Edddy: Thee block-based map editor 🏗️

Modanung

The drive-by pitch of Edddy is "3D Tiled".
Why mention it now? It recently became available as an AUR package!
And a freeze-bug, which too many ran into, was resolved.

Most of you are likely familiar with my elder brother's 2D FLOSS tile-based map editor called Tiled, which he began working on over two decades ago in QBasic. Since I could only find proprietary stand-alone tools, libre plug-ins/add-ons and voxel editors by the time I needed a 3D equivalent, I started Edddy. It's still functionally lacking and the formats are likely to change, but it can certainly be used to create levels where blocks only need rotating along the up-axis on a square prism grid. In fact levels for Blip 'n Blup, OG Tatt, A-Mazing Urho, KO and Tux! were already made using Edddy. The brush tool can draw 3D Bresenham lines and the fill tool works in planes, which both can save a lot of time. Crucial functionality that's still missing are selecting, copy-pasting and cluster painting... but undo/redo works. Of course it would also be nice - literally the primary issue - if it could convert models to the correct format on the fly, instead of expecting people to use the same engine.

If you think Edddy can be of assistance but need some help getting started or would like to contribute to its development, feel free to come aboard The Colourship.

glitchapp

it looks amazing! Is it possible to tweak the export functions to adapt it for other games? I think what you've achieved is far better than I will ever achieve with my level editor and it would be nice to be able to create grids with it.

Modanung

glitchapp Well certainly, anything is possible. 🙃

Have you seen the files it currently produces? The structure is similar to that of Tiled; with blocksets (EBS) and blockmaps (EMP) instead of tilesets (TSX) and tilemaps (TMX). Currently objects are still placed in Edddy as just-another-gridblock and the games themselves discern block from object based on the names of the block and their sets. It's a temporary solution, but it works. This same game-specific import function basically only needs to be able to handle XML: Nothing's stopping you from reading the positions or changing the file extensions of models.

glitchapp

thanks, I understand. It would probably make more sense to write a function that translate those formats to the files my logic reads rather than tweaking the tool for every single grid based game... I will check them and see how to make a function with that specific purpose.

Modanung

glitchapp Well, Edddy is meant to be widely applicable eventually. Indeed, it should not be tweaked/forked for every game; instead it needs more features to fit each purpose, in a generalized manner. Creatively loading your maps into your game to make up for features Edddy still lacks should be considered temporary.

glitchapp

Modanung Edddy looks prettier than my editor (and a lot more featured) and it also allows to see the 3d assets in real time which is perfect for the vr game. Unfortunately I managed to run edddy but not from source.
Just in case it helps to put some context, this is how a level look in fish fillets: https://codeberg.org/glitchapp/fish-fillets-remake/src/branch/main/game/levels/level-2.lua

and this is the export function of my level editor: https://codeberg.org/glitchapp/fish-fillets-remake/src/branch/main/game/states/LevelEditor/levelEditor/leveleditorExportFolder.lua

I think the logic of fish fillets is pretty simple and as it can be seen on the functions, they are not very complicated, so making the tool compatible seems feasible.

The main special features fish fillets requires are:

Two agents needs to be placed in the grid
An exit area needs to be defined
Ability to put tetris like objects in the grid.

There's nothing else special since is basically a maze with objects so I think that's all needed.

Modanung

glitchapp Defining zones is a planned feature, but you could use the bounding box of all exit blocks. Similarly the form and heavy properties can not yet be set in Edddy, but would have to be stored elsewhere and matched based on a model's name. Although I guess you could create an EMP for every object to define occupied cells, and put heavy objects into a heavy EBS.

...ideally these welcome features would be added to Edddy of course.

Modanung

For instance A-Mazing Urho (the first deployed game that used Edddy) has levels of two cells high; the path resides in the lowest, everything else in the one above. The game considers every square an obstacle except where the cell in the 0th sheet is nonempty. This can be used to create secret passages... but a stray unseen block can also create them unintentionally, so mappers beware.

glitchapp

Modanung originally the logic and level editor stored the exit area in a table, I commented and deprecated that way of storing the exit in favour of doing it directly on the grid by assigning a value for the exit area, which I think it's easier, I can still use the old system.

Currently the grid uses 4 values: 0 for empty spaces, 1 for walls, 3 for borders and 6 for exit areas.

The value 3 does not affect the logic, the value 3 acts like a wall but it draws differently, I created that value to let the drawing function draw a different type of asset for the borders of the walls in the maze.

So it seems like it's not difficult to implement, and even the theme matches the game.

Modanung

Apart from having gained a fly mode and emulated middle mouse button for improved camera control, Edddy can now set an executable file for a project which allows to quickly playtest a level without the need to save it, as demonstrated in this video.

Modanung

Quite some changes over the past few days. Check out the devlogs:

Modanung

I'm currently working on adding smooth slopes to Edddy; basically tiles with variable corner height, reusing much of LucKey Park's procedural grid-based terrain.
Soon all games using Edddy - Blip 'n Blup, Tux!, OG Tatt and A-Mazing Urho - can have smooth height transitions without requiring specific blocks for each.

Edddy tile test

After implementing it for quads, I intend to apply the same technique to blocks, but with separate top and bottom elevations between which the original block will be stretched. This will allow, for instance, connecting the top and bottom of a cliff to different slopes, in order to make hairpin turns.

Modanung

Ski slope