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JackHammer Map Editor

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8 years 1 day ago #14 by Slippery Jim
I came across a Halflife/Quake map editor that seems to work with Swat 3. It is called JackHammer and so far I am very impressed with it.

jackhammer.hlfx.ru/en/


Click to enlarge image

You can configure it to load up Swat 3's .RMF files and everything works very much like the normal Swat 3 editor but without some of the annoying quirks.

One of the most frustrating things about Swat 3's map editor is texture alignment. Sometimes you have to use negative coordinates to get textures to align the way you want. You don't have to do that bullshit with this editor. What you see is what you get with the textures. I did a few texture re-alignments and then loaded the map in Worldcraft and everything was still perfect.

The only strangeness that I see is that when you load a Swat 3 .RMF map in Jackhammer for the first time all the pre-existing textures are misaligned. I need to test if this is just a one time thing.

I am not sure if we can use this editor to actually compile the .SCN but the build menu looks very close to Worldcraft's and it also allows us to assign Swat 3's MAP.EXE compiler.

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8 years 1 day ago #15 by Slippery Jim
Replied by Slippery Jim on topic JackHammer Map Editor
I played with this editor for a few more hours and I am not sure if it is worth the effort of re-aligning all the textures from existing maps. It is strange that it throws them all off the first time you load a Swat 3 map into it.

Maps saved in .RMF format seem to lose the Visgroups viewing information when you switch over to Worldcraft. When you load the map all of the visgroups are turned back on by default. This is mildly annoying. I will need to test more.

One thing that Worldcraft can do that this can't do is move around the map while the texture editor is open.

One thing that is really nice in Jackhammer is when you make a change to the texture in terms of scale or positioning you don't have to hit "apply" each time for it to be saved. Every change is automatically kept.

In my first post I was raving about the texture alignment in Jackhammer. I may have spoken too soon since some of the quirks with texture alignment seem to be with Swat 3 itself. More testing is needed to determine if using Jackhammer is worth it.

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8 years 1 day ago #16 by Slippery Jim
Replied by Slippery Jim on topic JackHammer Map Editor
Tonight when I loaded in the .RMF that was created in Worldcraft it loaded all the textures and the visgroups perfectly. Not sure why the textures were misaligned during my first test but this time when I loaded them in everything was good.

In the photo below you can see one of the strange quirks of Worldcraft. If you rotate the texture 90 degrees you have to add a negative sign to the scale of the texture. The texture then looks misaligned. When you view this same texture in JackHammer you can get the texture to display properly. With JackHammer if you remove the negative signs on the scale and then re-align the texture it will work properly in Swat 3 (but if you try to edit it Worldcraft after it will go funky again).

JackHammer is "more what you see is what you get".

Click to enlarge


The image below demonstrates one neat little feature that Worldcraft doesn't have. You can have it set to show a yellow line between an entity and it's target. In this case it is light_spot entity and the target.

Click to enlarge

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8 years 1 day ago - 8 years 1 day ago #17 by Slippery Jim
Replied by Slippery Jim on topic JackHammer Map Editor
The following was posted by Copy-Cat:

I rarely have a problem with a texture alignment I couldn't fix, I guess it's the experience I have using worldcraft.

To fix this issue in WC I would first test the Brush to see if the brush is the culprit.

Using this simple table I can test the brush to see if it has been rotated and the texture facing direction is correct with the shown settings:

Up = World+Face
Down=World
North = World
South = World+Face
East = Word+Face
West = World

If the texture faces up to the sky the World setting should be World+Face in the tick box.

If I remember correctly the sign texture in your post is facing west meaning it should only have the World Ticked, yours has both ticked meaning the Brush was rotated +90 or +180

Recreate the brush and without manipulating the World/Face tick boxes begin rotating texture in the positive direction to achieve the correct rotation then hit fit(this will only work if the texture is separate from the front) sometimes mappers will include more than one face of an object into one texture in this case fitting will not work, but at least what you see in WC will match what you see in-game.


When you say pointing west...how do you know what is west in the map?

From the TOP view of course..

Faces that face left are west facing.
In the first example from post #151 the Face you have selected faces to the west meaning it faces the left side of the map.

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7 years 1 week ago - 7 years 1 week ago #313 by Copy-Cat
Replied by Copy-Cat on topic JackHammer Map Editor
Were you able to build the scn? and does it corrupt map files to a point where you cannot use WC anymore?

I just re-read your op, I am configuring it and see if it will work to compile the scn. Will let you know if it works and probably provide
the cmd file for other mappers.

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7 years 1 week ago - 7 years 1 week ago #314 by Copy-Cat
Replied by Copy-Cat on topic JackHammer Map Editor
Yes! it works.

JACK is a glorified WC program with some extra features.

But first some problems.....

The first problem is our $bspdir is our WorldCraft folder where the map.exe is. That is where we copy our .map to and convert it to .scn using the map.exe,
In JACK, the $bspdir is the Mod Directory with a /maps directory added. We don't use this /maps folder in our $bspdir folder (WorldCraft folder)

The second problem is the "Place Compiled maps in this directory" has been removed so it places the scn where ever the map.exe is. This means our SCN doesn't write to our mission folder for the game to read and play. :(

Here is what we know about how we use WorldCraft's Command Sequence [F9]
First we copy the file to our WorldCraft folder. This is done by the following:
Command: Copy File
Arguments:
Code:
$path\$file.map $bspdir\$file.map
Then we convert it to SCN:
Command:$bsp_exe
Arguments:
Code:
-texpath C:\Sierra\SWAT3\Missions\BlueMoon\mission\textures $bspdir\$file

The other 2 commands are for launching the game and running the map, I will not go over these.

In the above example when using JACK: the Copy File command doesn't work for us because the $bspdir is actually
$bspdir\Maps, we dont have this folder, so it fails and the $bsp_exe command also fails to for the same reason.

Now before I go into the fix. Let me explain what I tried.
I changed the Mod Directory $moddir to the Worldcraft folder so I can use it for placing the .map instead of the problematic $bspdir path. This worked but the scn, map and materials dat stayed in the WorldCraft folder. This is bad because we want all these files to go into your working mission folder so we can run the map. Somehow (maybe i dont have enough coffee in me to figure it out) WC moves the file, converts it, creates the dat file and sends it all back to the working mission folder, and deletes the files from the WC folder.

I didn't want to hack the JACK program, or delete any plugins to make the $bspdir path work because it has alot of potential for extra features we can use, and i didnt want to break it.

THE FIX
take the map.exe (size: 212k ) from the WorldCraft folder and place it in my working mymap\mission folder.

NOTE: Be Sure you are running JACK as an Administrator, else some of the changes will not save.

CONFIGURE JACK (Options Menu [F2])
Set the Game Executable to C:/Sierra/SWAT3/swat_1024x768.exe (or which ever one you use for LR or swat.exe)
Set the Base Game Directory to C:SIERRA\SWAT3
Set the Source Map Directory to my working mymap\mission folder
Set the Mod Directory to my working mymap\mission folder.
Set the BSP executable to my mymap\mission\map.exe

Set Compile/Run Commands in Run Map Advanced (Run [F9])
NOTE: YOUR -texpath will be different from mine, point this to your working mission\textures folder.

For "Ents Only"
Command:Copy File
Parameters:
Code:
$path\$file.$ext $moddir\$file.$ext
Command:$bsp_exe
Parameters:
Code:
-entsonly -texpath C:\Sierra\SWAT3\Missions\BlueMoon\mission\textures $moddir\$file.$ext
Tick "Use Process Window"

For "Fast Build + Materials Dat"
Command:Copy File
Parameters:
Code:
$path\$file.$ext $moddir\$file.$ext
Command:$bsp_exe
Parameters:
Code:
-buildmat -fast -texpath C:\Sierra\SWAT3\Missions\BlueMoon\mission\textures $moddir\$file.$ext
Tick "Use Process Window"

For "Fast Full Build"
Command:Copy File
Parameters:
Code:
$path\$file.$ext $moddir\$file.$ext
Command:$bsp_exe
Parameters:
Code:
-fast -texpath C:\Sierra\SWAT3\Missions\BlueMoon\mission\textures $moddir\$file.$ext
Tick "Use Process Window"

For "Full Build"
Command:Copy File
Parameters:
Code:
$path\$file.$ext $moddir\$file.$ext
Command:$bsp_exe
Parameters:
Code:
-texpath C:\Sierra\SWAT3\Missions\BlueMoon\mission\textures $moddir\$file.$ext
Tick "Use Process Window"

Your may wish to add running the map as optional Compile\Run Commands for each of these configurations, they are the same as in WC, just copy them over. I don't use them, I forget why. (need coffee)

NOTE: If you don't want to copy this data over and have some fun configuring, I've included the VDKRunCfg.ini , just place and overwrite yours in the C:\Program Files\J.A.C.K I removed all the HalfLife and Quake stuff so it's ONLY SWAT3!!!!! configurations

Thats it!

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