Dev Blog
Hi, this is the Stranded III development blog (see also Forum Thread, Comment Thread).
Entry 91 - Editor Categories and Searching - February 9, 2020
Finding A Random Spawn Position 2
In my last dev blog post I described the algorithm I used to find random spawn positions for the player.
Did you notice that I just wrote used?
I asked about your opinion and actually didn't have any expectations. Turns out that some experienced and smart software engineering people are reading this blog!
Some readers found out that my approach is biased and also made me aware of things like LFSR and comparable solutions which generate a sequence of pseudo random numbers without any duplicates.
This is exactly what I needed and it's also a very useful tool which can help to solve various other tasks efficiently.
Therefore I rewrote my implementation using that fancy stuff.
Thanks a lot for all your comments!
Here's another cool link which was shared and which describes a simple use case for LFSR: Fizzlefade!
File Dialog
I implemented a file dialog. It will mainly be used in the editor whenever you load/save stuff.
It allows to navigate through folders, to select a file or to enter the name for a new file.
File dialog (click for bigger version)
There are also some new icons:
Map Editor
Stranded III will have more items, objects and animals than Stranded II. Therefore I have been working on smart ways to organize and easily access all these things in the editor.
I think I mentioned the possibility of defining categories a long time ago. These categories can even be nested. You will also be able to use categories in the map editor to easily find the things you're looking for.
This will look something like this:
Nested categories in editor (click for bigger version)
You can click at any category on any nesting level. Clicking a category will limit the list of displayed objects to that category and all child categories.
If categories don't help you to find thing you can also use the new search function.
It allows to search things via the localized name or via their internal id by entering an "id:"-prefix in the search box!
Matching word parts will even be highlighted. Fancy!
Search (click for bigger version)
The search function works together with the category filter. This means that you can choose a category and then search within that category only.
Note that the icons for the objects are still missing in the above screenshots. This will be changed in future versions.
Categories can and probably will have their own icons as well.
The editor will also feature a random map creation menu which looks a lot like the random game menu.
It allows to easily create islands as a starting point which can then be modified.
In my last dev blog post I described the algorithm I used to find random spawn positions for the player.
Did you notice that I just wrote used?
I asked about your opinion and actually didn't have any expectations. Turns out that some experienced and smart software engineering people are reading this blog!
Some readers found out that my approach is biased and also made me aware of things like LFSR and comparable solutions which generate a sequence of pseudo random numbers without any duplicates.
This is exactly what I needed and it's also a very useful tool which can help to solve various other tasks efficiently.
Therefore I rewrote my implementation using that fancy stuff.
Thanks a lot for all your comments!
Here's another cool link which was shared and which describes a simple use case for LFSR: Fizzlefade!
File Dialog
I implemented a file dialog. It will mainly be used in the editor whenever you load/save stuff.
It allows to navigate through folders, to select a file or to enter the name for a new file.
File dialog (click for bigger version)There are also some new icons:
Map Editor
Stranded III will have more items, objects and animals than Stranded II. Therefore I have been working on smart ways to organize and easily access all these things in the editor.
I think I mentioned the possibility of defining categories a long time ago. These categories can even be nested. You will also be able to use categories in the map editor to easily find the things you're looking for.
This will look something like this:
Nested categories in editor (click for bigger version)You can click at any category on any nesting level. Clicking a category will limit the list of displayed objects to that category and all child categories.
If categories don't help you to find thing you can also use the new search function.
It allows to search things via the localized name or via their internal id by entering an "id:"-prefix in the search box!
Matching word parts will even be highlighted. Fancy!
Search (click for bigger version)The search function works together with the category filter. This means that you can choose a category and then search within that category only.
Note that the icons for the objects are still missing in the above screenshots. This will be changed in future versions.
Categories can and probably will have their own icons as well.
The editor will also feature a random map creation menu which looks a lot like the random game menu.
It allows to easily create islands as a starting point which can then be modified.