RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Ok, this is something I have been promising to do.
I like modifying the entities in my maps but using ripent.exe was awkward and with it's fixed memory sizes, it liked to crash a lot.

Thus, I started from scratch, borrowed two structure definitions and a few defines and rewrote the book on entity editing of bsp files.

1) It will (should) never crash out with memory problems, no matter what the map/entity/textures/etc sizes are.
2) It has a nice Windows GUI!
Check it!

You can DL it here:
http://filebase.bots-united.com/pafi...on=file&id=174

Some of the source may be interesting to you.
Get the ful souce and relese build here:
http://austinbots.com/mapping/BSPEdit+Source!.zip

The code is Art of the highest form!


So check it out and respond to my RFC- request for comments.

Even if you don't hack entities much, it can be helpful to look at how things are done, by looking at how entities are used in existing maps.

One option I forgot to document:
Run BSPEdit with the -d command line, open up a number of maps, exit BSPEdit and you will have one file C:\AllEntities.txt that will have all the entity data from all the maps you opened. This is a great way to search a lot of maps in a hurry for how they use certain entities.

What is next?
How about an automated way to create installers for your maps using a freeware install tool?
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/

It will have a gui like the one above and as a mapper you simply select a map, click a button and you will have a slick map installer that correctly finds the map folder and runs a nice GUI install of you map. Anyone interested?

Oh Yea!

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Austin! You are really true to yourself - when you come back after a longer absence, you usually come back with a bang. :)

I don't know if this tool makes a n00b like me capable of editing the stuff I'd like to: like unsticking hostages or fixing spawn points... and most of all, how do I know which entity in the list corresponds to which one in the map? Let's say there's one spawn point that doesn't work, how do I distinguish it from other spawn points in the entity list?

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

1) Read this:
http://joe.to/cstrike/ents/

2) Lets say you want to unstick a hostage. Start a LAN game, go as near to the hostage as possible, go to the console and type status. You get an x,y,z location.
Run BSPEdit and search for "hostage" (did you know you can TYPE in the combo box?) Look for the hostage with the closest x,y,z to what you got in the console. Modify it like adding some to the z to move the hostage up, and add/subtract to the x or y coords. Run up the map and make a note of which way the hostage moved. Adjust if necessary.

It is still difficult to hack bsps, since you have to know a lot about mapping to do things...

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Ah, so that's how to get the coordinates! Well, I suppose the last of the three values tells the height of an entity (x/y/z axis, right?). So in many cases it's not that difficult, because especially spawn points mostly suffer from being placed too deeply, not inside walls or something.

Thanks a ton for the help! Now I'm beginning to understand how guys like you do your stuff... but it sounds like it's still a lot of try & error.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

omg thanks man

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Filebase!
Filebase!
Why isn't this lovely stuff in the filebase yet ?
Quiquiquick!
:P :P :P

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Cool tool indeed Austin! It has a lot of possibilities.

The idea about an automated map installer creater tool also sounds good. However I wonder why some clever guy havent done it before.

Maybe it could be a end-user tool? That would allow gamers to automaticly install any kind of map, no matter if the mapper included an installer.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Kudos.
Now I can fix an old map of mine ... heh, heh.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

mine broke!
I just opened it up and tried to add text to the entities and all i could do was delete...

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

same here... wanted to swap round spawns in an over-biased map, and all i coult do was delete.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Why does it tell me to point it to my CS folder, when I want to edit my SoW maps?

When I try to search for something the program crashes. I cant change the entities in some maps.

It simply dont accept that I write/change anything in the right field.

It dont remember my maps folder, so I have to select it each time.

When I try to open a BSP file with the BSPEdit it just boots up the program as usual without opening the bsp.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

hey Austin, why not publish the source of your program ? we'd put it on CVS here and that would enable people to fix the bugs that have been discussed here...

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

I wrote it for CS, so the very first time it is run I check the registry for CS and use them. I had to pick only one game directory to look for the first time, so I picked the game I play CS.

But, once you run one time and quit I remember the last directory used and always use that one from then on. Pretty neat feature actually and it took some time to code all that. If it isn't remembering your last directory please send me more information on how you get this to fail. No one else has reported this one.

You are the first person to report this error. I would love to fix it if I can reproduce it here. Can you email me the maps and the exact way to cause it to crash? Thanks!

I forgot that by default windows edit controls can only handle 32K of text.
They will still show more then 32K of text, but you will not be able to add text to the window. I upped the size on the edit control to 128K and this helped but I still have people saying some maps still have this problem. So later today I will make it dynamic based on the entity size.

The newer version 1.3 with the larger edit control for entities, was posted to the file base a few days ago. Try it.

http://filebase.bots-united.com/pafi...on=file&id=174


Are you saying that once you run it, select some other folder with bps files in it, then exit, the next time you run it, it doesn't start up with the last selected folder? I have never seen this. Pleas email me with exactly what you are dong to get this to happen. I have never seen it.

Not sure what you mean by "when I try to open a BSP file with bsp edit."
You can't! You can only open directories, and you have to open the BSP by selecting a bsp -from the list-

If you are creating a shortcut and putting a bsp file name in as a parameter it will be ignored. There is only one command line parameter and that is -d as described in the docs.

Thanks for the feed back Zacker, exactly what I asked for!
I will fix all bugs if I can get exact directions on how to reproduce them over here.

PS
PM, I published the source since the first version, it's artwork I say ;-)
Two days ago I posted the latest version with two bug fixes to the file base.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

ah indeed Austin
alright then, you mind if I put it on CVS ? :)

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

No, go ahead, but I have a new version now that fixes two things Zacker reported. (Ok Zacker, I misread your first item. Yo were asking why it says CS folder. I have made that a more generic message, and said browse to a folder that has bsp files..) But I did fix once and for all not being able to add text to the entity edit field.

PM
1) How do I update files I have added to the filebase?
I can't figure it out.
2) How do I ge thte latest source to you to start with in CVS?
3) How do I setup CVS?
4) How di I know when someone submits a change to my source?
5) How do I know who I am, where I am, and what time it is?

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

1) Either you log in as "administrator" and you modify the file (upload it again) or you login as "member" and you select "edit file" (or modify file, what applies) - same thing.

2) You need an account on the BU server. Lemme check if you have one already... looks not. I'll create user "austin" for you. You also need a CVS client. I suggest you to get TortoiseCVS. It's free, open source and integrated with Windows explorer. And once you have a CVS client and a shell account you can create the new CVS module yourself (see 3. below)

3) with TortoiseCVS right-click on the folder where your sources are, choose CVS->Make new module, then in the new window in the "CVSROOT" field enter exactly:
:sserver:austin@bots-united.com:/home/cvsroot
the rest fills in automatically. Make sure the name of the new module doesn't have any special characters such as spaces and preferably put it all in lowercase. Hit OK, and the module will be created. Once its done, all you need to do is a "CVS commit" on the same folder to commit (i.e upload) your first changes to the new module. This will actually upload the source.

4) periodically check the module history... changes are automatically handled & merged altogether by the system

5) ask your wife :P

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Well the file management feature is TOTALY krap.
I twoudl not let me upload a new version because the file existed.
So I delete it. Now BSPEdit is gone and I still can' tupload the new version because it still says the file exists.

Thanks for the other replies. I now have no time for a few days again...

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Hm now all the download links of it are down :(

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Prrh, that was fast Austin. I will check the new version as soon as the downloads work again and check how many of the bugs which are left.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Bill is working on the filebase... I believe the bugs you experience will be fixed soon :)

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

and about this BSPEdit...
What if someone didn't have the map and downloaded the modified one??

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

A good question !
I believe that each map should come with its own .res file.
Putting out a map with no .res file (other than an official map) is unforgiveable.
That given ... it should still DL everything from the unchanged version & work perfectly.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Well it ... worked, sort of.
I had to give the file a new name.
I had to give the screen shot a new name and then it still used the old name, blah... Who writes this shite.

Zacker, this fixes everythign you reported except for it NOT saving the last directory you had when you quit. If you can duplicate this I would like to know how you did it.

And you should never get the bug where you can't add to the entities. This is now sized dynamically and is always at least 2x as large as the entities from the bsp file.

sPlOrYgOn,

if you allow downlaods and the user doens't have the map they will dl the hacked one. This is why I say to not allow downloads on your server. Besides it is a serious security risk, did you know? It seems there are ways to dl your server.cfg if allow downloads is on!! Once they have that they have your rcon password!

DutchTiger sorry for a day of broken links...
Now you have it again with fixes.

http://filebase.bots-united.com/pafi...on=file&id=177

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Good :)

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!
 

Anyone care to update this for CS:S maps or HL2 maps? I love this program and its simplicity. If you could do that I would be eternally greatful.

Re: RFC - Finally a great new way to edit your bsp entities!