Riley,

I just used the set dressing as prop tool and I am impressed.  Great documentation and the whole process was much easier than I thought it would be.  Dont fear the cmd prompt folks.  This is definitely worth it for the set dressing junkies.  Thanks man.  You do incredible work for a guy who probably isnt getting paid for it.

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Teaser out now

Thanks thebiz.    Heh, no I definitely am not on any payroll -- but you can petition Lionhead to pay me if you want.  LOL!

Got some progress on the advanced options for the Room Builder this weekend.  I'll be testing it thoroughly today, and should have some more example screenies up early this week.

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

Sometimes things go quickly, sometimes you have to work through a few issues, sometimes you want to add a feature or two...

Below are a few more example screenshots, intended to illustrate certain features of the nearing-release Room Builder application.

Sample 1 - "Cutouts"



A simple rectangular room, with a variety of "cutouts" for doors and windows.  Here are a few things to note:

1. You build a room by defining all the corners and cutouts that make up the room, in clockwise order.  A few of these definitions are shown in the image above.
2. The "x" and "y" numbers are co-ordinate values.  Positive X is to the right.  Positive Y is "away" from the camera (or "up").
   
3. In red, the first wall corner is defined.  It's 6 meters to the left of the center, and 3 meters above the center.
4. In blue, the first cutout is defined.  It takes the shape of the prop named "p_windowframe01".  The center of the prop is 4 meters left, 3 meters above the center.  It is raised 0.25 meters above the bottom of the floor.
5. In green, the fifth cutout is defined.  It takes the shape of the prop named "p_windowframe05".  The center of the prop is 4 meters right, and 3 meters above the center.  It is raised 0.1 meters above the floor.  It is also resized to 1.1 times the original size of the prop.

All the window and door props shown are from my Hotel Bedroom, Suburban Living Room, and Casting Office modpacks, previously released.

Sample 2 - Multiple Levels and Custom Textures



Another rectangular room, but the cutouts are "stacked".  This is accomplished by giving the Room Builder application two separate script files to process.  In addition, the custom texture was designed to stretch across the entire wall.  Here are a few things to note:

1. There are two script files: one for the lower level, the other for the upper level.
2. The upper level has the floor turned off, while the lower level has the ceiling turned off.
3. The wall texture is a custom texture I created.
4. The "xwrap" and "ywrap" values tell the Room Builder how many meters the texture should stretch (horizontally and vertically).
5. The "ywrap" value is 7.  This is because the total height of the room is 7 meters (3.5 for the upper level, 3.5 for the lower level).  The "yoffset" value for the lower level tells the Room Builder to start halfway down the texture.
6. The "xwrap" value is 24.  This is the total distance, or circumference, of the walls.  Don't want to calculate this yourself?  That's ok -- you don't have to!  The application gives a report telling you this distance.  Run it once without the "xwrap" value set, go back and set it, and run the application again.
   
7. I was able to properly "align" the text on the walls (yes, that text is part of the texture -- not something I added later in Photoshop).  The application also gives a report telling you how far along your texture each corner and cutout is.  While you probably won't be putting text on your walls, this will still help you if different sections of wall need to look different.

Other Features

• Insert props directly into your room with [prop] sections.  You can place them where you need to; and scale and rotate them as you see fit -- around any axis.
  
• Want a building exterior instead of an interior?  Go ahead -- just include "interior = false" under the "[global]" heading in your script file.
• You can also stretch floor and ceiling textures with a "[floor tiling]" heading.
• If desired, you can switch on the alpha channel or scrolling for textures; or set the floor to be reflective.
  

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

that looks so easy riley, i cant wait to beta test it and make a tut

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stvndysn:

that looks so easy riley, i cant wait to beta test it and make a tut

I wish I could say that, too.... but as always, as soon as numbers are included, or X's or Y's, my brain stalls.... it's just not made for that kind of stuff. Dammit!
It looks great, and I hope a step-by-step tutorial will help me...

Sisch, I am determined to get you to use the sets to prop tool.  It was cake and the instructions were very .  Once you use it I think you will um..not go back. 

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Teaser out now

The dress-to-prop is definitely something I hope people will give a shot.  Sisch actually helped me test it by sending me a set dressing file to work off of during development -- one that had something like 45 props in it, no less!  So I'm sure she knows how useful it can be.

If it helps any with this Room Builder, you'll use it like so:

• Draw the shape of your room on graph paper.  Each square is a meter.
• "X" is horizontal (higher numbers to the right).  "Y" is vertical (higher numbers to the top of the page).
  
• Start at the upper left corner of the room, and work your way around.  Each corner (or cutout) you reach makes up one of those "[wall]" headers in your script file.  You can type the script files in Notepad or any other text editor.

The texture stretching stuff you can safely ignore if you have no need for it.  It's an advanced feature for people who really want to dig into it.

As much as I'd love to make a visual editor for this, that's a whole bunch more work.  I'm hopeful it'll eventually get done -- preferably inside Med.  But for now, these script files will have to suffice.

If you think what's presented above is tough, think of what I went through to make it.   Trigonometry and vector geometry were required, plenty of it creeping into university-level stuff.  All that math stuff from school you thought was useless isn't -- I needed it to figure out how to properly rotate the window / door props into the wall, and to figure out how to properly break up the floor and ceiling from a polygon into triangles (which is how the game expects them).  I even went to the trouble of optimizing it so that consecutive colinear points along the polygon are ignored.  (Where's Gleem and Dero when I need them -- they'd be impressed by this stuff!  LOL!)

Edit:  And yes, Steven -- I'm going to be sending this along to you to beta-test for me very soon.

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

Beta-Testing for Room Builder Underway

If you are interested in the Room Builder application, have some time to spare, and are familiar enough with the command-line to navigate in the file system, please let me know. I'll hook you up with the current beta release.  I'd be looking for you to give me feedback on:  whether it's working properly, and if not the exact nature of the errors; and how the documentation is in explaining the process of creating rooms.

Also Coming - "Bombed Street - The Complete Works"

I've deconstructed the Bombed Street set, and am getting close to completing all the props I think might be useful.  It consists of all the individual buildings, the cleared-out street, the cleared-out street with rubble patches, the full set as a prop, and various types of rubble.  As always, each prop will be available in various lighting schemes.  Below are a few screenshots of what to expect.

Destroyed Buildings as Props:


Cleared-out Street:


Rubble Patches:  ( for creating custom terrain)

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

Did I just wet myself!????!!!!   WOW!!!!

Rileyman...........  Wooo Hoo! Beautiful!!!!

K4

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OMG, this is perfect timing rght while im making my WW2 movie do have an idea when this might be out. Amazing job on this riley

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http://modsrus.weebly.com/

I even went to the trouble of optimizing it so that consecutive colinear points along the polygon are ignored.  (Where's Gleem and Dero when I need them -- they'd be impressed by this stuff!  LOL!)

Ha ha! That's funny!  Looks like you misspelled "scared s---less"
as "impressed" 

(at least in my case, that is) 

Riley, you're on such a higher plane, it is almost scary. 
work on the app, and can't wait to test it out!

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"Badge, Manny! BADGE!!"

So cool!! That's what I've been looking for! Great job!!

-deeb

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Saying something "was an empty void" is not possible since a void is empty.

My god!!! I love this stuff! Perfect job, Riley!!

-deeb

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Saying something "was an empty void" is not possible since a void is empty.

The Bombed Street props are all done, so it's just a matter of finishing up the thumbnails for them.  I'm about halfway through those already.  It'll be out within the next week.

Gleem, yes, yes, stroke my ego some more.  It's exactly what I need!  Now where are my thick bottle cap glasses?  I need them to read the 8-point font on my 2048x1536 monitor... 

Don't sell yourself short -- you're the one whose been doing a large share of the work in analyzing the game's file formats.

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

Sweet, Rileyman could you give me a pm when its out.

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http://modsrus.weebly.com/

I can do that - sure.  Though I suspect you'll find it anyway.

I finally decided to get organized, and have put together a website for my studio.  My films are on there, yes...  But it's also a permanent and easy-to-navigate place to find all my publicly released mods, overlays, and applications.  So if you're ever looking for something that I made, that will always be the place to find it.

Riley Entertainment Website

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

k thx, nice site

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http://modsrus.weebly.com/

Nice website, Riley, and I can't wait to download the bombed street props... great work!

That's a very professional looking website you got there Riley.

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AH those props looks soo sweet! if only my pc could run TM again...

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yes, its okay, you can pm me about the sig...
and doing free VOS!

Fantastic stuff!
The possibilities this opens up are phenomenal!

Bombed Street - The Complete Works



This pack contains:

• The full set in a variety of lighting schemes.
• The emptied-out set, with and without rubble/terrain, in a variety of lighting schemes.
• All the buildings, some in varieties with additional rubble.
• Rubble and terrain props.

Download the Bombed Street - Complete Works modpack here.  (6MB)

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

Yay, going to download it now

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http://modsrus.weebly.com/

Room Builder Application - Released

I was hoping to get a little more outside testing prior to release, but I'm generally satisfied that this application is working as planned.  If you give this application a shot, please let me know how it works out!

The Room Builder is used to create new room interiors or building exteriors.  I've filled it with every bit of functionality that I feel I wanted for my own creations.  Expect to spend a bit of up-front time learning how to format / structure your room scripts.  Follow along with the examples in the PDF documentation, and you should be well on your way to creating your first room!

Keep your eye on this thread, or my website, for upcoming examples of rooms created through this application.

Feature list:

• First draw the shape of your room on paper (graph paper, if you have it), using meters as the scale.  One meter is just a bit bigger than a yard.
• Using Notepad (or your favourite text editor), type the co-ordinates of each corner of the room in clockwise order, as instruction in the documentation.
• Embed doors and windows into the walls with cutout props.  The term "cutout" is used because the Room Builder application "cuts out" a section of the wall to make room for the door or window.
• Customize the wall, floor, and ceiling textures; including the ability to customize how often the textures repeat.
• Add set dressing to your room!
• Advanced users can create their own cutout props, and place them into custom cutout libraries.
• Create "room libraries", and stitch them together like lego pieces!

Note on Cutout Props

I have made available a separate modpack just for the cutout props that the Room Builder currently supports.  These include all the doors and windows found in my previously released Complete Works modpacks.

If you don't want to have to install all my Complete Works modpacks, you can download just the Door and Window Cutouts modpack, linked at the bottom of this post.

Keep an eye on this thread, or my website, for future cutout props!


Other Updates and Bug Fixes

• Several bugs have been fixed in both the Prop Extraction and Prop Transformation utilities.  The Prop Transformation utility now works properly!
  
• Scale props in a single direction with the Prop Extraction and Prop Transformation utilities.  You can now make a prop taller or wider!
• Activate or deactivate reflections on floor meshes!
• The documentation for the Prop Extraction utility now includes more and better examples!  All examples now include colour-coding to better understand the meaning of each available option.
  

Go Get It!

Download the latest Mesh Reconstruction utilities (version 0.0.20a).

Download the Door and Window Cutout Props modpack.

View or download the online PDF documentation.  Adobe Reader is required.

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Riley Entertainment Website - Movies, Mods, and Modding Applications!
Riley Entertainment on TMU

oooh.  I might be giving this a wirl tonight.  Thanks Riley.

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Teaser out now