Tool Idea: Magos + MdlVis + Matrix Eater combined

[Retera]

Hi guys, I am Retera and I wrote that obscure tool that some people use called the Matrix Eater.
I've been working for a while now on upgrading it and making it better, and while facing against an inordinate amount of bugs have made steps and strides towards a working mockup program that has a bunch of features from Magos and MdlVis rewritten and added to the Matrix Eater.

My codebase has been on this crazy train long journey where I tried to add Face and Vertex Group selection, changed the left-hand view controller to use a tree of nodes like Magos, added an MPQ browser, added the ability to open BLPs that create a dummy model to render the BLP like Magos, added an animation render, added an animation editor, added a unit browser, added closeable/controllable windows, added copying mesh between models with CTRL+C and CTRL+V, and many other things.

I am probably about a month or two away from what I would see as a release of the program. Right now there are still weird issues. Today I was in the animation editor drawing something, and it began to edit many keyframes at once without asking me. I eventually realized that I had copy pasted too many keyframes, and the pasted instances were all sharing the same memory address. I can fix that. I just need to get back in the code and do it.
But there are currently weird and difficult to understand bugs for the user because it's not finished yet. Sometimes the old Matrix Eater Import window will add content to the model that the animation rendering stuff doesn't load properly, and all of the 3d displays break horribly until you save and open the model again. I just need to get in there and fix these issues.

But I wanted to post some screenshots and see what the community interest level in this project is, and what features people would want most if I managed to create this thing successfully.

So:
1.) What features do you want that you're worried you don't see in these screenshots?
(Personally, I want a ripoff version of 3ds max's Material Editor and Track View - Dope Sheet mechanisms that Blizzard used when creating the game. Those two are probably the major features I want to add next, as well as a better UV Editor.)
2.) Do you think I should post a buggy unfinished dev snapshot version of this program in the state that it's in now so that the community could experience it and review it?
3.) (Slightly less important issue) What should I call this thing? In the pictures, you can see that I have tentatively titled it "Just another Warcraft III model editor"

 

[Spacebuns]

You can give more control over UV editing by letting the user view, translate and scale the UV coordinates by Type-In.
Allowing vertex selection in the Perspective Viewport would also be nice.

 

[Hantoo]

Just another random modeller passed by

Just call the program Jaw Model Editor (Just another Warcraft Model Editor)
it already sounds good XD

I know this is hard by
is changelog possible? XD

 

[Unryze]

Before anything, I want to thank you for what you already did, I've started using your program not so long ago, but it works flawlessly, only problem I have is InitGL error, possibly because I use AMD CPU (or maybe because my WC3 has (EN) <- parenthesis), not really sure, but anyways back to the topic.

If you can somehow make possibility of importing .max/.dae or something that contains animations that would rock a lot, because I've tried using NeoDex, but it just won't work at all, if you can make this happen, I am pretty sure your tool would be ultimate tool that will overshadow Art Tools by Blizzard

As for the other things, new UI looks overall very good. Thank you yet again and good luck!

Edit: will take a bit more time to answer questions that you've written, so I can give you more info

 

[Austrulex]

I guess my suggestion is to keep up your great work. also I hope the animation viewer/player for this is working well (if by a miracle making it animate ribbon emitters too). Oh and a model compressor would be wonderful too.

JAW model ediror sounds really cool and fits this project really well.

 

[Himperion]

This is my dream.

I believe that more experienced modders could have more important stuff to wish than me, but the basics of mdlvis.

From MDLVIS the vertex tools and the animation tools are nearly perfect sans the crashes, maybe copying the menu for manual translation into the main menu card at the right side.

From Magos, Camera asignation, the ability to recal extends, and the functions of the Node Manager.

From no one of the actual tools.

The Spray particles.
Ribbons.
Onmis.

 

[Idaero Ace]

It would be good if it has some kind of particle editor. There is already one, but i want better one

What magos lack is real time editing, because i need to open the setting window, and close it to see the effect. But i need to experiment those value to get best result. Also, adding movement to particle (or node). Magos able to do that, but again, not realtime. And adding manual also take more time because i need write down each position/rotation. Making real time with something like "set keys" in 3ds max gonna great.


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Hmmm... I thnk making it as full model making is not really necessary because there are already some other software. What really important imo is warcraft specific editing and some model tweak, and import support.

 

[Retera]

I am thinking that at the end of this weekend or next, I might post the modeling software shown at the top of this thread here on the thread as something for you guys to beta test.
But, many of the points made on this thread have still not been fixed. There is still a lot for me to do.

And very soon I will need it to have a CASC parser.

 

[The_Silent]

The ability to create custom meshes. Never tried mdlvis, but the other two does not have that feature as far as I am aware.

 

[Retera]

Spoiler: Picture

In this picture, I got *this* far with File->New, then the Vertex and Face tool that I added a while ago, but it was really slow. I'll probably want to add something that uses less clicks.

Edit: The UV mapping code is broken right now, so you can't use the program to make a model from scratch yet.

Edit: Below, you can see that the Standard Primitives menu offers click-to-draw Boxes and Planes, now, too. But other shapes are still missing.

Spoiler: Box and Planes

Saving the file to MDX crashed because there weren't any bones, so I did CTRL+C, DEL, CTRL+V on the whole model, which deleted it then pasted it again attached to a dummy bone. Seems like a pretty severe bug there, but then when I saved as MDX it works great:

Spoiler: World Editor

 

[yxq1122]

With professional user interface and strong functionalities, this work should be the greatest 3D modeling software for wc3 so far.

This is the ultimate tool of wc3 modeling. All the wc3 artists throughout the world should give their high respect to you.

As for the name, I recommend "war3 model studio", "war3 Art studio", or "ModelCraft".

 

[The_Silent]

Also, the "extrude" feature from most 3d modelling software would be amazeballs.

 

[Hantoo]

Also, the "extrude" feature from most 3d modelling software would be amazeballs.

What if i tell you that extrude already exist in older version of matrix eater

 

[Retera]

With professional user interface and strong functionalities, this work should be the greatest 3D modeling software for wc3 so far.

This is the ultimate tool of wc3 modeling. All the wc3 artists throughout the world should give their high respect to you.

This is what I'm aiming for, but the work in progress software that I have right now is still lacking in many ways on its its path to achieving that goal. As a result, it's too early yet to claim it to be what you say. What you described is the thing that I am *trying* to make.

 

[Kyrbi0]

How was I not subscribed to this thread?

Keep up the good work!