked, additional tar would fill in around in order to make the placement legal (something like a reverse of the current tar removal logic) This would be in order to save clicks, and unnecessary box dragging.

A single click in an open area, or on an area where tar already exists, would result in a 2x2 tar square being placed, extending to the bottom and right.

A single click next to an existing area of tar would result in an additional tar square to the right or below, or another 2x2 tar square depending on the configuration of the existing tar e.g. (X is existing tar, Y is where it's being placed, Z would be where the editor would decide to fill in extra squares)

OOOOO
OXXXO
OXXXO
OYZOO
OOOOO

OOOOO
OXXXO
OXXXO
OOYZO
OOOOO

OOOOO
OXXXO
OXXXO
OOOYZ
OOOZZ

I'm not going to list here all the combinations of 2 adjacent tar squares.


Another alternative is to always place tar squares when a 1x1 rectangle is used. The downside here would be to fill a single square you'd need to click above and to the left of it, which would not be intuitive.

[Edited by StuartK on 07-08-2003 at 05:14 AM]

mrimer
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Ok, I understand what you're saying now. Thanks for taking time to explain it to me.