Soffish Halo 2 Content Editor

[kibito87]

So all rotations actually work correctly now? If so, awesome. But yes, that is an awesome way to edit the rotations. Nice job.

[DrXThirst]

No. You can.

k.

[ManBearPig_06]

I thought that quaternions were easier to use than vectors only when dealing with a trailing float point behind a model. How/why are they being used here?

[xzodia]

cause quaternions are a better >_>
there harder for humans but easier for computers lul

[xbox7887]

Right now:
Soffish has a better meta editor then Entity, and with continued codeing we may be able to squeeze more speed from it.

One thing I've found to greatly improve performance is to block all contiguous reads/writes whenever possible...I don't think I need to supply all the source, this should be enough for you to get the idea ;P Basically if you're reading a bunch of values next to eachother in a loop, just read the whole block to a buffer and then parse with bitconverter. Same goes for writing...just write all values to a fixed buffer and write to the map after

Example:

Code: Select all

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace HaloMap
{
    public class FileTable : List<string>
    {
        private Map Map;

        #region Constructor
        public FileTable(Map map)
        {
            Map = map;
            Capacity = Map.Header.FileCount;
            Load();
        }
        #endregion

        #region Methods
        // load filetable and indicies to buffers with single read operations, then parse after...
        public void Load()
        {
            try
            {
                int count = Map.Header.FileCount;
                int indexOffset = Map.Header.FileTableIndexOffset;
                int nameOffset = Map.Header.FileTableOffset;

                byte[] indexBuffer = Map.ReadBytes(indexOffset, count * 4);
                byte[] nameBuffer = Map.ReadBytes(nameOffset, Map.Header.FileTableSize);

                int nextIndex;  //used to calculate string length
                for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
                {
                    int index = BitConverter.ToInt32(indexBuffer, i * 4);

                    if (i != count - 1)
                        nextIndex = BitConverter.ToInt32(indexBuffer, (i + 1) * 4);
                    else
                        nextIndex = Map.Header.FileTableSize;

                    this.Add(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(nameBuffer, index, nextIndex - index - 1));
                }
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw new MapCorruptionException("Inconsistancy detected! - Unable to load filetable.");
            }
        }
        public unsafe void Save(out byte[] indexBuffer, out byte[] nameBuffer)
        {
            int index = 0;

            //creates index buffer
            indexBuffer = new byte[Count * 4];
            fixed (byte* ib = indexBuffer)
                for (int i = 0; i < Count; i++)
                {
                    *(int*)(ib + i * 4) = index;
                    index += this[i].Length + 1;
                }

            //creates name buffer
            nameBuffer = new byte[index];
            for (int i = 0; i < Count; i++)
                ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(this[i], 0, this[i].Length, nameBuffer, BitConverter.ToInt32(indexBuffer, i * 4));
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

[Shock120]

Will the BSP viewer look better than Entity's &/or as good as Prey's Visual Scenery Mover

- Color for AI zones, death barriers/zones and banshee barriers
- RTH
- Unicode editor
- Script editor
- Chunk cloning

[xzodia]

One thing I've found to greatly improve performance is to block all contiguous reads/writes whenever possible...I don't think I need to supply all the source, this should be enough for you to get the idea ;P Basically if you're reading a bunch of values next to each other in a loop, just read the whole block to a buffer and then parse with bitconverter. Same goes for writing...just write all values to a fixed buffer and write to the map after

Thanks for the tip, I have to say it never occurred to me that that would be faster.
Would the same speed be gained if a MemoryStream was created from the byte[], since its not reading from disc? (to save writing the bitconverter code)

[kibito87]

Will the BSP viewer look better than Entity's &/or as good as Prey's Visual Scenery Mover

- "Perfect" Chunk cloning

On the BSP viewer part though, it would be grand if you could implement the objective chunks as different colored boxes just like Sparkedit. I'm not trying to say turn Soffish into a Sparkedit but it would be a great addition and make it easier to tell the difference between each set. I think entity's objective spawns were all set to use the masterchief model but I think it's better having them color coordinated boxes.

Although, now that I think of it, making scenario chunk cloning IN the BSP viewer would be a FANTASTIC addition! That way, you could right click a tag in the bsp viewer's hierarchy box, (or however you may be going about that) and just have a selection such as "clone chunk". Then the cloned chunk would appear either right on top of the original or next to it somewhere.

Let me know if any of the things i've suggested are already on the planned list or if they are just too out of the question at the moment.

[Eaton]

Hopefully all of these great ideas can be implemented! Make this program better than Entity!

[OwnZ joO]

One thing I've found to greatly improve performance is to block all contiguous reads/writes whenever possible...I don't think I need to supply all the source, this should be enough for you to get the idea ;P Basically if you're reading a bunch of values next to eachother in a loop, just read the whole block to a buffer and then parse with bitconverter. Same goes for writing...just write all values to a fixed buffer and write to the map after

Example:
.
.
.

As far as my work with meta editing, it's not so much reading it that takes the time as setting up the display for the tag type.

[Aumaan Anubis]

I sincerely hope that you programmers will not risk speed to make the BSP Viewer, "look better."

It was one of my worst problems on Entity before I got a new computer. I had to go back to an earlier version of Entity to find a BSP Viewer that wasn't outrageously slow due to detail.

I really don't much care for the 'quality' of the Viewer, as long as I'm able to see things relatively clearly.

[SpecOp44]

Ideally if there were a way to set how much quality the BSP renders, that would be great.

[OwnZ joO]

I sincerely hope that you programmers will not risk speed to make the BSP Viewer, "look better."

It was one of my worst problems on Entity before I got a new computer. I had to go back to an earlier version of Entity to find a BSP Viewer that wasn't outrageously slow due to detail.

I really don't much care for the 'quality' of the Viewer, as long as I'm able to see things relatively clearly.

Exactly, I couldn't view big sbsp's on my old computer.

[xbox7887]

One thing I've found to greatly improve performance is to block all contiguous reads/writes whenever possible...I don't think I need to supply all the source, this should be enough for you to get the idea ;P Basically if you're reading a bunch of values next to each other in a loop, just read the whole block to a buffer and then parse with bitconverter. Same goes for writing...just write all values to a fixed buffer and write to the map after

Thanks for the tip, I have to say it never occurred to me that that would be faster.
Would the same speed be gained if a MemoryStream was created from the byte[], since its not reading from disc? (to save writing the bitconverter code)

Same difference, since its working with memory instead of file io...I wrote that code when I was learning C# so I didn't know a whole lot then

[Themandyou]

when I was learning C# so I didn't know a whole lot then

Where'd you learn C# from?

[Supermodder911]

Bill Gates himself.

[SkgSkrillaka]

google search it..
honestly. lol

[Shock120]

Ideally if there were a way to set how much quality the BSP renders, that would be great.

make plenty of settings.

[Evilsnowflakes]

Man, if you can make this the only program we'll ever need, that be great, now we just need that animation injector/extractor for us modeling people

[DemonicSandwich]

Man, if you can make this the only program we'll ever need, that be great, now we just need that animation injector/extractor for us modeling people

Actually you modeling people need a PMI that injects bone information more....then animation tools will actually become even more useful.