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TileCutter 0.5.1 Alpha Release

Started by Ashley, February 15, 2009, 12:12:52 AM

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Ashley

There is a newer release of TileCutter available, see: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4329

This is an alpha release of the new TileCutter.

Please note that this version is still under development, and there may be some major bugs. If you do encounter any issues using it please submit a bug report by posting in reply to this thread with the following information:

1. Circumstances and description of the issue
2. tilecutter.log and TileCutter5.exe.log (if present)


Known Bugs
- Non-ASCII characters in paths do not work
- Slight colour issue in output can break special colours
- Last save directory not stored


What's new
Completely re-written cutting engine, no longer sucks (I hope!)
New and improved UI
Makeobj integration and one-click export
Ability to save + load project files
Better translation system and (hopefully) integration with SimuTranslator

What's still to do
Lots of testing
Full dat file editor
Smoke editor
Online documentation
Source distribution/public SVN
Mac distribution
Windows msi installer

What's also under development
I am also developing an entirely online version of TileCutter which will use the same cutting engine. This isn't really ready for public consumption however. It will do everything that the downloadable version of TileCutter can do, and the project files will be interoperable.

Notes
All the paths in the main window are relative to the project save location path. This is intended to allow you to put all your work files in one directory, and then to be able to move or zip that directory and send it to someone else while preserving all the links to the images. Also note that the images are not saved with the project file, only links to them are (this may change at some point).

It's also worth pointing out that in order for the one click exporting to work (e.g. makeobj integration) you need to have filled out the correct details in the dat editing window. Currently this is just a text entry box, but this will change in future to a proper dat editing UI. The image array information is automatically generated and appended to whatever you type into this box.

Download
You can download this alpha release of TileCutter from the following link:

TileCutter_win_0.5.1-alpha.zip (7.2 MB)

While this version of TileCutter is listed as an alpha release, it is in all likelihood more stable and likely to work than the previous (0.3d.1) version. I recommend using this version over the 0.3 releases.
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jamespetts

Hmm, I'm interested - how would the dat file editor and makeobj integration work? I am wondering how that would end up interoperating with Simutrans-Experimental, which would use additional options in the .dat files and a special version of Makeobj...
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VS

#2
As long as it is a superset of normal makeobj, it should work. Obviously any additional functionality is unavailable...

EDIT: this version no longer has the interface for adding parameters from gui, so it should be irrelevant.

EDIT2: Oh wow, it works! First time I was able to use it. Good job!

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

vilvoh

Great!! some quick thoughts from first contact:

The new GUI it's more simpler and intuitive. All options are accesible without having to search through the menus. Finally there's support for Frontimages and winter versions. The dat file options menu is more flexible but more difficult to manage. This time, you have to know the specific dat options of the object you want to develop, in case you want to make the pak from Tilecutter.

I think I understand why this has been implemented this way. Makeobj development is faster than Tilecutter's, and if you create a static dat files options interface, you'll have to change with every new makeobj release. After all, Tilecutter is a tool for cutting images, not for creating dat files. It's a reasonable choice.

To sum up, from my point of view, you've done Tilecutter more simpler and easy to use...two thumbs up!

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

Ashley

Quote from: jamespetts on February 15, 2009, 11:05:17 AM
Hmm, I'm interested - how would the dat file editor and makeobj integration work? I am wondering how that would end up interoperating with Simutrans-Experimental, which would use additional options in the .dat files and a special version of Makeobj...

TileCutter simply uses a supplied version of makeobj to output pak files, this function isn't really finished yet but there'll be a way to set a path to the makeobj executable eventually. It then cuts the image, writes the dat file, and passes both into makeobj to be compiled. The upshot being that you can use a compatible version of makeobj for whichever Simutrans you are developing for.

Quote from: VS on February 15, 2009, 11:12:34 AM
As long as it is a superset of normal makeobj, it should work. Obviously any additional functionality is unavailable...

EDIT: this version no longer has the interface for adding parameters from gui, so it should be irrelevant.

EDIT2: Oh wow, it works! First time I was able to use it. Good job!

I am glad you found it easier to use :) That was one of the big aims. The GUI for editing dat files is coming back, I just haven't finished that yet. I'm going to make it optional, so you can either use the GUI, or a simple text editor, or even both. This will mean for most users they have a nice simple GUI interface for configuring dat files, but if you want to do something special, or "experimental" then you can enter any arbitrary dat file parameters you like.

Quote from: vilvoh on February 15, 2009, 01:04:35 PM
Great!! some quick thoughts from first contact:

The new GUI it's more simpler and intuitive. All options are accesible without having to search through the menus. Finally there's support for Frontimages and winter versions. The dat file options menu is more flexible but more difficult to manage. This time, you have to know the specific dat options of the object you want to develop, in case you want to make the pak from Tilecutter.

I think I understand why this has been implemented this way. Makeobj development is faster than Tilecutter's, and if you create a static dat files options interface, you'll have to change with every new makeobj release. After all, Tilecutter is a tool for cutting images, not for creating dat files. It's a reasonable choice.

To sum up, from my point of view, you've done Tilecutter more simpler and easy to use...two thumbs up!

Thankyou for your feedback :) As I said before, the dat file dialog is only a temporary thing, the GUI editor is coming back :) Very little usually changes in makeobj in terms of buildings, and once the editor is complete it's relatively easy to update for new functionality. The main motivation for not including it yet is that it's a secondary feature (and quite a complex one) and I wanted to focus on the core functionality for now.

As they say, watch this space :)
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VS

What can I say, it has decided to make me sad again. Nothing makes it actually show the image.

Do you want the log?

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Ashley

Yes please, can you describe a bit more what the issue is?
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VS

I enter the image file, but nothing happens... The gui parts ans save/load are responsive, but I can't get the image to display.

install dir:
D:\Hry\Simutrans\DEV\TileCutter 0.5.1

file:
D:\Temp\radyn2.PNG

Before that, the file was called radyně2.PNG, but I spotted something about "not in ascii" in log, and removed the potentially offensive letter to be sure.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Ashley

#8
Yes, looks like it's breaking on non-ASCII characters, I'll look into this more, for now I recommend using only ASCII filenames for now, apologies!

I believe it was breaking on the accented i in Vladimir, rather than the e in radyne, which is why changing that made no difference. It should of course not be breaking at all on such a thing...
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VS

Oh - I was wondering where it broke after that. Good, now I should log in as my brother to use it ;)

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

TonyBzt

Timothy, do you think to make tilecutter portable to linux  ???
I use it under linux using wine, but in this case it's a big "resource-eater"  ;)

VS

Seconded - and I want plain source release, without the pile of libs packed together! I already have them all, and being able to actually fix some problems instead of helpless frustration is better... no?

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Ashley

A source distribution is planned, I have not gotten around to setting that distribution script up, or making the svn publicly accessible yet.

Probably will come with the first beta release I'd imagine.
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sojo

The new tilecutter save not the last directory. That's are a lot of clicks for every new object.

But, this tool is very nice!!!
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vilvoh

I've written a short review about this new version of Tilecutter in the blog Escala Real...link

P.S: the review is in spanish... ;D

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

mobo

This is really a lot better than v0.3 which i used before. I managed to cut a 3x2x1(z) with 2 rotations and summer and winter image in one tilecutter "operation". The only thing curious i found was the order on the output img.

3x2 means 6 tiles per image so 24 all in all.

Tilecutter made a 5x5 tile image and put the cut tiles in .0.0 ; .0.1 ... till the row was full and then made a linebreak to .1.0. So on .1.0 was the last of the first 6 tiles. Which left space for 4 tiles of image 2 (same rotation but winter) in that row, the last 2 went on the next line and so on...

Why did'nt it just create a 6x4 tile output png? Then every image would have been on one row. And row 0 and 1 (as well as 2 and 3) would have looked the same, except for row 1 is the winter image of row 0.

This way i would have recognized the order at first glance, while the output png i got looked messed up until i understood the order. And the last tile was wasted (empty) since 5x5=25 and there were only 24 tiles.

That's just a little observation. Besides that tilecutter ia a real treat, and far easier and faster than cutting by hand. I think I'll nominate it for next sourceforge award  ;D

Ashley

Hello mobo, thanks for your feedback. The simple answer is that TileCutter isn't that clever :)

The cutting engine calculates how many non-blank tiles will be in the output image, then it finds the square root of that number (rounding up) to find the length of side of the square which will be able to fit the images in. The idea of this is to produce the smallest possible output image (and, since the image is generated programatically and not intended to be edited after export I thought this wasn't a bad way to do it). TileCutter can also output the images in "verbose" mode. In this mode a very large image is typically produced with the component tiles arranged in a very deterministic layout. Fundamentally there's no reason why the layout can't be customised in any way required (since the cutting engine is quite flexible). I just picked that method because it worked reasonably well.

I will add an option to the next release so you can specify the cut image layout, and see if I can improve on that routine a little.

And I don't think TileCutter would qualify, since it isn't hosted on SourceForge :p
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