Func_Msgboard: Microbrush 3 3D Modeler

Posted by Hai on 2015/11/07 19:02:03

Hello! :)

One of my hobby projects is a little 3D modeler/level editor for brush-based engines such as Quake or Source. I originally started working on it because I was really annoyed by how long it took to make basic brushwork in Valve's Hammer. Some inspiration for it stems from the Radiant series of level editors.

It requires Win7 or higher to run and renders its stuff with OpenGL 3.3. If your graphics driver is up to date, it should work. It's portable, so it just needs to be unzipped and can then be used from the target folder.

Project page: http://shrinker.seriouszone.com/projects/IterationX/Microbrush3/
After unzipping, run "First start and tasty fresh cookies!.bat" and follow the instructions. For a reference of the configured shortcuts, have a look at the config.cfg file.

Here I've recorded myself building some random stuff with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjjB8MLjvJ4

This is a Twitter account to go with it: https://twitter.com/shrinker42

At the moment, the focus is almost exclusively on brush work. The editor can't process texture or entity information yet, so please don't resave an existing world with it unless you want to get rid of all textures and entities. :)

It supports loading and saving
- its own textual or binary formats
- Half-Life 1 .map files
- Half-Life 2 .vmf files
- Quake 3 .map files

Additionally, you can run an export in its textual format with computed data (such as polygons) included, or export the same data as a Wavefront .obj file.

Pretty much all the business logic in the editor is written down in plugin code that's compiled in the setup stage. To look under the hood, check out datasourcesplugins.
The grid supports being skewed/rotated or configured to display ellipses instead of parallel lines. The respective shader and also the shader used to color the brushes can be seen in datashaders.

Hope this is useful to some. :)

Edit: updated URL

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#53 posted by JneeraZ on 2015/11/18 02:27:48

"Still I think Undo can sometimes be harmful since you always get the choice to take back your action and question your every move."

The hell?

#54 posted by necros on 2015/11/18 03:50:44

i would even say there should be a separate undo stack for the camera................. at least when moved from mouse interactions as it wouldn't make sense for fly mode.

many times while orbiting, i've accidentally clicked a point miles away and sent my view careening off into the grey void of despair.

^^ Err

#55 posted by necros on 2015/11/18 03:51:20

that's a TB complaint, btw. I haven't tried microbrush. sorry, i really need to pay more attention when i post. :P

#56 posted by Hai on 2015/11/18 23:11:29

Good news! My first experiments are going well so far. It is very fiddly code under the hood, but I think this will succeed.
:)

It Does Run In Wine After Initial Setup On Windows.

#57 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/20 09:11:58

I have my son's PC next to me in our home office running Windows 10 with an older Nvidia video card. I have found if I run the initial, "First start and tasty fresh cookies!.bat" on his PC and then copy the folder back over to my Linux desktop also running an Nvidia card Microbrush 3 does indeed run under my default wine-1.7.55.

Not ideal if you don't have access to a windows PC, but it seems to work OK. I'm not familiar enough with the program to say how it normally works, but it seems to operate the same in wine as it does in windows 10.

This Cake Is For You

#58 posted by Hai on 2015/11/20 15:05:59

That sounds rather good!

Now I'm interested in a few more details: Does this .bat file not work in WINE? It compiles the editor plugins and models using a Microsoft.Net application and also displays instructions. The file loading and saving from the editor uses such a .Net application, too.

Maybe these insights could also help Shamblernaut...

I certainly welcome your experience because not only does it tell me that this works on Windows 10 (I have really not tested that yet), and using WINE. It's also something I can point at when that question comes up in the future. :)

Well I Have More Good News, But...

#59 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/21 01:10:09

I need more time to look into it, but shortly after I made the previous comment I figured out it was dependant on .Net and was successful in compiling the editor plugins, models and configuring via your setup batch file all in one of my WINE prefixes.

Yes WINE does batch files. With WINE installed you can run them from the Linux terminal with, "wine cmd.exe /c FILENAME.bat" for example.

The WINE prefix I used is my Steam game prefix and it has many dependencies installed to run most any game I play so it already had the required stuff. Anyone with enough Linux/WINE knowledge can duplicate this themselves, but I'd be happy come up with a process for duplicating it from a fresh Winetricks/WINE or POL/WINE install when time premits if it helps anyone.

01:15 AM

#60 posted by Hai on 2015/11/21 01:16:04

If you do, I will gladly post that information on or link to it from the project page with due credit. :)

Shrinker I Forgot To Ask...

#61 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/21 02:53:04

What is the Minimum .Net requirement?

4.5? 4? 3.5? 2?

Nevermind 4.5 Does The Trick.

#62 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/21 09:50:18

The only dependencies i needed to install in a fresh WINE 32bit prefix to make your program setup and run was corefonts and dotnet4.5. :)

I'm writing it up now.

Shrinker, It's Up On Your Steam Group.

#63 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/22 04:55:51

I tried to put it here, but this board eats backslashes. Its just as good on your Steam group page.

It's Way Past 5 AM Now. Oops.

#64 posted by Hai on 2015/11/22 05:13:27

Very nice, thank you a lot! :D
I'll integrate that info soon. :)

And more good news: After a lot of crashing and then a lot of fiddling, all of the tools just fully survived an undo test. This feature is quite a delicate addition on top of what was already there, with the potential for really nasty bugs, but so far it seems to work. Let's hope I won't need to reprogram it all based on new findings that I've missed bad behavior. Should be releasable soon.

Well That's Good News.

#65 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/22 05:15:55

I saw at least one person asking about an undo feature.

I Hope It Won't Crash Like Mad. It Doesn't For Me.

#66 posted by Hai on 2015/11/24 20:45:11

The new version (Microbrush-3-wip-2015-11-24.zip) with undo/redo support (ctrl+z, ctrl+y) is now available at http://shrinker.beyond-veils.de/projects/IterationX/Microbrush3/ .

Seems Stable ^_^

#67 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/25 09:43:28

I gave it a quick 30 minute test installing it in WINE, making basic blocks and undo/redoing a lot.

Also updated my Steam post in your group with the updated URL, zip name and a few very basic notes for those maybe not as familiar with WINE.

Wine

#68 posted by shamblernaut on 2015/11/26 08:20:53

I'm on holiday at the moment. I'll try again when i get home ^_^

#69 posted by Hai on 2015/11/26 23:20:13

Hm, the WINE guide should be independent of the zip name. It changes on every release. :)

I've fiddled with the shortcuts a little, so F10 brings up the horizontal version of the toolbar in future, and Ctrl+O brings up the load mb3txt/mb3dat dialog then. The remaining load/save/export dialogs are now bindable, too (all in the next version).

The next thing I'm working on now is listing the shortcuts in the help texts. That'd be good for learning the shortcuts, and it's on my todo list for ages already.

Yeah I Agree

#70 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/27 02:23:40

I won't be doing it again since I added basic notes addressing name changes. ^_^

I did get it to crash for me once in another 30 minutes session I had with it. Didn't look to hard at the crash though since it was late.

#71 posted by Hai on 2015/11/27 18:35:00

Oh!

Were you told by the editor that a plugin was unloaded, and then the editor continued to run, or was it a hard crash that made it stop entirely?

Did the crash occur during undo/redo or shortly after, or was it something entirely else?

Can you repro the crash? That'd be very valuable for me. :)

It Was A Hard Crash

#72 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/27 20:38:00

I believe it was a Windows (WINE) program illegal operation or Unhandled exception crash followed by a memory dump. It was very late and didn't look into it further.

When I have time I'll try to make it crash again and keep the memory dump to show you.

Oh And...

#73 posted by xaGe on 2015/11/27 20:48:12

I remember it happening after something other than undo/redo. I have some experience with Blender and Trenchbroom's GUI, but since I have little experience with your program I was trying different things along with messing with the gui trying to get a feel for it. It crashed in there somewhere.

#74 posted by Hai on 2015/11/28 01:06:19

Hmpf. Yes, if you can, an explanation of which work steps cause that hard crash would be nice. I have no infrastructure in place to process memory dumps. :)

#75 posted by Hai on 2015/11/30 22:45:51

No dice?

#76 posted by Hai on 2015/12/06 14:48:39

Upcoming changes: The log becomes much more talkative.
http://shrinker.beyond-veils.de/temp15f/2015-12-06%20Mb3%20logging.png

Finally

#77 posted by Hai on 2015/12/08 22:58:23

xaGe, you might be M.I.A., but I've just fixed a crash when closing a world or the editor that was definitely related to the new undo/redo system. And it was nicely difficult to track down. Chances are high it was your crash too. Time for a new release.

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