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Fast pace cellshading flying action. Soar the skies as you take on the most vicious enemies above the ground. Experience an airborne adventure in an all new art style that will take you to something different and exciting. With the possibility to add just about anything you can imagine into the game, the sky it's not the limit. It's just the beginning.

Post news Report RSS Report 048: Game Editor Part 2

A step forward in enabling the missions of your dreams come true.

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As the title says this report will not be about game editors, specially the mission editor

The editor has already available in the past, but because at that time, as the game was still on the process of implementing gameplay elements that would drastically change the core code, this made editor be considered lesser important to avoid refactoring every time a new mechanic is included and helped by the fact that at the time making new missions wasn’t really the main concern.

But now, as all the mechanics are in the core code, there won’t be any drastic change in the core code for the time being so the mission editor can have all the attention again.
This is especially important as the editor it will be on of the main flag ships of the game.

While the game is fully customizable and while everything in the game can already be edited using just a note pad, nothing should be beat the experience of using an editing tool.
For the release, main concern for the game editor, is to have the Mission and campaign editor fully ready. These two were considered the most important because, not everyone will have the possibility to add the aircrafts they wished to the game because for this it his needed some skills in modeling and texturing, and this may not be their cup of tea. But making new missions is completely different, everyone should be able to make them if helped with a good editor, and probably everyone has already a handful of ideas waiting to be realized.

Following this idea, the campaign has already been added, it hasn’t been mentioned before but the campaign editor is near 90% completion, at the time what only lack is complete the tool that selects which skins the player will be use in that campaign and setup the trigger to automatically unlock aircrafts and weapons

As for the mission editor, it already had an drastic overhaul.
Thanks to the challenges mode, it is being extensive and intensive tested. This lead to the introduction of new helper and optimizations to make the mission creation a lot easier and fun.

To be completely honest the first challenges I made felt like a chore, I felt something was mission with the editor, I wondered for quite some time, but as soon I had a solution I implemented it. And after that, as more missions were made the editor continued to evolve and now it is really easy to use. At this point I still have more improvements I wish to add, but it is already very usable.
But even now, I can imagine that a first timer may feel lost with it, as there isn’t any tutorial available. But this is something that can be resolved with tutorials.

But besides editor, I must confess the sometimes I become lost in making the scenarios, but for another reason, with the content available it is easy to make nice scenes and building a virtual world.


But the best part is saving the mission; fly a close by and then dropping some bombs in the place.

That picture above wasn’t the case, because it was just a quick demonstration, as you can see that is pretty empty outside the shot view range.


But this can potentially be very useful in creating cutscenes new the ground.
Also this can be misleading, but the roads weren’t added in the editor, they are part of the map.
Lately there have been some tests in making ground surfaces with higher detail and unusual structures.
(hint: tunnels, etc)

Also, about those vehicles in that screenshot, some haven’t been reveled yet, it a nice opportunity to do so,

First the M1069:


A variant of the hmmwv converted to be able to transport cargo and ammunition.


In the same way, the Type-73, is a variant of the Type-81 also converted to be a truck,

As for the aircraft that is in the right upper corner:


It is a reconnaissance UAV, the RQ-3 Dark star

But now going back to the editor.

Here is something it was recorded to show how quick and easy is to make a mission.

The criterion was to make a mission were a bomber is spawned 10 seconds after play and the player’s goal is to destroy it:

It took only 3 minutes to setup everything.
The video was recorded as is, so in the editor mode there will be a period without any sound.


One of the design philosophies is to be able to make missions as quick as possible, so has it was mentioned above, there has been added a lot helps and other tools that enable making missions with a few clicks.

But what do you think of this quick preview?
Are you interest in trying?

This report was something that I found that it could be interesting to shown now, maybe the next reports will be about other topics besides content, but the next will be about the new ships as it was promised.

Stay tuned, more reports will follow.

Post comment Comments
Rrtaya_Tsamsiyu
Rrtaya_Tsamsiyu

looks nice, good editing tools are always great to have.

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OhNoesBunnies!
OhNoesBunnies!

Holy bunnies.

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WeeGee9000
WeeGee9000

nice! not only it is an indie flight game but it also has a level editor. my pc will be complete

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Nergal01
Nergal01

HMMWV LOSAT plz

Oh wait.

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Shazer22
Shazer22

Looks like a very great editor

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SlyAceZeta
SlyAceZeta

Wow. I'm extremely impressed by the level editor. It's very simplistic for people who want to make short, quick missions, and yet has the capability to create long missions for people with a story in mind. Great work on the editor. :)

Also, I see there's UAVs in the aircraft list... I can see a use for those by the player. :P

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Nergal01
Nergal01

If I recall, basically anything thrown into 'aircraft/airplane' folder can be made playable, so.... (basically, the same trick that made ZiZ playable back in the alpha)

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SlyAceZeta
SlyAceZeta

I know. I was just saying, I can see some people making missions where the player controls a UAV for some reason and stuff.

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flyawaynow
flyawaynow

I've toyed around with this editor for quite a while. Mostly for posing and for unit testing.

Basically I have controlled UAVs just to get in character in observations. If I remember correctly, assigning units to two teams and leaving me a team of my own.

ZiZ vs a fleet of Sovermenys and support vessels. Gotta respect that anti-air bubble...

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ArKanGelMaRk5
ArKanGelMaRk5

'As the title says this report will not be about game editors, specially the mission editor' Huh? Then what is it about...

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timeSymmetry Author
timeSymmetry

This was a test! to see if anyone reads the report.

But the "not" shouldn't be there.

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windyman56
windyman56

excuse #45353453456264, TS ;) just kidding, great work, and let me know when the script for the campaign is finished; I wanna try out for a part.

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SpootKnight
SpootKnight

I don't view the news list enough, I just noticed the thumbnail is an A/FX-12.

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KnX
KnX

Vector Thrust: Infinity.
Strangely enough, those close to the ground screenshots look better than most of the ground scenes in other air combar games i tried.
Is gonna be posible to make decisions in mission that would affect the campaign?
Like command is ordering you to bomb a civil area and you know people are there.
I think that would make for some awesome moments.

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SpootKnight
SpootKnight

Branching campaigns will be possible.

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Nergal01
Nergal01

Might be too late to the party, but am I the only who think that the new plane selection screen looks too...showroom-ey? (I don't actually care whether it's a good or bad thing though)

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MyHatismyFriend
MyHatismyFriend

better than black screen of nothing >:c

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Nergal01
Nergal01

Ya, that's what I mean.

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timeSymmetry Author
timeSymmetry

It was the best solution found since the aircrafts don’t have landing gears, but even if the aircrafts had I can’t expect that every modders will to add in their own models, so a void like environment was the best solution. The other possibility was a top-down view like the AFDS, but I think this on works better.

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