Assembling several .map files into one - possible ?

[motorsep]

Is it possible somehow to work on individual parts of the game world in separate .map files and then have a master .map file where all other scenes are merged together ?

[AluminumHaste]

Open 2 instances of DR, open a different map in each.

Select everything and CTRL+C

 

Go into the other DR instance and CTRL+V.

 

This used to work for me, haven't tried it in years though.

[AluminumHaste]

Yeah, still works

 

 

[motorsep]

That's not how I envisioned for it to work 

Imagine a level with a small village. Say you have 3 houses, a church, rocks, trees, etc. Each of 3 houses is a separate map file. Church is another map file.

When I edit any of those map file (houses, church, etc.) and then open master map file - all changes I made to individual map files are automatically propagated to the master.

Kinda like prefabs, but not quite. Is it possible ?

[thebigh]

Isn't that what layers are for?

[AluminumHaste]

No that's not possible.

[Dragofer]

This does indeed sound like a case for layers.

[peter_spy]

It's not about layers. It's a more modern approach where you have a 'master level' and there would be sub-maps streamed in and out as necessary. Unreal engine supports it since version 3.0, IIRC.

[datiswous]

Since map files are just text files (I mean you can edit inside a text file), I would say you can make some sort of syncing program / script. Doesn't sound impossible to me. Cannot be synced in realtime and DR doesn't have a reload map button I think (would be nice).

I recently tried to create advanced filters and when you wrap your head around it they seem a great alternative for layers, but maybe it takes more time to create them and maybe less useful if you want to filter groups of specific worldspawn with same texture, not sure if possible then.

Edited January 10, 2023 by datiswous

[datiswous]

I guess you can use blocks of calc or something to outline the regions of the other files. Those calc-blocks are not synced, but you can see where the other map files take place so you don't overbuild. Just my idea, not sure if needed.

[HMart]

9 hours ago, peter_spy said:

It's not about layers. It's a more modern approach where you have a 'master level' and there would be sub-maps streamed in and out as necessary. Unreal engine supports it since version 3.0, IIRC.

To me that sounds more game engine specific and not something for a separate level editor like DR. What use would be to DR to have the ability to stream in, map files into other map files?  IMO sounds good for real time gameplay in a game, not while working on a map in a editor.

Thou I recall the entire prefab system of the dead indie engine, C4 engine, was based on this concept, a map file was a collection of other map files but afaik they were not streamed in.

[AluminumHaste]

You could have a project worked on by multiple people at the same time, and be able to load up the master file to see the total progress. That sounds really interesting, but not really something that DR was designed for.

Might be doable if instead of having actual map information in the .map file, there would just be a pointer to an address like a web address, or networked or local HDD location for the corresponding map file.

And DR would follow that link and load the .map file at that location.

You could have multiple .map files pointed to in the master .map file. The master .map file when loaded into DR and all the separate .maps loaded up would have to be in read only mode as how would you deal with concurrency issues if say your dev was working on their separate .map file and you tried to make a change and save it out.

 

.map file would kinda look like this:

 

Version 2
// entity 0
{
    //.map location #1
    {
        mapname"mymap.map"
        loc"C:\Games\Darkmod\maps\"
    }
    //.map location #2
    {
        mapname"kingsmap.map"
        loc"216.8.234.43:2023\maps\"
    }
    //.map location #3
    }
        mapname"eastside.map"
        loc"ftp.greebosawesomesauceserver.com\DR\maps\"
    {

}

 

then the .map files at the specific locations would have all the info needed.

Obviously not that simple of course, there's lots of other issues with repeated names and entity #s in each map etc.

[motorsep]

13 hours ago, thebigh said:

Isn't that what layers are for?

I have no idea, I haven't been using DR since 2014 or so 

[motorsep]

10 hours ago, peter_spy said:

It's not about layers. It's a more modern approach where you have a 'master level' and there would be sub-maps streamed in and out as necessary. Unreal engine supports it since version 3.0, IIRC.

Kinda, but not really. I don't want them to stream in and out. I just want to work clutter-free on different parts of the level and then load master level, so all of them come together and for master level to get updated. Then I dmap master level for the game.

[HMart]

18 minutes ago, AluminumHaste said:

You could have a project worked on by multiple people at the same time, and be able to load up the master file to see the total progress. That sounds really interesting, but not really something that DR was designed for.

...

Ok that does sounds very interesting and now that you talk about it, I think C4 engine add that ability but I could be mistaken.

[AluminumHaste]

5 minutes ago, motorsep said:

Kinda, but not really. I don't want them to stream in and out. I just want to work clutter-free on different parts of the level and then load master level, so all of them come together and for master level to get updated. Then I dmap master level for the game.

Oh, that's layers, and it's been in DR for a long time.

And also, if you're not using DR anymore, then why are you here?

If you have a complicated map, you can move different parts of your map to different layers and hide them like photoshop.

 

[motorsep]

1 minute ago, AluminumHaste said:

And also, if you're not using DR anymore, then why are you here?

I started using it again like a week ago

[motorsep]

But yes, having master map that encompasses sub-maps would be also good for simultaneous team work.

[AluminumHaste]

Just now, motorsep said:

But yes, having master map that encompasses sub-maps would be also good for simultaneous team work.

Yeah that's true, but DR, like DoomEdit, was never scoped to be worked on by multiple people at once. As iD would often have one person working on a map or series of maps.

[Dragofer]

DR has a relatively new map merge feature. It should allow multiple people to work on the same map and periodically merge their map versions together. It probably works best if mappers work on separate regions of the map.

[motorsep]

5 minutes ago, Dragofer said:

DR has a relatively new map merge feature. It should allow multiple people to work on the same map and periodically merge their map versions together. It probably works best if mappers work on separate regions of the map.

I'd like to hear more about that

[LDAsh]

I could probably cobble together some kind of commandline auto-mapbatcher.  It would read a list of maps and combine them together before running DR.  Doesn't seem to matter which order brushes/patches/entities are in, so it's trivial to do it in some basic form.  It would act like a shortcut to launching DR and read maps to combine from a list in a text file each time, to basically bring everything up to date in a master version.  It could potentially handle 100s of files.

 

If I could possibly expand it from there, if I'm capable enough, I'd be open to any ideas.

[datiswous]

For what it's worth: I saw in some old tdm-campain map that bikerdude tagged his name as a spawnarg in everything that he build in that map. I guess it's good for filtering. So I think if the script can add the map file as a spawnarg to everything (brushes, entities, etc.) that is build in the map file automatically before merging, then in the merged map file you can easelly filter everything out that is build from one map file. Except if there is a better way.

[motorsep]

Nah, I think it needs to be level design friendly DarkRadiant's feature (via plug-in?).

[nbohr1more]

On 1/10/2023 at 1:31 PM, motorsep said:

I'd like to hear more about that

Along with map merge, some folks are using Git

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Git_and_Github_for_Mappers

 

Map merge has been available since 2.13

Edit here is the link with animated illustrations of it in use: