Thread: Alright already
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Old 12-07-2006, 12:34 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerami View Post
o_o gambet it's a graal level editor

how could it possibly be complex
Quote:
Originally Posted by smirt362 View Post
Doesn't the level editor basically just read and write information to and from a text file?
It can actually get very complex. The graphics subsystem Maniaman is using (GDI+) doesn't provide everything you'd need to create a good editor. There aren't any built-in tools for making "layered" graphics, for instance, and a level editor involves many layers; tiles, images, selection rectangles are 3 examples.

NTFS is also very slow when accessing files due to security permissions, and that presents a serious problem when you are looking at thousands of files like you find in your Graal folder; Stefan had to make the filename cache to fix that problem.

GDI+ also isn't very friendly when you are editing huge images. A Graal level is 1024x1024 pixels, which caused serious problems Maniaman had to fix.

Maniaman also wants to interpret changeimgcolors/zoom/etc, which means he has to write some kind of script interpreter.

Those are just some small examples, but it all adds up. A level editor is more complex than you'd think. That said, I've played with some early builds of his level editor and works pretty decently aside from some rough edges (strange crash cases, code efficiency, etc).
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