Radiant Virtuoso Pro (WIP)

[MadGypsy]

This is a teaser for my current project. I have contacted Ingar (NetRadiant author) and asked him a few questions. I will give him a couple of days to reply before I look for solutions in a different way. So, for the moment this project is on pause. Which is good because it gives me a little time to really test this and make any refinements that may be necessary



The below image is a controller test. I wanted to create a semi complex structure to "benchmark" the speed of my controller. The below structure was built in 21 minutes 14 seconds using nothing but a controller (with the very small exception of typing the amount of degrees to turn the angled walls in arbitrary rotation)



I hope everyone can see how much love and effort I have put into making this something that can be taken seriously. I'm no graphic artist and I pushed everything I know to my epic limits just to create (what I believe to be) a very professional looking controller diagram. Those same efforts have been applied across the board for every element of this product.

EDIT: camera controls now work in any view, with the only difference being that left and right will rotate the camera in orthographic view as opposed to strafing.

[MadGypsy]

Ingar has replied and told me he would include my idea in NetRadiant. NetRadiant will officially support my controller method.

I love NetRadiant...and Ingar too

[MadGypsy]

Maybe I should explain what my request to Ingar was. This will be me explaining what I kept hush in my other controller post. In order to bring the true power of Radiant to the controller, I had to completely modify the shortcut list. This is very problematic, cause if you decide you don't want to use the controller that day or something, you are now stuck with a fubar'd keyboard.

My request to Ingar is that he would add a feature in the shortcut list to load custom shortcut.ini's like a profile. This way you can easily "toggle" between necessary shortcut lists that are applicable to the device you are using. Ingeniously simple right? This removes the need to do a bunch of manual or bat driven switcheroos or creating clone games that have appropriate shortcut.ini's in them. Also since NetRadiant is the only radiant that will support this and since NetRadiant does not require an install. I can pre-modify the files to already be configured and simply release this with an entire NetRadiant build. There will be (almost) no instructions, download and go.

You could still use this with GTK, it will just be a pain in the ass to get it set up and manage it. I don't really care about GTK anyway and am more than happy to bring something fresh to NetRadiant, which is also basically specific to NetRadiant. So this product will be renamed NetRadiant Brush Virtuoso Pro and all radiant logos will be switched with NetRadiant ones. Also, this can be considered the Q1 version and upon successfully completing this version, I will move on to the Q3 version, which of course will be more of a patch driven model. The idea is to drag this idea (kicking and screaming if I have to) as far as it can possibly go and across as many controllers as I can get my hands on. I do not intend to be "stuck up" and ignore controllers that are not powerful enough to run the full spectrum of possibilities. I will simply make them the best they can be. I mean, I'd do an Atari 2600 controller if you could plug it in a computer. It would just be a bad controller to choose, but it's possibility would be covered.

EDIT: Original Post has been updated with the new controller diagram, expressing the exclusivity of NetRadiant, Ingar's co-operation and I finally created a logo for myself.

[damage_inc]

I hate to "break it to you" 'Gypsy but... g_b has defected to BLENDER!!!!

[MadGypsy]

Yeah, I know that. I didn't build this for g_b and whereas blender is an alternate method that is superior to Radiant for Q3 mapping, it isn't a method at all for Q1 mapping. Also, I am a Radiant modder. 4 years and I haven't finished 1 single map, but I know radiant inside out and continue to push for new possibilities and to educate others according to my research and work.

g_b is on a planet all his own (and deserves to be), where does that leave those that do not possess a tome of game creation knowledge in their head? I'll tell you where it leaves them. It leaves them reading g_b and my radiant work, starting from the ground up.

Also, there is nothing wrong with starting in Radiant and when you get a solid map created, simply move your work to blender. Do you think g_b ditched all his radiant maps and started over completely? Of course not, he imported his maps to blender for further processing. If I'm wrong I'd be shocked beyond belief. Actually to start a map in blender would be infinitely harder than doing it in Radiant and then moving it to blender when you at least have a layout finished. In Radiant you click the ortho view and drag to create a brush. You can lay brushes and manipulate them very quickly, because all the work is practically nothing more than mouse clicks. Blender is not designed for such easy brush creation and manipulation. This is evidenced by how many keyboard shortcuts you will have to use to manipulate your model.

The bottom line is: no one here is ever going to catch up to golden_boy even if he stood over your shoulder and told you what to do. IMO he has "elited" himself clean out of being relevant to a new mapper. I say this all with great respect for golden_boy. I've been trying to catch up to him for years and it's impossible. No sooner will you get "on his level" and he will reinvent the entire process.

I'm reinventing processes of my own.

[golden_boy]

Very awesome product mad gypsy.

I hope it will work with my PSX gamepad copy. Because I will definitely have to try this when it's available.

g_b has defected to BLENDER!!!!

Argh. You blew my cover. Quick, er... behind you!

[MadGypsy]

@g_b - can you send me a controller map file for your PSX controller? Creating a library of profiles will be infinitely cheaper if I don't have to buy every controller. All i need is an example map and I can program it all by hand.

One thing that is absolutely necessary is an example of a shifted controller. For instance there should be one button on your controller that is dedicated to allowing alternate assignments to every button. If you could make some mock profile that has 1 button assigned to controller shift (so I know the syntax) I could make you a controller in an hour or less.

Actually ANYONE that can provide me with example controller maps for whatever controller you have, would be greatly appreciated. Just know that you will then be putting yourself in a position to have to test it for me. I can see where that's a deal breaker right there because you would also have to know how to use radiant (or be willing to learn very quickly), but if you are wiling to help and up for a small challenge, I will make this as painless as possible. After all, the diagram itself tells you how to work in radiant.

Very awesome product mad gypsy.

Thank you, kind sir. It will actually keep getting better til there is no logical thing left to do.

[MadGypsy]

@damage - I noticed that my reply to you was worded a little rudely in the beginning. I just want you to know that all I'm trying to say is someone has to carry the torch. I'm hella tired and not feeling very reply friendly at the moment.

[damage_inc]

@damage - I noticed that my reply to you was worded a little rudely in the beginning. I just want you to know that all I'm trying to say is someone has to carry the torch. I'm hella tired and not feeling very reply friendly at the moment.

We cool brah' Besides, in order to hurt my feelings you'd have to find them first!!! LOL

I'll still go with my new SN for ya's... INSANE Gypsy, as in dude... the stuff you come up with is just INSANE! Controller quake Radiant mapping... hahahaha who the fuck thinks of THAT! You do, awesome.

Go get some rest... turn OFF the 'puter... drink some herbal TEA... IDK Just go FEEL better.

[MadGypsy]

Controller quake Radiant mapping... hahahaha who the fuck thinks of THAT! You do, awesome.

Actually, I didn't even know that I thought of it, but apparently according to exhaustive google searches...I guess I thought of it. At the very least I am the first person to make a big searchable deal out of it.

I only have 3 days a week off and I like to make the best of them. So, it's not uncommon for me to practically stay up for 3 days straight. I think I have slept 6 hours since Sunday. I honestly couldn't tell you, cause I refuse to ever look at the time or even acknowledge that time exists for that matter (til wed night thru saturday night...for work). I just know that the sun is never up yet when I wake up and it wasn't up when I went to sleep. I have one clock and I think it's under my bed or somewhere. It beeps at 6:00 thursday thru sunday and I just let it beep. When I get back home it has stopped.

...and you think I am insane. Psssh I'm coo coo bananas on a level you didn't even know existed. Luckily it's primarily in a harmless way. There should be a movie about me. It would be interesting on a fight club level, without the underground boxing.

The Neurosis of Gypsy - a tale of genius confusion

Follow Gypsy on his epic quest of too much coffee, no sleep and room full of chalkboards. Join Gypsy as he captures ideas from the ether and becomes incredibly bored with them once all the elements are revealed to him. Laugh and cry as he over polishes every single solitary conversation with mini-stories and dramatic acting to illustrate the most simple scenarios. Watch as Gypsy lies his way onto every single solitary stage in the French Quarter, claiming to be a some made up interesting thing and then magically pulling it off by the seat of his britches. From fire juggler to famous singer, Gypsy will have you always guessing what he will do next. Feel the anticipation as Gypsy pretends to be an out of town partier looking for drugs and tricks very very bad people into attempting to rip him off, only to turn the tables and expose himself as a local while he buries brass knuckles in their grill.

"action, suspense, performances and enough plot twists to tie a story in a knot, this movie has it all" - Boston Globe

coming soon to a quake.dem near you

[KillPixel]

Hrm, I thought a while about this. I picked up my PS2 controller to get a feel for the controls the best I could. I'm a diehard mouse & keyboard person but I think that this is a really good idea. I think if radiant didn't operate on a grid and was much more broad in available tools it would be a different story.

My brother was really big into Halo 2 & 3. When 3 came out I played around with halo forge and had a ton of fun. I haven't used any other version of forge than the very first one, but let me tell you, for the things I wanted to do IT SUCKED. Nothing locked to a grid, tools where nil. It was basically set objects on top of eachother and that's it. Even in such a shit program the controller was still easy to use and intuitive.

I think that your application of a controller as far as radiant is concerned is very usable and easy to learn. In fact, I can easily see many preferring to use it over m&kb for many reasons. Great idea, I'm very much looking forward to using this.

Pro ass graphic BTW. It's clean, appealing and presents a lot of info in a very easy to comprehend way.

Guess I'll have to switch to netradiant...

[MadGypsy]

@Pro Graphic - would you believe I didn't use an art program to make it? Maybe you would believe me if I gave you a screenie. I don't know how to use Photoshop or Gimp. A quick review of all my posts and it's painfully obvious that I primarily use MSPaint. Of course I didn't use that for this, but what I used isn't exceptionally better.



Flash CS5

It's the only thing I know how to use (actually I am factually a master in every regard)

----

Thank you for the kind words.

@Guess I'll have too use NetRadiant - it's identical to GTK in almost every regard, and also better. It's better because there is no install and it is portable. I run it from a usb card ad I can bring my work to any computer by simply reassigning a drive letter. I have an entire Quake pipeline on that card (blender and everything). I will also never lose my work this way, cause i have a duplicate card that is just duplicate. If this card dies, the next one will just pick right up where I left off and I'll make another duplicate.

I just dumped a newer netradiant on top of my older one. When prompted to overwrite I clicked yes to all. Works perfect right out of the zip. My custom files unaffected because they do not exist in a fresh netradiant. What more could you want? Dump and go, nothing more to do.

You could use my creation with GTK though. It would just be a pain in the ass. You would have to have 2 backup shortcut.ini's and manually dump the one you need in the proper folder everytime you change devices.

[MadGypsy]

It occurred to me that I have undocumented features available in the controller. These are all circumstantial and mostly revolve around dropping a specific menu in the menu bar. I don't intend to document these features in the main image, but instead include them as a BTW in a read_me.

The reason is that they aren't really supposed to be there, but they cannot be removed. Basically to remove these crossover possibilities would entail removing the ALT button from my controller and that would wipe out my entire method for keeping things organized and easily memorized. The ALT button is the backbone to continuing a family of operations without changing the base combination that initiates that family.

ex
L2+UP = hide selected
(ALT)R1+L2+UP = show all hidden

(which are the only hide and show in radiant)

is show not the ALTERNATE of hide ? Of course it is and I use this method to make things as simple as possible.

Anyway, the controller does more than I let on, but it isn't intended or removable.

[MadGypsy]

Virtuoso is officially an entire gamepack. This gamepack is rounding off all of my work here since the day I started doing things. It will come complete with all compilers, a build menu that is already written for you AND WILL WORK. As a matter of fact I am even going to finish MY clean QC (as in nothing like the QC you all use) and add some mods that none of you even know that I made. MY gridz.wad, my custom entities.ent to reflect my QC, of course my controller mod which was the whole point to begin with and possibly even more work that I have done that i don't even remember doing. Everything that is not mine will be properly accredited to it's author. In short I am maybe 30 or 40 percent finished with the most excellent q1 mapping possibility for radiant to date.

ALL applicable files (compilers, shortcut profiles, controller profiles) will come in the virtuosoq1.game folder. Instead of ID1 you will just have to dump Virtuoso/ in Quake/ and you are ready to go. There will also be extensive documentation which is actually my sneaky way to teach you how to use radiant. It will come in PDF format and if I can't convince Ingar to add it to the help menu, I will include it in the build menu.

I found my ultimate purpose for all of the work I have done here. I have a long way to go and some things may not be included in the first version (like my QC cause I have a lot to do with that). However, I already have much of what I said gamepack-wise completed (build menu, compiler inclusion, profiles, some other things). If you can't make something with my gamepack without drama once I am finished, give up, for real, q1mapping isn't for you. It will be impossible to make it any easier for you. I do not say this to be discouraging. I say this to illustrate that I have already thought of everything (long ago actually) and this is as good as it gets for q1 mapping. NOTHING will be overlooked or excluded.

Oh, It will also include my QC develop environment, with a new syntax hilight file, my QC source, an upgraded compile menu that isn't in command shell format...uh, I think that's all but I know it isn't. I've made an awful lot of Quake stuff. Much of it just needs a facelift.

I know you like to add everything and the kitchen sink....

I'm going to give you the entire universe in one game pack. To put things in an early perspective. Here is a dir structure for my current game pack state. You may notice that I am missing the other map2 compilers. That will change. Actually I'm tempted to sub directory the entire thing and parent linux/ , mac/, win/ to the entire structure.



all other gamepacks look like this

gamename/entities.ent
default_build_menu.xml

this is actually because they are either a q3 game and don't need anything more or it is the sad, practically unsupported, q1.game gamepack. We have a lot of options here. Why aren't they included in radiant? They will be.

I will even tell you a future (faaar future) inclusion that is on my "wishlist" - the ability to add FrikBot waypoints in Radiant. No way files. Strict bot mapping encapsulated in the bsp. I have a lot of figgerin to do on that one and I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. It doesn't mean that the conventional method would be excluded though. It will just be another possibility.

[yesterday]

This is really fucking cool, even though I can see myself hating the control method you've used (delete is far too easy to hit by accident, for example). But I definitely like where you're going with this (and as I'm late to the party, have gone). I do wonder how the control setup would be modified to work with a more "traditional" 4 window view that some of us luddites still use.

Notable is that hmap2 has the light and vis tools already included; they are evoked with -light and -vis. Also notable is that, yes, the NetRadiant fork is probably better, although in my opinion the killer feature is actually the modification made to the clipping tool (it displays which side will be discarded with perpendicular lines).