The Choice

[Retera]

I am interested to see user opinions on how I should spend what little free time that I have. I am the developer of the Retera Model Studio application. I am aware that it is bug ridden, and (where have we heard this story before) not quite the experience I would have wanted when I use it. People ask me how to recalculate extents or edit materials and I don't have a good answer, because Retera Model Studio is kind of incomplete as programs go. I just read a thread written by some guy about using Magos instead of Retera Model Studio. And obviously whatever he was doing in Magos was not possible in my program, so he is objectively correct to be doing that for now.

The difference, however, is that Magos might be dead for all we know and has been offline on this website for a decade. But I still lurk on these forums.

My development budget is zero dollars and I am just one guy. I have drained progress on Retera Model Studio dry at a time when the community is rightly asking for new desperately needed features and support for Reforged. I did this because starting in about December of 2018 I began a project that I began to have more and more faith in than Retera Model Studio for the future of my modding experience.

Retera Model Studio is an MDX editor. It functions as a companion app for somebody else's game, and that is all it is. The project I started at the turn of 2018-2019 after Reforged had been announced was something that I came to refer to as Warsmash. The idea is simple. After decades of open source Warcraft III modding fan tools, it was clear to me that everything we do in tool making often revolves around getting a closer and closer approximation to simply reinventing the sourcecode of the Warcraft III game.

So, I saw what Ghostwolf had been making with his rendering projects and I realized that with just the open source libraries we have in the Warcraft III modding community from Ghostwolf and others and the technology I have spent my time with, I can create a game engine that exists merely as a simulation of my Warcraft III childhood experiences that are open source so that we can do serious game modding rather than piddly statistical changes in the Object Editor.

I'm totally serious. I became aware of the mathematical possibility of this project after I copied Ghostwolf's animation rendering technology to change what was called the "Matrix Eater" into what became "Retera Model Studio". At that point I realized: I am a human who can put animation rendering technology to practical use, even if I might struggle to build something like Ghostwolf's viewer if I ever try to do invent on my own.

Leading up to the development of my game engine, for practice, I downloaded the sourcecode of HiveWE and fought through the experience of upgrading the HiveWE rendering pipeline in my local build to have animated units and items. This gave me a second opportunity to try to copy Ghostwolf's code, this time in C++.

But then, after my experiments with HiveWE, Reforged was announced. And it was at this time that I became aware of the loss of the thing I was working towards with my model editor in a technical sense. Reforged on the 2018 stage showed innovation in the fundamentals of the rendering pipeline and the model format which meant the end of the compatibility of all of our existing modeling tools with whatever the game was going to be. And I think it was due to this, and seeing it would be this way, that I began then in 2018 on this project to build my Warcraft clone. But initially I was just copying code from HiveWE and from mdx-m3-viewer (Ghostwolf's repo) into the Java language because that's what I used to make Retera Model Studio and I wanted to use the language I was most familiar with so that I would get this thing running as soon as possible. And so throughout 2019 on some of my weekends, I copied this code together into a code repo off and on sometimes on the weekends. It was really interesting, copying all of this code into one place and never testing it for all that time living with only the simple faith that I knew it should have the potential to become what I wanted.

But the Reforged Beta was different than I expected. When I got my hands on it, for the first week custom maps were not possible, only melee games. The second week custom maps became available for launching via the editor, but even Warchasers had heroes with confused icons and tooltips and you could export the Footman MDX model file from Patch 1.31 and it would not load on this Reforged Beta, because they had botched the legacy SD model parser. Those problems all got fixed by the Reforged team but they introduced me to more examples of issues that I know I would be able to fix given the sourcecode, but I just couldn't because of how the world is. And this renewed my aspirations for the Warsmash engine. So, I kept developing it throughout the Beta, begrudgingly tossing out a "Retera Model Studio Reforged Hack" version that was thrown together and to this day has some pretty nonsense bugs when operating on Reforged models.

But for me, for my future, I began working on this Warsmash engine. And it was as the Reforged Beta came to a close in those last weeks of January that I put in a big push because I wanted to reach a point where I could do "right-click move". I wanted to prove to myself that this hypothetical thing I worked on during that time really and truly can exist. The doorway to the intellectual freedom of making my own patches, even if it is confined to my own computer and confined to educational purposes for legal reasons or whatever. And somehow, in those weeks of January, after debugging a blank display screen for a few nights, this thing booted into a 3d world and I began to see an MDX model. And then 400 MDX models all animating side by side for a test. And then terrain copied from HiveWE, and ground textures copied from that guy Riv with his Rivsoft website.

And that's how, on January 27, I published a video of this engine running the day before the Reforged release. It's entertaining to me because people don't understand the time investment that led to the contents of this video, and if I recall someone in the comments section actually asked me for the JASS code to spawn this UI into their Reforged map (which does not exist):

But if you've ever seen one of those video games where the big bad guy ends up becoming good to help the main character save the world, "because otherwise there would not be a world to become the ruler," so too was my motivation based somewhat on the existence and the success of Reforged. The irrational downpour of internet hate that landed on Reforged the next day on January 28 and kept going until this day did a number on my motivation. People have turned it into a politicized sort of topic, but I can tell you that within the last 24 hours I was privy to a conversation that led me to believe the Site Owner of the Hive Workshop has probably never played a custom game on Reforged to date. And I think that is not an isolated case within the Warcraft III modding community.

There are a lot of people who have no concept of the technical details involved in working on a game like Warcraft III, and so they appear to offer absolutely no respect to the developers who tried to make Reforged. There are some really interesting theoretical accomplishments inside of the Reforged engine like how the limits to the number of units on the map that can visually display were fixed, and the new Reforged model format allows users to mix and match HD and SD content inside of a model, while having both chunks of the model formatted differently, each with their own version. This is great if you are trying to make models with model blending and you have one specific component that fits well even with the higher fidelity graphics and you want to just merge it in. Reforged also has an HTML based menu which means that you can change button behaviors and develop mods such as Pad's Ladder which would have been incredibly difficult to mod into the non-Reforged menu UI and you can also do tricks like this to make dropdowns with more than 4 races.

So there are a bunch of interesting things going on in Reforged and if the developers had done better stability testing on the overall experience (desyncs, drops, latency, etc) there are certainly clear signs that pieces of the work done on Reforged were the technically challenging and correct steps to take to get towards that feeling we all had when Pete Stilwell was on the stage announcing Reforged.

But again, even back in 2018 I wanted to feel the experience of playing the Blizzard Entertainment Reforged experience and I also wanted to reach out into the ephemeral fabrics of reality and somehow catch the Warsmash engine developer experience.

And this brings me to my current dilemma. Frequently I read trash on the forums and on discord where people rant about this or that, talking extensively about some hypothetical update to Reforged that we all know is never going to happen that they feel should be necessary for their game experience, and for me one of the shining lights in the trash was people who actually take the time to learn enough about Reforged to use my Retera Model Studio Reforged Hack junk tools to make things that actually look pretty decent. Those people who are actually enjoying Reforged, as a result, communicate with me out of necessity sometimes and I am reminded they exist.

And so, I find myself face with these two diametrically and ideologically opposed options for how to spend my time:
(1) Support the Blizzard game that I love by making updates to Retera Model Studio Reforged version
(2) Support my personal lust for an imaginary but rewarding sense of power and freedom by working on my Warsmash engine

To be honest, sometimes recently with the grim COVID19 world there are times where I go for rather long stretches of time only doing my day job and not catching the time for hobbies. But, when I have had hobby time, I've almost exclusively been trying to pour it into (2) above, into Warsmash, and not into Retera Model Studio Reforged.

And I guess in a sense that means I'm becoming toxic, disappearing perhaps, like other people who did lots of Warcraft III stuff like Magos have done who seem to be entirely gone. It's just that I'm disappearing to my new warcraft...
So, I am not promising that I will change my decisions either way, but I was interested in what kind of poll responses I would get on this question: should I spend time on (1) Retera Model Studio -- a community service project or (2) Warsmash -- a self serving project.

Spoiler: More Warsmash Engine Footage

 

[tulee]

I voted for Retera Model Studio. I doubt that Mindworx was hired by blizzard with plans that he would be shifted to a different project immediately upon his arrival to the US. On that assumption, he will likely be working on Reforged's editor for many years to come, which might allow great new features for the WE. In that sense, it would be neat if prominent modders such as yourself go with the flow as posed to going against it.

Based on what you wrote, it seems you enjoy working on your Warsmash more than Retera Model Studio. Perhaps, though, what you would find even more enjoyable is seeing others using your community tool and building upon it/using it in a way that pushes Wc3 development in exciting new directions--- and that probably only possible if you stick with the community service project, as it may be difficult to convince others to jump on board with you and your Warsmash project.

But good luck either way.

 

[deepstrasz]

I play on 1.31.1 and use your Retera Model Studio, not the Reforged version. I'd love to see stuff in there that for instance Magos and Mdvls can do but not your program.

However, you should do what brings you joy. That's what's important. Doing otherwise to satisfy others will rarely bring you gladness in the long term unless you're that kind of person.

Now, you have to consider if Warmash would actually become used by people instead of Warcraft III and that it could bring modders what they want, GUI included. If it will divide the community even more instead, I don't know...

 

[loktar]

I didn't vote because it's really not my choice to make. You should do what you feel is the best way to spend your time, whatever that means for you.
Either way, it's incredible work that you've been doing, and RMS has been a community stanadard since its release and will remain so with or without updates.

 

[yxq1122]

I also voted for Retera Model studio reforged that is widely used in the modding communities. As loktar said, it has been a community standard after released.
As for the game engine, I actually don't know enough about it. As a game engine for Warcraft III, I think it is not very necessary except you want to create Warcraft like derivatives which are prohibited by EULA.

 

[Urain]

i'm not really following on how warmash will evolve, but i do know that the model studio needs a few additions to be somewhat complete (more animation options and an event object editor or smth)

 

[loktar]

I also voted for Retera Model studio reforged that is widely used in the modding communities. As loktar said, it has been a community standard after released.
As for the game engine, I actually don't know enough about it. As a game engine for Warcraft III, I think it is not very necessary except you want to create Warcraft like derivatives which are prohibited by EULA.

It's not a derivative though, it just happens to read WC3 formats. As long as no proprietary assets are redistributed there is nothing to prevent anyone from reverse engineering the code. Especially since it's open source, making it completely transparent.

 

[Jahjahbinks]

Warsmash, my liege.

 

[Retera]

 

[Cheshire]

this is really cool. You wrote that warsmash is selfish whereas the modeling studio serves the community. I really don't see it that way. As you say, this definitely has potential to enlarge the rift between reforged and classic users, but it the payoff may outweigh the inconvenience.

I think warsmash, if properly developed could be greatly helpful to this community in a two main ways:

1. legal freedom from actiblizzard. If you change all elements of this just enough to not be copyright infringement, this could give modders back the rights to their own creations. everything we like about warcraft, with no strings attached. (or at least serve as an ultimatum/competition to push blizzard to give back free reign, or at least improve reforged enough to make this unnatractive in comparison - so win,win)

2. this could allow modders much more freedom, if you intend to share and keep the source code open. no more constant bumping into walls of constraining hardcoding, and much more flexability and dynamic development if it was somewhat "community developed".

just my 2 cents on the matter...

 

[disruptive_]

The Retera Model Studio is a brutally good tool that i used a lot lately. As i learned to use it it has proven me that Model Studio + good old Notepad is perhaps all you need to model and animate Warcarft III models. Congrats man.
On the other hand if you just want to do a game engine then why are you asking permission? Most programmers that i know have a tendency to jump from project to project so i think you will end up improving the Model Studio regardless (hehe).

It's not a derivative though, it just happens to read WC3 formats. As long as no proprietary assets are redistributed there is nothing to prevent anyone from reverse engineering the code. Especially since it's open source, making it completely transparent.

Altough you presented a good resume of what to expect from the current development of a tool like Warmash, i would add the following.
Regarding on most copyright laws applied to software applications like our beloved classic Warcraft III the following aspects can be protected:
1. The code ("program").
2. The digital assets (ie. music, sprites).
3. The product itself might also me protected (ie. if it is a videogame, the game itself is protected as an audiovisual work -in a nutshell this concept points to all the digital assets -point 2- put together dinamically on a creative manner, just like a movie-). On videogames this element is specially easy to protect making for a rather easy case (compared to ie. spreadsheet applications which most of it's design and experience is completely functional and not creative), as copyright law is the law that protects creativity. You can find jurisprudence of videogame copyright protection as a special class of audiovisual work as early as year 1982-1983 (don't remember the exact year).
Even if all these aspects are technically related (ie. in the end the code is the one addressing and directing the use of digital assets), these aspects are protected separatedly which is totally wise and according with general rules of copyright law (ie. the code is the creation of a programmer, the assets are the creation of artists and composers, the game itself is the creation of the developer). It is not a rare sight that the programmer is also the developer and did contributions to the art or music, but the "separation" of creations and rights applies regardless.

I will try giving an example. Retera can make the code from scratch (avoiding code copyright infringement), not distribute (let's also add: do derivatives of) WC3 assets like you said (avoiding the respective asset's copyright infringement) but must also not copy the game itself. One thing is copying mechanics (mechanics and concepts are not protected) but other is imitating the entire gameplay and interfaces (this can be protected). On a trial the judge will ie. see a screen running Warcraft III and then a screen running Warmash. The criteria that judges use to issue a copyright infringement case (reproduction right) oscillates between blatant/literal/obvious copy to "substantial similarity"/"kind of similar", this last one being a very flexible and problematic if one wants certainty of what to expect. I don't know what Retera can do to completely reduce the risk of Warmash not casually infringe product copyright of Warcraft III (our 3 element) other than, of course, making an independent engine (but this misses the point of Warmash). You can argue all technicalities that you want (ie. Warmash is an engine, Warcraft is a game), but even Retera used the keywords "simulate" which brings us to the fact that he is indeed trying to copy Warcraft III (not it's code, the game experience, which is the point of this post).

Also, if Retera plans to compete with Blizzard (this is not a synonimus of becoming commercial or selling, let's say Retera decides to license the program without aknowledging potential Blizzard interest or flat out being hostile to them with the terms), i would also avoid naming or characterizing the engine with any word or sign that would relate to "Warcraft" (like "WARmash") as this: 1. ressembles the case of FreeCraft (Blizzard grabbed this potential albeit clearly innocous name similarity to issue a cease a desist basing it on trademark infringement, which is dubious but not impossible) and/or 2. could be the basis for an unfair competition / tort lawsuit.
Note that we are no longer speaking about copyright law.

Since a tool like Warmash would be totally precious for the community but could hurt Blizzard corporate interests (ie. new competition, a possible interference with their own licenses -the infamous EULA-), i would suggest Retera of being receptive (not hostile, not submissive, kind of pushing for an agreement of sorts) to Blizzard's "feedback" while continuing developing the engine. Right now your development is not that big but you will reach a critical mass at some point. In my opinion this tool could be a tremendous opportunity for them, but software companies over the years have learned to use these kind of opportunities (like using or becoming open-source software) steadily but very "slowly" if you will, so Blizzard maybe is simply not prepared.

 

[Goffterdom]

Hey there

As content creators, I feel like our end goal, whether we realize it or not, whether it's hidden behind other goals or not, will always be to have people experiencing our content.

In that regard, I suggest you analyze what is more likely to be used: Warmash or Retera Reforged Model Studio.

I personally voted "Reforged Studio", because I think we're more likely to see surges of players in the official game (especially as the patches start to fix their mess, if we ever get that chance). Which will likely make the Reforged playerbase larger than any "shady engine" community.

I've been creating content for more than 15 years, and it never felt as good as when I actually had people experiencing it and giving feedback.

The rest of the time, it just felt like I was doing my stuff alone in my corner of the world. Nothing bad about this, it felt as great as any other "hobby" project. But the unofficial "payback" are actually feedback and people telling how great what you created is.

 

[Jahjahbinks]

Hey there

As content creators, I feel like our end goal, whether we realize it or not, whether it's hidden behind other goals or not, will always be to have people experiencing our content.

After that, I thought you would suggest Uncle Warsmash. If it really does come to fruition, it would breathe more life into the game than anything. Look at what other open source diy r.e. engines have done for games (namely openmw/morrowind, which now has multiplayer and really easy scripting). Warcraft 3 possibilities would be near limitless. right?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

This is not our choice to make.

But if you still want to hear my two cents:

But id definitely miss your input in the hive and wc3 community. I always felt like projects going standalone is a high risk with little to no payoff at the end as most projects rebuilding games from the ground up are simply to large in scope to succeed.

Also, speak after me: "network coding is a bitch."

The roads of this world are paved with dead "you know what? Lets remake this on <engine of your choice>" projects.


The reason why wc3 modding was so successful compared to sc2 or dota2 modding was that wc3 provided a scope that was just perfect for the modding scene to grow: just enough freedom to allow the creation of whatever you want with just the right constraints to make is easy enough to work with.

Standalone projects almost always fail because the time investment is not worth the payoff in a world that has so many games to play, but still so little time.

 

[deepstrasz]

Would Warmash be able to read (already made [with the World Editor]) Warcraft III maps?

 

[Retera]

But id definitely miss your input in the hive and wc3 community. I always felt like projects going standalone is a high risk with little to no payoff at the end as most projects rebuilding games from the ground up are simply to large in scope to succeed.

If my project succeeds, am I supposed to leave the Hive for some reason? I want it to play w3x files and load mdx models to give life to the things I already know in a way Reforged can't. I hope I can play some TToR or Project Revolution with friends using Warsmash, maybe. Or custom campaigns -- the current patch of Warcraft 3 cannot even play those, so for all I know Warsmash might be able to play them sooner than the official Blizzard game. We'll see.

Also, speak after me: "network coding is a bitch."

The roads of this world are paved with dead "you know what? Lets remake this on <engine of your choice>" projects.

Nah, I want Warsmash to be an engine, and then we can remake Warcraft 3 on Warsmash. Something like that. I already coded a network game for another project, TCP, UDP, epoll, whatever, it'll be fine.

The reason why wc3 modding was so successful compared to sc2 or dota2 modding was that wc3 provided a scope that was just perfect for the modding scene to grow: just enough freedom to allow the creation of whatever you want with just the right constraints to make is easy enough to work with.

Standalone projects almost always fail because the time investment is not worth the payoff in a world that has so many games to play, but still so little time.

Warsmash cannot fail, because my goal is to have fun and be creative, not the typical definition of success. It is already a success.

Would Warmash be able to read (already made [with the World Editor]) Warcraft III maps?

What do you mean, legally or functionally?

Edit: As a sidenote, though, actually when I realized Blizzard might just drop support for the WC3 engine and remake it as a Starcraft 2 mod I began to think I need to support Reforged as much as possible and created a discord server dedicated to talking about and developing the Retera Model Studio program called "Retera Model Studio Users Group" and after one week the server already has 40 people. Because of my job I have hardly actually upgraded the code, however. There is still a lot to do.

 

[deepstrasz]

What do you mean, legally or functionally?

Functionally but that's also a good question, legally.
I guess the first one was answered when you replied to the onion man.

Blizzard might just drop support for the WC3 engine and remake it as a Starcraft 2 mod

Well, if Warmash could have all the StarCraft features like Carries, Scarabs, Nukes, whatnot, that would be supermegauber.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The thing is: the community doesnt really need warsmash. But it needs model studio: the dream of having an all-in-one modelling solution able to deliver and create all features of Reforged models from scratch.
Of course if you just want to have fun making warsmash all power to you. But you specifically asked the community perspective so ... Here I am answering this very selfishly.

 

[Lon-ami]

this is really cool. You wrote that warsmash is selfish whereas the modeling studio serves the community. I really don't see it that way. As you say, this definitely has potential to enlarge the rift between reforged and classic users, but it the payoff may outweigh the inconvenience.

I think warsmash, if properly developed could be greatly helpful to this community in a two main ways:

1. legal freedom from actiblizzard. If you change all elements of this just enough to not be copyright infringement, this could give modders back the rights to their own creations. everything we like about warcraft, with no strings attached. (or at least serve as an ultimatum/competition to push blizzard to give back free reign, or at least improve reforged enough to make this unnatractive in comparison - so win,win)

2. this could allow modders much more freedom, if you intend to share and keep the source code open. no more constant bumping into walls of constraining hardcoding, and much more flexability and dynamic development if it was somewhat "community developed".

just my 2 cents on the matter...

This. Blizzard can't be trusted, why would anyone develop anything under their platform anymore? They could pull the plug any day; hell, didn't they already kill W3 vanilla with no previous warning?

Nah, I want Warsmash to be an engine, and then we can remake Warcraft 3 on Warsmash. Something like that. I already coded a network game for another project, TCP, UDP, epoll, whatever, it'll be fine.

Or even better, a whole new game.

I mean, why stop at W3? Can't we do better? Didn't we already?

If I had the resources, you bet I would spend them on making my own world editor. I'm pretty sure whoever pulls something like it in the coming years will become highly successful, maybe even filthy rich. I mean, look at how popular Minecraft and other shitty games are, and you can't barely do anything over there. Imagine something with the power of W3, free for everyone to use.

So yeah, my vote goes for Warsmash. Even if you have to give up, as long as its open source, there will always be someone to continue your work. It's a first step for something greater, while the other option is stuck in the past and won't lead anywhere in the long term.

The thing is: the community doesnt really need warsmash. But it needs model studio: the dream of having an all-in-one modelling solution able to deliver and create all features of Reforged models from scratch.
Of course if you just want to have fun making warsmash all power to you. But you specifically asked the community perspective so ... Here I am answering this very selfishly.

The community needs to grow up and leave the mother's nest. A new environment is what we really need, imo. One free from corporate bullshit where we can do as we please.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The community needs to grow up and leave the mother's nest. A new environment is what we really need, imo. One free from corporate bullshit where we can do as we please.

Last time I checked Unity is still there for people who want to be independant. There is no need to reinvent that wheel.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

So yeah, my vote goes for Warsmash. Even if you have to give up, as long as its open source, there will always be someone to continue your work. It's a first step for something greater, while the other option is stuck in the past and won't lead anywhere in the long term.

And yet here we are, twenty years later.

If your goal was to make money off this you left a long time ago.

If this is something you enjoy doing in your spare time, money just plain doesn't matter, and neither should some potential legacy you might leave in the future.

It's called a hobby for a reason. You're doing it because you either enjoy it and/or you need/want to kill free time doing something productive. Don't ever think of it as a salaried job.

Tangentially related to the topic: You are free to think whatever about it you want.

I have a certain model. I need to calculate extents, but Magos is the only program that does that. Problem is, the model inexplicably doesn't open (correctly) in Magos. Therefore I edited the whole thing by hand using fake guesswork numbers (after learning that Reforged actually doesn't care what these numbers are, but TFT does for some reason).

Same model. I want to set a Portrait camera for it. Magos is one of two editors that actually can view the camera for you. Since I can't open it in Magos, I used Warcraft 3 Viewer, but THAT one literally can't do anything else (not even adjust the camera). So I have the model open in Matrix Eater and moving the camera around and occasionally saving just to switch to Warcraft 3 Viewer to see if it's in the right place.

Both of these are issues caused by Magos not working correctly.

And of course everything's on top of Mdlvis's tendency to delete collision shapes for no good reason.

There is no such thing as a perfect modding tool-- just ones with varying degrees of non-functionality. Whether that means anything to you is for you to decide, but people have gotten by with less or completely hamstrung in the past so it's not like people aren't able to work with it if comes down to it.

 

[Retera]

I'm worried Blizzard may abandon the Warcraft 3 engine entirely in favor of Starcraft 2 even though they currently claim to still support us. Despite being a hard line believer in Warsmash, it's not ready yet. A few weeks ago I tried to veer sharply in the other direction by creating a discord server dedicated to Retera Model Studio and to motivating myself to update it. I have been busy and basically just opened the Magos sourcecode of Reclaculate Extents and then threw the same behavior into my tool. Although there may be one bug I had to fix afterwards, it's generally working.

It's not enough. I don't hardly have enough time to give myself what I want in the tool. For me, my job and other things are always a priority.

But you know, viewing a camera is included in Ghostwolf's repo that can also load and save models that was copied from to make Warsmash. That's why it has working portraits. And his repo totally supports Reforged models.

There is no such thing as a perfect modding tool-- just ones with varying degrees of non-functionality. Whether that means anything to you is for you to decide, but people have gotten by with less or completely hamstrung in the past so it's not like people aren't able to work with it if comes down to it.

But what we do have is, unlike Magos, my Retera Model Studio is fully open source. You could download it and recompile it with the title of the program changed to "Razorclaw_X Model Studio"; you can change it however you want.

If you believe that Recalculate Extents and Camera Preview & Editor are the two most needed features, you could get yourself up to date on how to write some code by toying with the World Editor's Trigger Editor how I learned things, then download the code of my tool and add those features. And you could probably add them in a single weekend -- they are very well-defined additions -- then submit the changes to my repo in what they call a "Pull Request" which essentially requests me to pull in your changes to the "official" copy of the code.

This is of course made harder by the fact that I never bothered to write much documentation, but it's generally still true. However, given Magos and War3 and how people are used to giving up and clicking on buttons and not being able to modify the tools, it makes sense to me that the idea that you should be the one to add the features you know would benefit everyone I'm guessing probably doesn't even occur to you. Even though I refer to having the source code of Magos, he intentionally damaged it before publishing it so that someone could use it as a set of libraries for building something else but could not compile the original code, for example now with Reforged model support, and that is why there will never be Magos Reforged.

If your goal was to make money off this you left a long time ago.

If this is something you enjoy doing in your spare time, money just plain doesn't matter, and neither should some potential legacy you might leave in the future.

It's called a hobby for a reason. You're doing it because you either enjoy it and/or you need/want to kill free time doing something productive. Don't ever think of it as a salaried job.

Warsmash is not about profitability.
It's about Blizzard, like Magos, giving up on Reforged and the tremendous benefit to our lives when we can take over the reigns when they have failed. Prime examples of the problem include how custom units on Classic graphics on Reforged do not have shadows, and we had this bug for 6 months. There are things that Blizzard simply won't care about because they are not profitable, and it affects us all. Through rebellion we could have intellectual freedom to change the game and create mods.

Edit: Changed first few sentences

Edit: And when I say Blizzard giving up on Reforged, I am referring to a state of mind that I had from the day it was announced. My records indicate that by December 2018, I was already outlining the plans for how to build the Warsmash prototyoe that I have shown videos of today. And that is because I know my World of Warcraft dealers well. They may claim support for the game today, tomorrow, or next week, but if you wake up in 2025 or 2030 there will be a point past which no bugs are fixed and no mods are supported. There will be a point when Reforged's code repo is put in support only mode, and nobody changes raccoons' death animations to look more realistic or changes the Crypt Lord's DataA1 table entry from 1 to 2 anymore or whatever.

You can criticise me for leaving Warcraft 3 or whatever, but what I actually want to do is to be able to continue modding Warcraft 3 when Blizzard gives up. The rewrite is the only way. Legally they will always stop us from updating what we have now.

And no, I would not tie my finances or future well-being upon the success of my former WoW dealers. Nor would I tie it to the success of my Warcraft 3 modding hobby. As was stated, there is no money in it.

 

[Lon-ami]

Last time I checked Unity is still there for people who want to be independant. There is no need to reinvent that wheel.

Unity is far too complex, even if it's pretty basic for industry standards. What I mean is, there's a reason why kids build stuff on Minecraft, but don't touch Unity at all, when the second has far more potential.

Having worked professionally with it, there's a lot of things that are an absolute pain. For example, animations were terrible to handle until a few years ago, when they implemented states machines for the transitions. The tool is constantly evolving.

Could say the same for modelling. Maya is goddamn expensive, and Blender feels like garbage if you're coming from Maya. But those are complex tools built for complex results, you don't need so much for a few simple models, the likes RTS games use.

The future is simplicity. Give people a basic editor where you can place units and trees and watch them kill each other for fun. That's how the magic begins, and that's why "shitty" games such as Minecraft became so popular in the first place.

Warsmash is not about profitability.
It's about Blizzard, like Magos, giving up on Reforged and the tremendous benefit to our lives when we can take over the reigns when they have failed. Prime examples of the problem include how custom units on Classic graphics on Reforged do not have shadows, and we had this bug for 6 months. There are things that Blizzard simply won't care about because they are not profitable, and it affects us all. Through rebellion we could have intellectual freedom to change the game and create mods.

Edit: Changed first few sentences

Edit: And when I say Blizzard giving up on Reforged, I am referring to a state of mind that I had from the day it was announced. My records indicate that by December 2018, I was already outlining the plans for how to build the Warsmash prototyoe that I have shown videos of today. And that is because I know my World of Warcraft dealers well. They may claim support for the game today, tomorrow, or next week, but if you wake up in 2025 or 2030 there will be a point past which no bugs are fixed and no mods are supported. There will be a point when Reforged's code repo is put in support only mode, and nobody changes raccoons' death animations to look more realistic or changes the Crypt Lord's DataA1 table entry from 1 to 2 anymore or whatever.

You can criticise me for leaving Warcraft 3 or whatever, but what I actually want to do is to be able to continue modding Warcraft 3 when Blizzard gives up. The rewrite is the only way. Legally they will always stop us from updating what we have now.

And no, I would not tie my finances or future well-being upon the success of my former WoW dealers. Nor would I tie it to the success of my Warcraft 3 modding hobby. As was stated, there is no money in it.

From my point of view, Blizzard already gave up on Warcraft III; even worse, they killed it altogether.

I don't care about Reforged, and you bet I won't care about anything they build with the SC2 map editor either. I only care about the original W3, and now it's gone.

And it's not the first time they stab us on the back, I mean, remember how shortly before SC2's release, they released some patches for W3 that broke hundreds of old maps? Maps which you could no longer play, some of them personal favorites of myself and my friends. Yes, I'm still salty about that, I still have the 1.24b version or whatever it was called, and I refuse to update.

That's the caveat with software you don't own, specially nowadays where everything relies on an online connection that will upgrade your programs with no previous warning whatsoever.

Warsmash, if done right, could even have support for different versions, the client being able to detect the version the map was compiled with and execute it properly. Warsmash the game would just be a lobby for custom maps. You can take it even further and create a series of templates, designed for different game genres.

I know it's crazy work, specially when you're alone on this, but hey, dreaming is free.

 

[Retera]

From my point of view, Blizzard already gave up on Warcraft III; even worse, they killed it altogether.

Really, though, don't drink the kool-aid. Play Reforged. It's a whale of a lot more fun than Warsmash in its current state.

But that's just it, Warsmash isn't about the current state, its about the future.

Without Reforged there probably wouldn't be Warsmash. The hype for something I thought there couldn't possibly be a playerbase for after the 2018 announcement caught me a little off-guard and was very motivating.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Really, though, don't drink the kool-aid. Play Reforged. It's a whale of a lot more fun than Warsmash in its current state.

But that's just it, Warsmash isn't about the current state, its about the future.

Without Reforged there probably wouldn't be Warsmash. The hype for something I thought there couldn't possibly be a playerbase for after the 2018 announcement caught me a little off-guard and was very motivating.

Wc3 was never about hype but about sustained playerbase though. And fortunately, those are going to stay regardless of the Reforged debacle. There are many projects getting new life from the UI and object manipulation additions to the world editor.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

But what we do have is, unlike Magos, my Retera Model Studio is fully open source. You could download it and recompile it with the title of the program changed to "Razorclaw_X Model Studio"; you can change it however you want.

(etc., snipped)

The point is people can get by without you doing anything further with the Model Studio. I don't have a horse in this race which is why I never said anything about which project you should be doing-- that's something you had to figure out for yourself (because it's pretty obvious to me which one you actually want to do).

I don't think anyone honestly cares if Magos worked in Reforged so much as there exist something that worked, period.

That's the caveat with software you don't own, specially nowadays where everything relies on an online connection that will upgrade your programs with no previous warning whatsoever.

I can only imagine the irony of typing that on a Windows or Mac PC.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The point is people can get by without you doing anything further with the Model Studio. I don't have a horse in this race which is why I never said anything about which project you should be doing-- that's something you had to figure out for yourself (because it's pretty obvious to me which one you actually want to do).

I don't think anyone honestly cares if Magos worked in Reforged so much as there exist something that worked, period.

The problem is: we dont have such a tool or an actual workflow to create Reforged models from scratch. All the tools out there either no longer work (magos and Mdlvid) or still have some missing features (Model Studio).

So there are people who care about Model Studio. Pretty much any modeller does. Compared to that, there is not much to gain from recreating the Warcraft III engine. Because that already exists.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I voted Retera Model Studios. Aside from all the legal concerns, I'm simply much more interested in seeing you update & improve the single-most effective & powerful model-editing tool the Warcraft 3 community has ever seen. And not just for me, but for the whole community.

I still remember, years ago, when I first discovered you & your Matrix Eater. I remember how absolutely *floored* I was at how nonchalant you were about the single-greatest functionality the modding community was missing (that of combining two models and their animations together). We had spent over a decade with Magos & MDLvis where that was simply an impossibility.

I've actually opened RMS recently & was once again blown away by how incredibly useful that piece of software is. It's come a long way, and you should be proud.

Maybe someday Warsmash will exist & be awexome. But my opinion is that you're time is better spent (& you will ultimately feel more fulfilled) working on RMS & seeing the amazing things this community will make with it.

Minor Rant

To everyone saying "I didn't vote because it's not my decision"; yeah, of course it's not. He didn't ask anyone to decide for him, he specifically said "I want feedback from the community", which you are depriving him of by not voting.

 

[Retera]

People gave some good advice about how Retera Model Studio is what everyone wants, and I made that discord server from my signature to be a place to guilt me into doing more for people.

But, all the while, I'm having too much fun on Warsmash. It just feels like Warsmash will give me the fresh air and the freedom in modding -- and the future is bright -- in a world where everybody just complains about Reforged and whatever. They complain about what is beyond their power to fix.

Spoiler: Fun Warsmash Videos

Today I coded basic unit death. When I attack a unit and that unit dies, its shadow is removed and it becomes unselectable. But then it was still blocking me from pathing through it! And the Decay Flesh animation played for 60.00 seconds based on its animation length, not decay time!

I feel great complaining about these because I know it is in my power to fix them when I am back at the computer. It restores order, meaningfulness, progression, hope, and everything.

 

[loktar]

That's amazing ^^
Out of curiosity, does it get the data from MPQ or CASC, or can it do both? Or something else?

 

[Drake53]

What happened to the Warsmash github page anyways? It's been 404 for a while, can't really follow the progress like this (altho I do appreciate the youtube videos).

 

[Retera]

I took down the Github because I thought it was getting too real. Didn't want to face the moral/ethical/legal issues just yet until I already have the working product that I want.