pu6e (python U6 editor) released

[jim3e8]

Hello,

At long last I've released pu6e-0.6.0 for Linux and Win32. pu6e is an editor for Ultima6 and the Worlds of Ultima games (Martian Dreams and Savage Empire). It's written in wxPython and OpenGL for cross-platform compatibility (it should work on OS X as well, but I haven't tried yet).

Let me know what you think!

[drcode]

Screenshots look really nice.

[ordoc]

nice work!
tested it out, just moved a few stones around

[Andrea B Previtera]

two thumbs up. How do you work out the OpenGL part? Is each tile a very little texture, and the whole map is made up of small quads?

[jim3e8]

Andrea, yes. And I do some texture juggling to get palette rotation to work (I don't rely on paletted textures, so you can run above 8bpp). Actually, I wrote several renderers and decided on OpenGL for performance and, oddly enough, compatibility.

By the way, because I wanted respectable performance when zoomed out far (the map is a million tiles, plus thousands of objects) the innermost drawing code had to be written in C as well--Python is too slow. And there's definitely still room for improvement.

[Moorkh]

Getting better with each version - congrats!

Can't get it to work with Savage Empire, though - do I need to change anything beyond the path?

Anyway, any clue on what we can expect with v0.7 yet?

[Moorkh]

Oops - just realized my oversight -> RTFM, n'est-ce pas?

[Andrea B Previtera]

More on OpenGL rendering of 2d and...uhm...the infamous pathfinding issues : )

So, it's just a matter of turning off any kind of filtering, storing graphics as textures, and rendering some ortho-projected quads. But how do you exactly manage transparency? With alpha channels perhaps?

On pathfinding: have you already explored the pathfinding dynamics of U6? I would guess it's a plaing A* this time, but how does the party work?

[Moorkh]

Oh, something else: Is there any way to edit terrain without altering every single chunk of the same number on the map?

[jim3e8]

Moorhk, no, that's the way the U6 engine works. There are 1024 chunks of 8x8 tiles, and you can place them randomly about the world. If you edit a chunk, it changes it everywhere. So, you'll need to change the chunk number to something else, and if that's insufficient, commandeer one of the less used chunks for your own and change it. SE is "better" than U6 in this respect, I think there are many unused chunks.

By the way, there are sneaky ways to punch holes in the walls of a building without modifying the chunk, if that's what you're looking for.

Andrea, I enable alpha testing for the textures to effect transparency. I haven't looked at pathfinding, you may want to check with the nuvie project.

[Moorkh]

OK - I've already found a number of unused chunks among those 1024 - I guess I'm going to create a few new ones with that

Anyway, any chance you're going to let us in on your sneaky secrets?

[jim3e8]

Yes, I'll update my u6notes.txt file soon with whatever I found. In the meantime you can read the source if you're so inclined...