MicroBrush with Spark?, brush-based 3D level and model editor Options

[ShinobiRAGE]

I found this out recently from the RE mod for HL2.

"Microbrush 2 is now publicly available to everyone. This general-purpose brush-based 3D level and model editor features an unique interface that drops traditional paradigms in favor of a much faster work flow."
"Among other things, there are conversion utilities shipped with MB2 that enable importing and exporting Valve Map Files, to speed up editing for any Source engine based games. Additional importers and exporters can be built from the included converter framework source code and by using the powerful property system that interprets 3D data." It is basically for source right.

http://scottbaker.eu/?p=186

What do you guys think?

[Fortune]

I'm just going to say it now because it will be said, Spark has nothing to do with Source.

But keeping that in mind, if it's a really great program (I haven't looked at it yet), maybe the team would be interested or someone would be able to make a converter for it.
Thing is though, Hammer brushes and Spark brushes are really different, is the program versatile enough to use with Spark?

Does look pretty impressive though!

This post has been edited by Fortune: Nov 26 2009, 05:06 AM

[ShinobiRAGE]

It is only for source right now, I guess I didn't state it correctly and forgot the now.

Though I was just wanting to know what people think about it. I wished I knew about it earlier because it seems like it would have help me with hammer.

[Dalzig]

Wish I had MicroBrush many years ago. For such a small tool, it has good potential.

As for converting... it would probably be possible. MicroBrush comes with an XML converter that produces output like this:

CODE

  
- <mb2Scene version="2009-08-08">
- <brush>
  <plane p0X="0" p0Y="0" p0Z="3" uX="0" uY="0" uZ="0.5" vX="0" vY="0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="0" p0Y="0" p0Z="3" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="-0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="0" p0Y="0" p0Z="3" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0" vZ="0.5" />
  <plane p0X="10" p0Y="11" p0Z="6" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="10" p0Y="11" p0Z="6" uX="0" uY="0" uZ="0.5" vX="0" vY="-0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="10" p0Y="11" p0Z="6" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0" vZ="-0.5" />
  </brush>
- <brush>
  <plane p0X="3" p0Y="0" p0Z="0" uX="0" uY="0" uZ="0.5" vX="0" vY="0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="3" p0Y="0" p0Z="0" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="-0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="3" p0Y="0" p0Z="0" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0" vZ="0.5" />
  <plane p0X="5" p0Y="10" p0Z="15" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="5" p0Y="10" p0Z="15" uX="0" uY="0" uZ="0.5" vX="0" vY="-0.5" vZ="0" />
  <plane p0X="5" p0Y="10" p0Z="15" uX="0.5" uY="0" uZ="0" vX="0" vY="0" vZ="-0.5" />
  </brush>
  </mb2Scene>

Those planes can easily be converted into vertices and faces that Spark seems to use. The biggest hurdle would probably be trying to determine which way the faces should "face." Would you still be saving time if you had to individually check the facing of every face on the level?

I'm sorry for the bad pun. I'm also sorry if I'm completely wrong about how Spark does stuff. This computer doesn't have a graphics card...

[Lonyo]

Some dude named Shrinker wanted to reply with this but he can't register atm:

Hey Dalzig, what you see there are just the definitions for the planes of the brushes. A brush is defined as the intersection of half-spaces, half-spaces which are defined by these planes, where each plane is defined by an anchor point and two vectors which put it up.

You can "re-save" a Microbrush 2 scene with the tools that are shipped with it in a way that causes all computed polygon corners to be saved. When you convert such a re-saved scene file to XML, you get the all polygon corners in it too, which makes it easy to process/convert.

CODE

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mb2Scene version="2009-08-08">
    <propertyType name="material" summary="" type="string"/>
    <propertyType name="otherProperties" summary="" type="string"/>
    <brush>
        <plane p0X="-33.5" p0Y="24" p0Z="12" uX="0" uY="0.5" uZ="-23.5" vX="0" vY="0" vZ="-24">
            <property typeID="0" value="METAL/CITADEL_METALWALL074A"/>
            <property typeID="1" value="&quot;uaxis&quot; &quot;[0 -1 0 0] 0.13&quot;
&quot;vaxis&quot; &quot;[0 0 -1 0] 0.13&quot;
"/>
            <computedPolygon>
                <corner x="-33.5" y="24.5" z="11.5"/>
                <corner x="-33.5" y="24.5" z="-11.5"/>
                <corner x="-33.5" y="24" z="-12"/>
                <corner x="-33.5" y="24" z="12"/>
            </computedPolygon>
        </plane>
<!--...-->
    </brush>
<!--...-->
</mb2Scene>

[obsid]

I think the best thing about this tool are some of the easy user interface options that it has which hopefuly will give max some idea's to add to sparks.

[Max]

I like the paint selection feature; something similar will be in the next version of the Spark Editor.

[Daworm]

How long till next update and what goodies do we get ? :D

[ShinobiRAGE]

O cool, you took a look at it.

[Crispy]

Actually looks really nice. I like the drag selection tool and how it works for painting as well. The wireframe 'hide' mode is nice but would work best as a toggleable option imo. The rotation tool looks quite flexible too.

Not to mention moving the grid. The amount of times I've had to select all and reposition the entire map because some entity is in the wrong place vis-a-vis the origin.

[Shrinker]

Hello.

You'd like the hide function toggleable? You mean by selecting the hidden brushes and then unhiding them piece by piece? That would require a special selection mode... or maybe paint-unhiding... hmhmh. For now, I think my solution is okay enough. Once you got used to it, it will make sense to you.

There are plenty of operations for moving the grid. When not in fly mode, use the mouse wheel to change the size, C to align one grid side on the face under your mouse, S to reposition the grid origin inside your world, shift+LMB to grab and move the grid around, shift+S to reposition the grid on the grid itself, etcetc. For more operations, check the newbie menu (the transparent f icon to the bottom left), and rightclick on the buttons in the grid category :) After all, it would be a pretty ###### editor if you had to move the whole map around all the time, or? :P

The tool is still in active development, and the next major release should be out soon. For being automatically kept up to date, there exists this group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Microbrush2 :)

This post has been edited by Shrinker: Dec 15 2009, 09:51 PM