Free Level Editor

Manto

As some of you know I started working on a custom level editor for GameSalad in 2013. Since then I have written the program entirely from scratch in a different language to support more features and improve performance.

You can now download the full version for free (see the link below). I hope you will find it useful

Features:

• Select multiple actors
• Grid, snap-to-grid
• Zoom In/Out
• Positon, size, rotation input fields for fast changes

Improvements over old version:

• Projects can be now opened from anywhere
• Native UI
• Faster project loading and better performance
• And more!

Note:

• There's no guarantee that your projects will not break, so I recommend to make backups (although I have not heard or seen this happen with any project).
• You can use it for non-commercial and commercial projects
• Works on Mac and Windows
• Java is required

Download

Screenshot

Commands:

• Hold space + click and drag to move the view
• D - duplicate
• Click and drag from empty space for rectangular selection
• Others shown in the menu bar

Original thread: http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/59532/custom-scene-editor-wip-grid-snap-to-grid-zoom-multi-select#latest

saif_shammari

That's just AWESOME !!!
This will help many people
Thank you

-Timo-

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

Braydon_SFX

Absolutely amazing! Thanks for sharing again and again, @Manto ! You're a huge asset to this community!

Socks

@Manto Yep, amazing, and incredibly useful !

Armelline

Awesome app, thanks!

PhilipCC

@Manto I can't believe the generosity around this Forum and you are a Prime example of it! Thank you.

I would be nice if some members considered the added value to GS from dedicated members who provide us with free tools, tips, tricks, videos and help. You can't buy that kind of support and those sorts of fringe benefits from any other software developers that I have ever dealt with in over 32 years.

Manto

Thank you all!

I'm thinking of releasing the source code in the future, so anyone can improve it. It's written in Scala, but it is possible to write additional parts in Java as well.

Socks

@Manto said:
Thank you all!

Just playing around with it, it takes just a couple of minutes to see how massively useful it is, simply being able to zoom out and see a whole scene is enough to justify this tool, so much easier than scrolling around a large scene only being able to see one section at a time, and the grid function is the stuff of dreams ! Amazing work.

GameSalad should have worked with you on this project when you first started it, it should have been made the official GS layout tool.

(one bug to report: the keyboard command for Zoom In [Cmd+] is not working, you can still zoom in by selecting Zoom In from the menu, the keyboard command for Zoom Out works fine).

Manto

@Socks said:

@Manto said:
Thank you all!

Just playing around with it, it takes just a couple of minutes to see how massively useful it is, simply being able to zoom out and see a whole scene is enough to justify this tool, so much easier than scrolling around a large scene only being able to see one section at a time, and the grid function is the stuff of dreams ! Amazing work.

GameSalad should have worked with you on this project when you first started it, it should have been made the official GS layout tool.

(one bug to report: the keyboard command for Zoom In [Cmd+] is not working, you can still zoom in by selecting Zoom In from the menu, the keyboard command for Zoom Out works fine).

Nice to hear!

Interesting that Zoom In doesn't work, it works fine on my machine. What keyboard layout do you have? UK? US?

Edit:
Ok, it looks like Zoom In doesn't work with those keyboard layouts. Fix coming soon

Edit 2:
Now it's fixed. You can update by using the same download link.

Socks

@Manto said:
Interesting that Zoom In doesn't work, it works fine on my machine. What keyboard layout do you have? UK? US?

Yes, I am using a UK keyboard.

@Manto said:
Edit:
Ok, it looks like Zoom In doesn't work with those keyboard layouts. Fix coming soon
Edit 2:
Now it's fixed. You can update by using the same download link.

Wow, thanks ! Bug reported, fixed, and update delivered within an hour !

The speed at which you can work and deliver fixes, just strengthens my belief that your work should have been picked up and integrated by GS a long time ago.

dimsdale

I haven't had a chance to have a look yet, but do you have Layers too???
Really looking forward to having a play around once I get back to the office.
Thanks for sharing!!

BigDave

Downloaded! very useful as i want to stretch out one of my levels right now. And the multi selection is a blessing. Got one issue tough after I saved the scene and came back some of my actors initial graphics were removed and the actor was white but was easy to fix and only effected the saved scene.

BigDave

the white ones were actors which were no prototypes and opened actors
within them the frames of the animation seem to be removed.

Manto

@BigDave said:
Downloaded! very useful as i want to stretch out one of my levels right now. And the multi selection is a blessing. Got one issue tough after I saved the scene and came back some of my actors initial graphics were removed and the actor was white but was easy to fix and only effected the saved scene.

@BigDave said:

the white ones were actors which were no prototypes and opened actors
within them the frames of the animation seem to be removed.

Thanks for reporting the bug. A fix is coming soon.

Edit:
Fixed in the latest version. Can be updated using same link.

jay2dx

Wow sincerely thank you! Progress in 3 of my games is extremely slow due to the way GS works with level designing of gridded assets! This is amazing,

Now I can't try this until I'm home from work in about 6 hours so! Just to give me a heads up before I get home, how does this work? Do I design the level and it creates an game salad project file so I keep my existing rules etc, or does it merge with an existing one, or do I just need to start a new project and use this from the get go to and re code my game etc

Manto

@jay2dx said:
Wow sincerely thank you! Progress in 3 of my games is extremely slow due to the way GS works with level designing of gridded assets! This is amazing,

Now I can't try this until I'm home from work in about 6 hours so! Just to give me a heads up before I get home, how does this work? Do I design the level and it creates an game salad project file so I keep my existing rules etc, or does it merge with an existing one, or do I just need to start a new project and use this from the get go to and re code my game etc

You can open an existing GS project and edit it just like with GameSalad. It does keep all the rules of all actors so you don't need to do anything.

Manto

@dimsdale said:
I haven't had a chance to have a look yet, but do you have Layers too???
Really looking forward to having a play around once I get back to the office.
Thanks for sharing!!

Currently you can only hide and lock layers. See the screenshot. They are on the lower left hand side.

What kind of layers functionality are you looking for? Adding/removing layers? Rearrangement, sorting? (You can currently add layers in GameSalad and switch back to the LevelEditor and continue).

mhedges

Awesome, @Manto ! The zoom alone is worth it; the rest take it over the top. Thanks much.

jamie_c

Can't wait to try this out, looks awesome! Super nice of you to make this tool!

Manto

@mhedges said:
Awesome, @Manto ! The zoom alone is worth it; the rest take it over the top. Thanks much.

@jamie_c said:
Can't wait to try this out, looks awesome! Super nice of you to make this tool!

Thanks!

Here's a video of the tool (a bit slow due to GS & latest mac os x incompatibility):

I recommend having both GS and the LevelEditor open at the same time. When you make a change in LevelEditor and save the scene use revert to saved in GS to update. And other way around just close the scene in LevelEditor and open it again.

LevelEditor only changes scenes. If you want to save your changes, select save from the menu or press cmd+s. If you want to discard changes just press the close window button (red x).

Anyone tried the make circle function?

jay2dx

Thanks, great overview in the video, can't wait to try this out later, for me, this is all I feel GS is missing currently, these level editing features. This will speed up my production a lot, thanks,

fmakawa

@Manto do you know if you'll ever release for Windows because this is just amazing and its a shame to miss out!!!

Manto

@fmakawa said:
@Manto do you know if you'll ever release for Windows because this is just amazing and its a shame to miss out!!!

As it's written in Scala (works on top of Java VM), it should work with Windows. Unfortunately I don't have a windows machine to try it at the moment.

Manto

If you want to try it I have uploaded windows.zip to the same drive folder as in the link above. ( https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6jfd4f4sasAd3p2ZzQyaGQxeWs ). You should be able to use the start.bat file to launch the editor if you have Java installed

fmakawa

@Manto you're a star! Will try it!

jay2dx

just got round to having a go of this and I'm so happy , it makes GS 100 times les frustrating to use, I'm mean i love GS but you've just made it so mush easier for me to design my levels, I've just whipped up a pretty large level in now time at all, and because of this the design process was pretty fun rather than frustrating when using a gridded system,

couldn't be happier thank you. would be nice for us all in the GS community to repay you in some way????

unbeatenpixel

@jay2dx said:
just got round to having a go of this and I'm so happy , it makes GS 100 times les frustrating to use, I'm mean i love GS but you've just made it so mush easier for me to design my levels, I've just whipped up a pretty large level in now time at all, and because of this the design process was pretty fun rather than frustrating when using a gridded system,

couldn't be happier thank you. would be nice for us all in the GS community to repay you in some way????

+1

BigDave

put some banner ads at the top of the editor or bottom so you do not annoy us but also generate every x seconds the editor is open some money.
if possible.

Manto

@jay2dx said:
just got round to having a go of this and I'm so happy , it makes GS 100 times les frustrating to use, I'm mean i love GS but you've just made it so mush easier for me to design my levels, I've just whipped up a pretty large level in now time at all, and because of this the design process was pretty fun rather than frustrating when using a gridded system,

couldn't be happier thank you. would be nice for us all in the GS community to repay you in some way????

Thanks! Well, I can't think of anything right now, but it's nice to hear that you all find it useful compared to e.g. if everyone just downloaded and didn't say anything.

@BigDave said:
put some banner ads at the top of the editor or bottom so you do not annoy us but also generate every x seconds the editor is open some money.
if possible.

Interesting idea. I'll check if that's possible.

BigDave

your fix worked well the issue is gone