(also known as: Alex need’s to get a “life” post in)

So yeah. Pretty self explanitory. I’m setting a challenge for my self for during the summer. And I just so happen to think that my last few challenges were extremely successful, so I don’t see why I don’t set a new one.

So my goal, during the summer, will be to lose 30 pounds or more. I’m a tall person, so my height does (visually) offset my weight, but the number I see on the scale is too large for comfort. Oh well. Thats why I’m fixing it.

I’m just getting a strong record down of what I want to do… I’ll edit this post later with more info.

alright its time for a grand update.

FIRST
It’s the week before finals. Gotta cram. Pretty much no internet/coding/gaming/etc. till thats over. That doesn’t mean that I’m not thinking about stuff… my projects will probably benefit from this hiatus. I’ve really got to do some killing on these finals. But the end of my hardest year is almost over. Next year I’m taking journalism, design, philosophy, ALL THE FUN STUFF! No really hard/brain hulking retarded pointless stuff. Stuff that will seriously benefit me in my life. Plus it’s my senior year of HS. What couldn’t be better?

SECOND
As I’m sure you’ve seen, I’ve started a little project. Okay, well, little IS an understatement. I think I need to give some clarification and cease any potential confusion. I’m going to be making a new source engine map editor from the ground up. C#, Qt, OpenGL. That basically the spec so far. Oh. well that would put it equivalent (and already more powerful) than hammer. But there some crazy new features that I’m not committing to just yet, but are extremely high on my list, and will probably happen.

• Designer oriented. Hammer was designed by a programmer for programmers and originally for an engine over four generations old. (1. Quake/idTech1 => 2. Quake2/idTech2 => 3. Valve GoldSrc => 4. Valve Source Engine). Although powerful, the Hammer/WorldCraft codebase is considerably out of date and needs a rework. These two things are what is inspiring me to design my editor. People say the source engine is so old mainly because the map editor is so old. Get a really easy to use and POWERFUL map editor and you can create freaking amazing games even with an engine as powerful as a toddler with a box of crayons. Well, maybe that’s a stretch, but still.
• Multiplayer Designer editing. Essentially, 2 or more designers working on the same map at the same time. I’ve got a few ways on how I want to tackle this. First is the usual client/server model… essentially two clients connect to a server, server hosts VMF, client sends changes to VMF, server “sendsToAllButOne()”… at the basics of it. Problem with this traditional model is that it requires maintianence, a good server, and luck that you can get as real time as possible on larger maps. Even with the best coding with this model I can’t see much less than a 30 second delay in updates on a 2mi x 2mi map. Not that the source engine can handle that… i’ll get onto it though. My Second Model for this (because I’m heavily using Qt’s WebKit integration for some frilly stuff) is to integrate with Google Wave and have the VMF hosted cloudside by Google (or, preferrably, my servers). It’d take some hijacking and parsing, but I’m 100% sure that this is the way to go. It’s definitely not messy.
• Focus on the community. First off, I’m going to do anything within my power to get this map editor and code into Valve’s hands. It’s less important for the community, but more important for Valve’s licensees. A good designer oriented editor (which Source is lacking) will do wonders for game and map design. If for whatever reason Valve doesn’t want my editor, well, I’ll put it open source. Valve will see it then.
• Future oriented. This one is more hypothetical. The creation of a map editor requires the creation of an engine. The engine running the editor will be, preferably, more powerful than source. I don’t mean this in a bad way. I want to realistically recreate a dynamic version of Source in map editor form. I know it’s a big hurdle for me to jump through, but here is why: Source isn’t the end-all engine for the future. Valve will not consistently continue piggybacking source to keep it modern. I can bet you money that they’re working on a new engine (even if it’s source 2.0) AT THIS VERY MOMENT. And, more likely than not, Hammer will be the editor. Valve finds it easier to bootstrap what they have than to start from scratch. Well, with my editor, all they’ll have to do is change a few maximums (set to Source’s restraints, not Hammer’s) and possibly modify the save file a bit, and well, BOOM, it works on a new engine. There might be new back end stuff like new entities or better displacements or even raytracing, but I want this editor to be the best for Valve to use in the future. Worldcraft has lasted 15 or so years, why can’t Cobalt?

Yeah. Thats going to be my huge summer project. Props to @sahchandler for inspiring and guiding me.

TL;DR: I’m quite possibly a numbskull and a retard for trying to do something you don’t even understand. Or I’m the next John Carmack/Bill Gates/CliffyB/etc.

I really didn’t want to have the development progress of this be open, but thats already out the window.

GUI V2:

Click for full size.

And before you get too excited, These are PSD mockups. The final UI WILL look better. Trust me.