Saturday, August 14th - 20:05am

Sorry for the late post.

Anyways, I finally got the game (well, it rocks, etc) and used the GUI editor. As I expected, it's a full editor with built-in preview support, so there isn't much sense in continuing the Flesh project so I'm shutting it down. That's cool, though, so to quote myself on something I said on July 19th, before the game was out:

Who knows, maybe id Software has a very powerful gui editor under their sleeves that's bundled with the game of will be released a few time after the game ships (since marteen said on shacknews they'll release a few tools after the game ships). We can't know now if they have something good/easy. But who knows, maybe not, so for now I'll just do the tool.

I'm still working with GUIs though, as I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I've already written several different GUI scripting tutorials, and I have a few more in the works. I'll also wait for the game source code to be released to try and join a mod team as I mentioned below.

Also, as promised, I've added the latest version (0.3) along with the Flash 6 source code on the downloads page.

Thanks.

Sunday, August 1st - 00:01am

Okey, early release. I've uploaded version 0.2 for people who want to test this beta version; it's on the downloads page. Depending on how you look to it, this version is either still a very early beta or quite an advancement from the previous one; I'm integrating it with FlashStudio so now it has a menu bar, a status bar which still isn't used, and it can open GUI files.

The file opening is still work-in-progress, though. While it works, it doesn't understand all the properties (of course, since I don't know them yet), it overwrites some of them to actually display the windowDefs, and it has a few other slight problems. But the main parsing code is already on, I just have to work a bit to make it correctly.

Also, contrary to my expectations, I won't release the .FLA source code yet. Sorry. There are lots of stuff on the code that's turned off (I use them for testing, or things that I'm building but it's not quite ready for release so I exclude them from the final movie) and taking them out just to save a fresh source file wouldn't be wise. Plus, I am lazy and I haven't decided under which license (GNU, creative commons, etc) to release it. I hope to do it in the next version, though.

Ok, about the next version (.3): although I wanted it to be an step towards compatibility with the game itself (rendering windowDefs and reading .GUI files properly) because everybody and their dog will have the game by next week, this won't be the case. I won't be able to get the game for at least two weeks from now (read below for more information) so until I have the game in my hands, I will just do updates to the way the editor works, and add more features to the interface itself, which is, of course, unfinished. After I have the game you can expect a huge improvement in the editor - specially because I hope to have the material (tga) loading stuff finished by then - but until then, I'll stick to the "it's an early beta" line.

Saturday, July 31st - 15:35pm

I've reworked the page again. Added a little CSS because stuff was starting to get messy around here, and overall made everything a bit more organized -- added this home/news page and moved the old 'home' page into its own About page, to make room for content I plan to add there later (some reference and guides).

So, the game has finally shipped, although it's not on official sale yet and a few lucky bastards have been able to snag some copies. New images and videos are appearing everywhere on the internet, as well as a new trailer, and it's getting harder to keep away from spoilers. Anyhow, this means that people will finally be able to hack into the real game and discover what the engine can't and can't do - and I can't wait to see what the community will come up with. On my (and Flesh's) part, I'll still have to wait two weeks to get the game, so until I have it on my hands, the editor won't render GUIs like the game, and won't understand GUIs imported from the game that well. That's why I'll be working on fixing and adding stuff that doesn't depend on the game; there's a lot to do in that area, of course.

More importantly, I have been working on the tga2swf utility this past few days (the external C program that will enable Flesh to read the material files directly) and while I have been making some steady progress (which in itself is incredible, considering I'm not a C programmer), I had to keep myself away from the Flesh code a little. This doesn't mean it hasn't improved - the version that I'll release tomorrow (0.2) is still a very early beta, but it's definitely shaping up and I added a few important features and fixes. I expect it to be in a "workable" shape in a few weeks, and I can't wait to see it actually loading GUIs properly.

PS: Since people are already receiving their DOOM 3 copies, I'm making a mini contest: the first three people to post in-game screenshots in this doom3world.org thread will have their screenshots featured in the editor. This is because the editor will have to use in-game screenshots on the canvas background anyways, so users can create GUIs against a "standard" background -- so apart from the a black and a white canvas, these three additional screenshots will be available on an editor menu (yes, the ability to load external screenshots will be there too). So, if you wanna help a poor coder which won't be getting the game so soon, gimme some screenshots!