TV Editor System for 1.3

[Zero Angel]

This custom editor launcher is compatible with all known versions of 1.3 and does not require FE to be installed. It is designed to have the following features:

• Pre-edit Launcher allows the player to change the editor's parameters (ie: map name, toggle scripts, toggle windowed mode, etc) prior to launching the Battlezone II Editor
  
• Custom folder allows you to test assets in the editor without causing them to conflict with asset checks in public games
  
• Auto accepts Activision's legal agreement when starting the editor
  
• Texture previews (for painting terrain) are much bigger (for those editing at 1024x resolution or higher)
  
• Includes set of terrain ramping tools
  

As the 1.3 editor is much improved over the stock 1.2 editor, these make it even better. I am hereby requesting help of anyone who wants to help me improve it.

http://timedisruptor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2996




Keep in mind that this must be installed and run from your BZ2 folder in order to work!

[Angstromicus]

Looks nice ZA. I also noticed that the service bay in the 2nd pic was actually a LOD model. Did you make it so that the editor doesn't reset your graphics settings when you enter it?

[Zero Angel]

As far as I know, the editor has always reused last settings when it comes to graphics.

[Red Devil]

Hmmmmm...

[Angstromicus]

Maybe it was just the sky that was changed. Typically I'd disable the sky but it would come back after I entered the editor (and stay enabled after I exited).

[Zero Angel]

The 1.3 TVEditor has now been updated to work with 1.3 Tech Alpha 5.

I had to hack the executable to change some text strings in the program. Since hacking a binary file is a delicate operation I was unable to make any major changes. The following changes have been made for TVEditor Beta 4.

- Now natively uses bz2edit.exe instead of renaming bz2edit.exe to bzone.exe and running that. This fixes a bug in TA5 where running bz2edit.exe as bzone.exe causes an AV.
- Some text string changes which make it less confusing. The program option "Install Forgotten Enemies" (which must be checked in order to use the editor enhancements) has been renamed "Use Editor Enhancements". The program title has also been renamed.

There are a few minor bugs that most people won't notice and the bugs are that the settings file 'fedevtv.cfg' has been renamed to simply 'fedevtv'. Also if the TVEditor executable is run from a directory which is NOT a Battlezone 2 root folder, then it will say that it cannot find BZONE.EXE, manually finding BZONE.EXE or BZ2EDIT.EXE will do nothing. The program's executable (FeDevTV.exe) MUST be placed in a BZ2 root folder in order to work.

[General BlackDragon]

I have a question: Why the hell was it renaming bz2edit.exe to begin with?

[Zero Angel]

Because the original program was hardcoded to launch the BZONE.EXE in edit mode (it was designed for 1.2 which had no bz2edit.exe).

The only way to get it to work in 1.3 was to edit one of its config files to TEMPORARILY rename bzone.exe as bzone.bak and bz2edit.exe to bzone.exe using this command in one of the config files

RenameEx("bzone.exe", "bz2edit.exe", "bzone.bak");

Worked fine until TA5 as nobody reported problems about it to me -- luckily latest version of the TVEditor no longer needs to use that hack in order to work in 1.3. And should also be more compatible with future 1.3 versions if they don't change too much.

[General BlackDragon]

Ahhhh.. okay.