I'm working on a new Unrealed for Unreal engine 1.

[damaged]

Hello everyone, I am very glad and excited to share some news with you. I'm currently working on a new revision of Unrealed which will work with most of the Unreal Engine 1 games.

It is utilizing Nokia's Qt 4 toolkit and does not depend on any of the Unreal Engine source code. I had this working many years ago but I lacked crucial information to finish the project. I now have this formation and can complete this editor.

The benefits? No more dependency on Visual Basic. Compatibility with Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7 and probably Windows 8.

In my spare time, I have been working with what I consider to be a research build. It exists only to research. A rewrite has begun and it should not take too long to have a useful build for you guys/gals to use.

There was an obvious choice to make and I made it. Whether or not the original user interface theme should be copied. I decided against this. I want this editor to cause less fatigue on the hands and wrists. Less movement and more output.

Some screen shots (Large images ahead)

[url]http://oi40.tinypic.com/10prhaf.jpg[/url]
[url]http://oi41.tinypic.com/344w410.jpg[/url]
[url]http://oi42.tinypic.com/veav7q.jpg[/url]
[url]http://oi44.tinypic.com/1e9h50.jpg[/url]
[url]http://oi42.tinypic.com/2hwfw53.jpg[/url]

[GreatEmerald]

Wow, that's pretty neat! Even the fact that the program allows the window decorator to control the vsuals makes it look very nice.

Now UnrealEd 2.1 from 227 is already pretty good with what it does, but your project opens a new opportunity. Since it's written using Qt, perhaps it would be possible to port it to Linux as well? UnrealEd is really the only thing that is missing from Linux, and it runs on neither Wine nor in a virtual machine, so an UnrealEd tool that can run on Linux would be a real boon! It would make it possible to use all of the capabilities of the game without depending on an external Windows installation.

[damaged]

Thanks for the response GreatEmerald. I had heard about the release of a new editor and I think this is great. Awesome people keeping an awesome community alive.

Unreal Creator( The best name I could come up with ), is meant as a direct replacement for the editor written in Visual Basic. It exploits the very same interface. It cannot be used for any of the newer revisions of the Unreal engine. Strictly for old skool editing.

As I'm sure you know, many older Unreal engine games still depend on the Visual Basic revision of Unrealed. Games like Rune, Nerf, and a number of others. The developers never ported the respective editors to C++.

This is especially true with the beta versions of Unreal from 1995,1997, and 1998. They all use the Visual Basic Unrealed. Yes, this editor will work with these beta versions. The 1995 alpha will need some extra attention though.

I'm not expecting any large scale acceptance of this editor. It's more of a sentimental project. I'm sure many of you understand how I feel.

Anyways, here are some user interface mock ups I have been experimenting with.

Brush building interface:
http://oi43.tinypic.com/2v1r8eo.jpg

Resource browser (Classes):
http://oi41.tinypic.com/mt4ew4.jpg

Resource browser (Sounds):
http://oi43.tinypic.com/2ep7y55.jpg

Resource browser (Currently selected texture):
http://oi44.tinypic.com/2rogy2p.jpg

Texture browser experimentation:
http://oi44.tinypic.com/351brbk.jpg

Level management:
http://oi42.tinypic.com/vnkpj8.jpg

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Looks like it's going to have the full feature set more or less!

like GE said, if this can be usable natively on linux this could be their main editor instead of having to have to reboot into windows every time.

[damaged]

That is correct. This editor exploits the same interface and consequently will have the very same editing features as the Visual Basic editor it is meant to replace.

To further clarify though, the original Unrealed was capable of much more though it was never exploited. At one time, there was a plugin api that was never used and subsequently removed.

So, the goal here is to provide an editor that no longer depends on Visual Basic but that can also replace the original editor in its entirety. This includes the floor loft tool and shape editor.

Not all of the Unreal engine game communities have the same level of support as Unreal and Quake. Rune is still loved, but it is stuck with the Visual Basic editor.

I'll tell you what, Let's see how this project turns out and then we can talk about the future of Unreal on Linux and other platforms. But yeah, the user interface could be adopted for a native Linux editor.

[GreatEmerald]

That's also a fair point - an editor for the Wheel of Time that works fine on modern systems would be very useful, too.

As for the layout, I like the changes overall. Although I see a few issues, too (getting rid of the texture window makes it impossible to use the '...' button to assign another texture to the currently selected texture, which is very important for procedural textures, for instance), but then I guess you're still in the testing out ideas phase and will figure everything out eventually

[damaged]

That's also a fair point - an editor for the Wheel of Time that works fine on modern systems would be very useful, too.

As for the layout, I like the changes overall. Although I see a few issues, too (getting rid of the texture window makes it impossible to use the '...' button to assign another texture to the currently selected texture, which is very important for procedural textures, for instance), but then I guess you're still in the testing out ideas phase and will figure everything out eventually

Nothing is concrete at the moment. My ultimate goal is to make the interface faster and more productive. Anything you, or anyone else, has to say is extremely important. The current design reduces the area of movement in order to accomplish tasks. The user interface is not even functional right now (aside from the view port splitters) so nothing is implemented.

In any case, here are some more screens of the editor working with the betas (1997 and 1998):

[url]http://oi43.tinypic.com/2eyl16w.jpg[/url]

This is Fred.unr from the 1997 beta. As you can see the script for the Dragon actor is visible. The manner in which this accomplished is different than the 1998 beta.

[url]http://oi42.tinypic.com/1zxm5gm.jpg[/url]

This is VillaDM.unr from the 1998 beta.

Each of these screenshots were taken from the very same binary using a plugin which handles the beta editor interface. The view port sound functionality works fine in the 1998 beta and retail revisions of Unreal.

[AlCapowned]

Wow, you actually got it to work with the old editors? That's amazing! This would save me a lot of time since I can't use the editor from the 1998 beta.

[GreatEmerald]

Very nice to see that, indeed. I wonder if it's possible to do something with the '95 tech demo like that...

[damaged]

Wow, you actually got it to work with the old editors? That's amazing! This would save me a lot of time since I can't use the editor from the 1998 beta.

So far, there are no issues. The sound works and everything. The 1998 editor had additional functionality not present in the retail. Functionality like grid settings and brush manipulation.

The 1998 editor did not work for me under Windows 7 at all. Something about permission being denied. Even with admin rights, it would not run. It'll run fine now though.

[damaged]

Very nice to see that, indeed. I wonder if it's possible to do something with the '95 tech demo like that...

That it is a very good question. So far, the 1995 Unreal engine crashes upon starting up. I remember solving this issue in 2000 though I had yet to discover how the view ports operated.

Well, let's see what the old screen shots reveal.

[url]http://www.hypercoop.tk/infobase/archive/unrealbeta/uned800.jpg[/url]

We know this is the 1995 alpha or a build very similar to it. The famous blue sky is visible as is the cross icon in the title bar of the main window.

[url]http://www.hypercoop.tk/infobase/archive/unrealbeta/uned1024.jpg[/url]

This screen shot also shows the window icon from the 1995 alpha. More importantly, both shots show the view ports operating within Visual Basic which is a great sign that it'll work.

Aside from these shots, my own research shows that the editing functionality is present within the 1995 alpha. This alone is mind blowing. Quake was not even out in 1995. I doubt it even had dynamic lighting at that time.

I may work on the alpha stuff today and see if I can remember how I did it.

[GreatEmerald]

Intriguing indeed. The shots also show that they used a custom font for everything. Though it also shows the Big Man, which I believe didn't exist during the '95 demo times (it was still supposed to be a fantasy game back then, IIRC). So this is likely to be something in between - perhaps from 1996?

[Hellkeeper]

I can't help but notice that THERE WAS A HELP IN UNREALED AT THE TIME.

Why was it not included in the end Epic ? Why ? WHY ? WHY ?

[pprabhu]

I actually have the help files... somehow. I think I copied them over from the old demo (98/95?).

This is pretty amazing. Good work! I have to wonder though, did you remake the functionality for CSG, BSP trees etc. or did you link against Editor.dll or some other Unreal included library? The reason I ask is because I'm wondering if this is more of a cross compatible interface or a full on standalone editor.

[GreatEmerald]

Why was it not included in the end Epic ? Why ? WHY ? WHY ?

From what the help there says, I guess they thought it was written like an advertisement

[Hellkeeper]

From what the help there says, I guess they thought it was written like an advertisement

Whereas we had the unforgettable chance to learn UnrealEd from half-true tutorials written in broken english by annoying teenagers instead. I still would have taken this help over these when I began mapping with UnrealEd

[damaged]

I actually have the help files... somehow. I think I copied them over from the old demo (98/95?).

This is pretty amazing. Good work! I have to wonder though, did you remake the functionality for CSG, BSP trees etc. or did you link against Editor.dll or some other Unreal included library? The reason I ask is because I'm wondering if this is more of a cross compatible interface or a full on standalone editor.

It depends on an interface. In all honesty, how Unrealed came to function should be a Computer Science course.

[Gemberkoekje]

Hey damaged, I'm actually not interested in your new Unrealed as such (Nonetheless I think it's an amazing feat, don't get me wrong) but I'm more interested in how you set up the resizable viewports, because I'm working on my own tool (Procedural Generated Level Editing, in short) and I would like a similar set up.

For the record, I'm a programmer, I know what QT is, but I haven't found the function to make 2 or 4 screens and have the user resize them at will. Did you make that part yourself, or is it some obscure part of QT I just haven't noticed yet?

Considering it's a bit of a tangent, you're probably better off messaging me, it's just that I couldn't message you with a postcount of zero

Hope to hear from you, and good luck with your project! I'm doing Game Development myself, so if you're getting stuck anywhere don't hesitate to ask!

Kind Regards,

Gember

[damaged]

Hey damaged, I'm actually not interested in your new Unrealed as such (Nonetheless I think it's an amazing feat, don't get me wrong) but I'm more interested in how you set up the resizable viewports, because I'm working on my own tool (Procedural Generated Level Editing, in short) and I would like a similar set up.

For the record, I'm a programmer, I know what QT is, but I haven't found the function to make 2 or 4 screens and have the user resize them at will. Did you make that part yourself, or is it some obscure part of QT I just haven't noticed yet?

Considering it's a bit of a tangent, you're probably better off messaging me, it's just that I couldn't message you with a postcount of zero

Hope to hear from you, and good luck with your project! I'm doing Game Development myself, so if you're getting stuck anywhere don't hesitate to ask!

Kind Regards,

Gember

Hello and sorry for the delayed response.

The viewports are not really a classical quad view. Actually, those screenshots used the code from the "chips" example provided with the Qt toolkit. I wanted to see what it would look like without having to write a bunch of code. Originally, I was going to have a header widget within the viewport to place buttons and what not but came up with something I think is much better.

Unless you write a large amount of custom code, you are limited to using the QSplitter classes. In order to create a pseudo quad view, you use three different QSplitters. Two vertical and one horizontal. The viewports are resized much like the Visual Basic Unreal editor.

Updating the view ports was a lesson learned. The mechanism used to open and update the viewports appears to be very clear, there are still problems with unknown causes. The easy part was getting the command correct. If it isn't a free standing viewport is opened which isn't constrained by the frame.

From there, it was resizing the viewports. all four of them. Sometimes, and erratically, the viewports would not refresh entirely. I learned through experimentation that that the command "LEVEL REDRAW" actually refreshes the viewport and fixes this issue. So far, this hasn't been a continuous occurrence.