10-23-2011, 03:56 PM
I've been planning to code something in this sense for a while. I got reminded of it today, and thought I should discuss it here before attempting to code anything.
Although I never had Garry's Mod and got Team Fortress 2 just a week ago, I've always been fascinated with how people mod the Source engine, even using it to create things like animations and movies (both with GM, HL2 and TF2). Youtube is full of films created using those projects, and all sorts of other things were done too. With Garry's Mod, I also found it fun for the ability to build things, which seemed like a very fun activity (similar to MineCraft in this sense).
Even back when we had Nexuiz, I planned to do something similar here. My initial idea (the one I wish to code in Xonotic presently) was to create a g_sandbox cvar (as mutator and not a gametype), which would allow players to spawn objects and edit their properties. This should be fairly easy to do, and I plan to do it the following way:
It would work just like g_lighteditor for rtlights. A player can open the console, type 'g_sandbox_spawn models/somefolder/themodel.md3', and spawn an entity with the given mesh in the spot they are looking at. Then, while looking at the model, they could edit its individual properties, such as physics (either static or ODE), if the object collides or is ghosted, change object colors (colormod and glowmod), and anything else that's safe to edit. For animated models, players could also set the animation keyframe of that model, same way you do it in misc_gamemodel. Later on, I would make a menu (similar to the team selection menu in functionality) which would allow doing all this through buttons and sliders.
This would be a basic sandbox system, which would enable building in-game using any model available on the server. That by itself however, would never allow the editing possibilities I seen in GM / TF2. Where players can apparently animate rigged models in real time, play with ragdolls (a feature given no importance in Xonotic), script objects, etc. Such will likely never be possible in Darkplaces and Xonotic to the same level, but I'd still like to code a sandbox feature to the extent possible. Characters in Source engine games also have facial expressions and mouths that can be lipsync-ed, which no one would likely put effort to do for Xonotic players.
In my opinion, it would be very fun regardless. People could spawn objects around, pick them up and carry them around, give them ODE physics and shoot them to watch them fly, build all sorts of architecture in real time, or just foolishly spawn weapons and do whatever they want with them. When you get bored of fighting or racing, this would be an awesome activity to have in Xonotic for relaxing
Anyway, I wish to ask and discuss to what extent a sandbox / Garry's Mod system can be implemented in Xonotic, and if the head developers would accept and welcome such an idea. Also, is there any support for scripting entities (eg: LUA)? I don't know how to script, but still asking if it would work. If done properly, this could be a big attraction in Xonotic, and we'd also be offering an open source alternative to Garry's Mod. I'm rather excited about this idea, and hope others have positive thoughts and ideas about it too
Although I never had Garry's Mod and got Team Fortress 2 just a week ago, I've always been fascinated with how people mod the Source engine, even using it to create things like animations and movies (both with GM, HL2 and TF2). Youtube is full of films created using those projects, and all sorts of other things were done too. With Garry's Mod, I also found it fun for the ability to build things, which seemed like a very fun activity (similar to MineCraft in this sense).
Even back when we had Nexuiz, I planned to do something similar here. My initial idea (the one I wish to code in Xonotic presently) was to create a g_sandbox cvar (as mutator and not a gametype), which would allow players to spawn objects and edit their properties. This should be fairly easy to do, and I plan to do it the following way:
It would work just like g_lighteditor for rtlights. A player can open the console, type 'g_sandbox_spawn models/somefolder/themodel.md3', and spawn an entity with the given mesh in the spot they are looking at. Then, while looking at the model, they could edit its individual properties, such as physics (either static or ODE), if the object collides or is ghosted, change object colors (colormod and glowmod), and anything else that's safe to edit. For animated models, players could also set the animation keyframe of that model, same way you do it in misc_gamemodel. Later on, I would make a menu (similar to the team selection menu in functionality) which would allow doing all this through buttons and sliders.
This would be a basic sandbox system, which would enable building in-game using any model available on the server. That by itself however, would never allow the editing possibilities I seen in GM / TF2. Where players can apparently animate rigged models in real time, play with ragdolls (a feature given no importance in Xonotic), script objects, etc. Such will likely never be possible in Darkplaces and Xonotic to the same level, but I'd still like to code a sandbox feature to the extent possible. Characters in Source engine games also have facial expressions and mouths that can be lipsync-ed, which no one would likely put effort to do for Xonotic players.
In my opinion, it would be very fun regardless. People could spawn objects around, pick them up and carry them around, give them ODE physics and shoot them to watch them fly, build all sorts of architecture in real time, or just foolishly spawn weapons and do whatever they want with them. When you get bored of fighting or racing, this would be an awesome activity to have in Xonotic for relaxing
Anyway, I wish to ask and discuss to what extent a sandbox / Garry's Mod system can be implemented in Xonotic, and if the head developers would accept and welcome such an idea. Also, is there any support for scripting entities (eg: LUA)? I don't know how to script, but still asking if it would work. If done properly, this could be a big attraction in Xonotic, and we'd also be offering an open source alternative to Garry's Mod. I'm rather excited about this idea, and hope others have positive thoughts and ideas about it too
