Mike.nl

At long last, Petroglyph released the mod tools for Universe at War. The mod tools contain: Asset Viewer The Asset Viewer allows you to view models, animations and particles as they would appear in the game. While viewing, you can tweak various lighting parameters to see how the asset holds up in various lighting conditions. Particle Editor The Particle Editor is a powerful editor that enables you to develop, debug and preview particle systems. You use it by setting up emitters that emit particles defined by a rich set of plugins that modify the various properties of those particles independently. A set of simulation options are available to preview how the particle system would look in game. Particle systems are, for instance, explosions, weapons fire, halos, fire, sparks, splashes, radiation and much more. GUI Editor The GUI editor, combined with the GUI Lua files enables you to completely reprogram the GUI. Every button, textfield, slider, window, dialog can be changed, removed or added to. The GUI Lua files contain the code that makes your creations in the GUI Editor come to life. With it, you can completely redesign every faction's interface, add buttons to control your special units, add new menus in the main menu, and so on. A GUI file (.BUI) is a hierarchy of UI elements such as buttons, lists, sliders, lines, quads, and so on, where each element has certain properties. Lua Debugger The Lua Debugger is an application that allows you to, as the name says, debug the Luas files as they are executed by the game. The program connects to the game and once connected, all debug output by Luas executed by the game are shown in the debugger. This tool is invaluable if a set of Lua files do not behave properly and you can't figure out why from just looking at the code. Data Miner The Data Miner offers modders the ability to extract various bits of information from the game's XML files. Use it to compare unit statistics or other properties. This will make balancing units in your mod a piece of cake. 3D Studio Max 9 exporter plugin Max 9 exporter is a pretty self explaining tool. It is Autodesk 3d max 9 plugin that allows 3d max 9 to export to .alo and .ala for models and animations. Exporting to .alo and .ala means that models exported from 3d max 9 can used in Universe at War. Terrain Editor The Terrain Editor (aka Map Editor) allows the creation of single and multiplayer maps for in game use. Download the mod tools from FileFront. We're looking forward to seeing what the community will do with them!

Happy Birthday, me! It's tradition to hand out cake on one's birthday, but since we all know that , I decided to take some screen shots of my Map Editor-in-development: It shows the UaW Sahara map and some panels and dialogs. Note there's no skybox yet, or objects, or water, or... well, anything but the terrain, editor UI and painting brush (the latest addition). The brush system will be more powerful, precise and clear than Petroglyph's version. That feature, combined with various usability improvements over their version, Universe at War support and all options enabled (yes, that means Tracks, as in rivers) will hopefully make this tool a valuable addition to any modder's toolset. When it's done that is

My unofficial mod tools are now being hosted by Petro-Gamers at modtools.petro-gamers.com. The site switch improves my site's reliability and bandwidth and provided a good opportunity to change the design to a more professional one. Along with the site switch, the new version of the Alamo Object (ALO) Viewer, version 1.0, has been released after many months of development. And with the help of Raziel Kanos, all tools have also been translated into German.