Looks like the menu gif gag expired, what a shame.
So I've been jotting down what the do's and don'ts have been, where to first, what to learn that I do not and really just an overall plan. While most of it is likely overthinking and understated of being too big of a bite to chew, frankly this is just a fun project to blow off steam or a creative influx. More of the latter in almost all cases, because UE4 is fun while Source is difficult and GM, for the life of me, is beyond reason even though it's hailed as a starter engine.
So the service(s) to be provided would obviously include;
- Appropriate menus,
- Game to be played,
- Hosting possibilities,
- Service for Updater and Banners
- Map Builder built in from the get-go,
- As much support I can provide for reward replica
- The rest I've glossed over
The menus, as already seen, are clearly nothing to sneeze at, easy stuff. Where the challenge comes in would be the game, the networking, and the builder.
Where my current interest rests is maps and mapping. How GM GG2 handles the maps is half understood or less, I can apply my knowledge to have a working map but in the virtual space and the theory/code to it is out of reach unless someone wants to explain it. Like I've mentioned, GM as an engine is likely not something I'll bother with, especially for where I want to go, even though it's not my field, lol.
The idea I've got is taking in a bit from every experience I've run into across the board, though also twisting it to be useful in what I want to achieve. While it may be inefficient, it's not final as the suggestion box is always open.
- It's built in from first release
- Provides all available/supported modes
- Limits the Entities to game mode if selected
- Opens all Entities when selecting free mode, but red shifts conflictions
- Help archive, to explain functionality and hidden mechanics
- Tutorial, to explain how it all works from basic to more advanced stuff
- Has LOGIC, to allow advanced interactive or other inputs
- Create a check to the [service] for updates, whether it be add/remove/change
- Dedicated banner link with preview inside the Builder menu for latest update news
- Others I'm forgetting
Then, what about how maps work at all? Before I became concerned with the mechanics, what was I to do about it as a file. The whole idea that GM GG2 has for embedding extra data into the .png is both amazing and terrible. Keeps and easy to exchange, some upload hosts destroy the extra data. Pros, Cons.
However, hopefully I can take a more direct route with UE4. Just zip the files. Exchange the zip, extract to cache or black magic for use when needed. Similar to .bsp from TF2. Maybe I'm making light of this, who knows.
As for internally. Layers, right, but how? The idea going has been to segregate rather explicitly. Layer0 would be the default collision and entities for that layer, Layer1 would be default background for the colour and forground sprites. Standard right? Maybe you caught what I was implying next.
What about map altercations? Some TF2 maps are dynamic and change depending on what happens either through gamemode or mapper creation for user activation, which is probably complicated and may be confusing, but I'll be damned if it's not an option. What if Layer-1 replaced Layer0 for collision, and Layer2 replaced Layer1 for background?
Better yet, why stick to "Layer"? LOGIC could easily cover the connections to have BG#, WM#, ENT#, etc, explicitly running and overwriting the correct data. Three stage ADCP? No need to stretch out the map so normal view or Rifleman's zoom can't see it, the layers are invisible until needed.
Quite the runaway train of thought.
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