LarryG on 24/4/2014 at 22:43

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I don't think you have any idea how big a can of worms that would be. If you had asked this question two years ago, I might have responded differently but given the capabilities of NewDark, I don't see the need at this point in time. And if you want a more modern game platform, then maybe you should look at (http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/) The Dark Mod. They have done some awesome stuff over there!

The Watcher on 25/4/2014 at 10:19

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The majority of those are restrictions in the engine, not Dromed as such. Replacing the mission editor as PinkDot is suggesting would do nothing whatsoever to circumvent or avoid those restrictions because they're imposed when you're playing the game as well as when editing levels. The only situation I can think of where this isn't the case is when the CSG brushwork is being converted to the worldrep, where there are some irritating limits left (the maximum on render aspects during optimisation, for example).

The only way to get rid of the limits imposed by the engine is to replace the engine as well as the level editor. Volca's openDarkEngine was an attempt at that, but as far as I know it has been stalled for quite some time.

As for a replacement level editor, I'm with Larry here. I can't really see how the amount of effort involved in creating something comprehensive enough to be a usable replacement for, or event adjunct to, Dromed would be really worth it, as it would still need to impose the engine-mandated restrictions - it'd just be an alternative way of creating the CSG brushwork and/or worldrep, for people who don't like the way Dromed works. Which is fine enough, I guess, but would be a hellacious amount of effort.

The above said, I would absolutely love to see a well written, comprehensive specs for the .mis, .gam, .cow, and .bin formats - especially the latter - because even if a full level editor would be more work than I'd think worth it, tools to operate on the formats safely would be nice, and a complete replacement for the mess that is bsp.exe would be worth its bytes in gold.

ZylonBane on 25/4/2014 at 18:24

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The leaked engine source code is out there. Have at it.

PinkDot on 25/4/2014 at 21:42

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@LarryG - I know DarkMod. I even used to be a team member years ago and did some level editing too. Playing with dark engine however is a different sort of a puzzle. To me there's something appealing in the substractive world building, even if you can't build everything with that. Dromed is the last known engine to me that supports it.
And even with New Dark there's still a lot that could be improved in the workflow. Last year I had a try in building something to the limits of the NewDark. At some stage strange errors started popping up, which were due more to the order of the brushes, rather than the complexity of resulting architecture. But navigating and editing hundreds and thousands of brushes became impossible at some stage. I thnk that's what happens with a lot of people - you start building quite quickly, as substractive method lets you do that. But then you just find yourself in an endless mess of primitives and managing that is just so poor in Dromed. Poor and bugged.

@Watcher - there are some things in the engine that could be pushed farther if the editor lets you do that. Especially now, with the New Dark.
1) better lightmaps - we could have GI and/or ambient occlusion, rather than just direct lights and plain ambient colour. Transparencies (e.g. foliage) would cast transparent shadows. You could even cheat more and have light maps for anim lights baked as if it was a directional (not a point) light. This would open possibilities for animated sun/moon light.
2) more interesting architecture/level geometry - Dromed is pretty limited on the number of primitives. As far as I understand the way dark engine likes the world to be build, the primitives could be of any shape as long as they are convex. Of course, introducing too irregular shapes would cause too complex geometry and texturing inaccuracies, but some more freedom would be very welcome.

The editing capabilities could be improved greatly too:
1) better scene navigation, brush and object management and batch processing
2) scripting abilities - if we use existing 3D application as a base for the editor, people could finally script certain aspects of level building. I know there has been a few attempts to that, with the CowGen being the most popular, but if you do a search on CowGen in TTLG you'll find more threads asking on the status on it, is it dead etc. rather than an example of anything done with it....
3) more sophisticated tools - e.g. painting with grass and trees on uneven terrain
4) node editors for the gameplay aspects. (visual objects linking etc.)
4) less frustration, more fun. Basically things done much quicker and better.


A lot of this is documented already by Telliamed, Volca, Shadowspawn and Nameless Voice, I think. AI and objects .bin formats among others. The former however - I'm not sure if these are known completely.


Some sort of terrain generating could be done definitely, but you need to keep in mind that dark engine does not support any smooth shading of the world geometry. So the terrain would have to be triangulated with sharp edges.

nemyax on 26/4/2014 at 05:18

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If you have no intention of working on tools (barring a lottery win), why are you asking for format documentation? For people who actually create tools, the leaked sources and previous reverse engineering efforts are about as comprehensive a spec as it's ever going to get.