[JAEnhanced] Enhanced Development Platform (EDP)

[eezstreet]

The Enhanced Development Platform is the base which Jedi Knight: Enhanced is developed on, and it's designed to be used by other modders as well. It is based on OpenJK and is targeting singleplayer only.

 

So what will EDP offer you as a modder that isn't offered by OpenJK or JAMP? Well...

• Better graphics, and better performance too. EDP offers two renderers: GL1 and GL2 (better known as rend2). GL1 is similar to the original game's renderer but runs better. GL2/rend2 is a modern renderer with enough new features to warrant its own thread. On top of that, we will be focusing on changing the renderer pipeline to eliminate some of the greatest bottlenecks in the engine. And on top of that, we've added some novelty quality of life features like SFX sabers, holstering, and more. And on top of that you have this all running on OpenJK, which has all kinds of nice performance boosts.
• Ingame editing tools. Many of the new modding features in EDP can be accessed entirely ingame. The AI workshop lets you debug AI scripts with ease, or just screw around, if that's what you want to do. An updated waypoint editor lets you develop the navigation of the map without recompiling, and you can view your results live with the AI workshop. There are more tools coming, and these are just the start.
• More things, to be added in the future. I have a lot of crazy ideas which I want to implement. This is just the start.

 

Documentation:

• Downloading and installing the Enhanced Development Platform, the easy way
• Downloading and installing EDP, from source
• Setting up your project
• Adding new weapons
• Material workflow: .mtr and you
• Deploying your project
• CVAR list, rend2

(If a piece of documentation doesn't have a link, that means it's still being written!)

[eezstreet]

I'm thinking about implementing a series of configuration files that can be used to enable/disable certain features at startup, instead of making these all cvars as I feel like it would lead to unnecessary cvar bloat (also, autoexec.cfg for instance tends to be finnicky for developing stuff with).

 

Here's an example of what I'm thinking of, using the base game's method of parsing files:

 

 

detachable_eweb
{
    featureEnabled 1
    explosionEffect env/explosion
}

 

Some of the base game's cvars can be migrated to such a system:

 

 

swappable_sabers
{
    featureEnabled 1
}
 
manual_blocking
{
    featureEnabled 1
    blockButton BUTTON_ALT_ATTACK
}

 

I want them to be pretty convenient to handle in code too, for our purposes.

 

Force powers and weapons wouldn't be an example of something that can be configured in this system, instead I am thinking of making those into external files/scripts somehow.

[Teancum]

Maybe an in-game video might help. I'm not the most observant guy but I don't see a difference.

[Tempust85]

Is the code in a "good to go" state? I'm wanting to move DF2 over to this, and asap.

[eezstreet]

Is the code in a "good to go" state? I'm wanting to move DF2 over to this, and asap.

It works, yeah. But not all of the code that I want externalized, is externalized.

Basically I want to get the weapons and force powers separated into external scripts or something else, so that the new weapons and force powers can be considered a scripted aspect specific to JK:E, and not part of the "engine" so to speak.

If you think you're going to be ok with some more upstream pulls, then go for it. There's also a rend2-sp branch as well, and a lot of our code is in common there.

[eezstreet]

The GL2 renderer (rend2) will use realtime lighting as an option in addition to lightmaps. Which of course means that you can preview your lights and get the mood just right, unlike in Radiant.

There will be an ingame lighting editor which you can use to add, remove, and adjust lights on your level. These lights will get saved to a .rtl file with the same name as the map (t2_trip.rtl for instance). A .rtl will get automatically generated at level start if one does not exist, based on a special "realtime_light" entity (which gets discarded after map load, so it doesn't affect the entity limit).

 

No screenshots of this yet, just code, which I need @@SomaZ to assist me in finishing.

I've got the code written, except for the saving and loading. Just the basic console commands for right now.

https://pastebin.com/StwxpyiK

 

It's currently set up like a gamecode file - you'll want it to probably live on the client.

[SomaZ]

I will look at it on Friday.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

Maybe an in-game video might help. I'm not the most observant guy but I don't see a difference.

If I could explain it a bit better, SFX Sabers makes the sabers more so like they were in the movies. A more faithful to the series cvar if you ask me. And I personally love that feature cause JKA needed that in SP FOR A WHILE.

[Jeff]

If I could explain it a bit better, SFX Sabers makes the sabers more so like they were in the movies. A more faithful to the series cvar if you ask me. And I personally love that feature cause JKA needed that in SP FOR A WHILE.

 

Does it take away the blur as well?

[eezstreet]

Does it take away the blur as well?

It doesn't exactly take it away, it makes it different, and active all the time. Basically the core (not the glow) is the only thing that blurs, and it uses a different shader for the trail to make it look like it is blurred. I'm not sure how to describe it easily, but it's very cinematic looking.

[minilogoguy18]

We should adopt this to DF2 @@DT85.

 

It does look much closer to the movies, it'll look better in base JA rather than MB2 just because it always seemed like MB2 slowed down the saber animations and saber combat in general.

[Tempust85]

@@minilogoguy18 I'll be moving DF2 over to EDP, so we'll get this and the rest of the cool shit that EDP offers/will offer.

[eezstreet]

Added a video to the first post to demonstrate this feature (apologies for poor video quality, seems like YouTube butchered it)

[Teancum]

Ah, now I see it! I'm so used to Raven's saber effects that I'll probably keep it there, but I can see how this is appealing.

[Jeff]

It doesn't exactly take it away, it makes it different, and active all the time. Basically the core (not the glow) is the only thing that blurs, and it uses a different shader for the trail to make it look like it is blurred. I'm not sure how to describe it easily, but it's very cinematic looking.

 

This is going in my base folder. Thanks for the info.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

This is going in my base folder. Thanks for the info.

I'd recommend this to ANY JKA player who uses SP, TBH.

[Jeff]

I'd recommend this to ANY JKA player who uses SP, TBH.

 

Wait does it work in MP?

[TheWhitePhoenix]

Wait does it work in MP?

As far as I know, JKA Enhanced is SP only. @@eezstreet is there gonna be an MP version available soon?

[eezstreet]

As per the pinned thread:

 

 

The Enhanced Development Platform is the base which Jedi Knight: Enhanced is developed on, and it's designed to be used by other modders as well. It is based on OpenJK and is targeting singleplayer only.

[afi]

You can use cg_sabertrail to get a somewhat comparable effect

[eezstreet]

 

 

In this picture, I've selected the Cheats Menu item and moved it to the right.

 

The properties window opened

 

 

 

Very super early WIP but there will be the functionality to edit .menu files from ingame so it's easier to make quick adjustments to the menus.

 

Controls

You need to have the cvar "developer" set to 1 in order to use this.

 

F11 - Enable/Disable ingame UI editor

F12 - Take screenshot

 

Main controls

• MOUSE1 - Select itemDef
• MOUSE2 - Deselect
• N - Create new itemDef
• DELETE - Delete itemDef
• P - Toggle Property Window for selection
• Arrow keys - Move selected itemDef
• I / K - Stretch/shrink itemDef vertically
• J / L - Stretch/shrink itemDef horizontally

Property window controls

• ENTER - Edit property
• Up/Down arrow keys - Scroll through properties
• PAGE UP/PAGE DOWN - Scroll through properties (faster)

 

The properties window, creating new itemDefs, deleting itemDefs, and saving are not currently done yet.

I made a Developer Menu to test this feature out on, which will also have cheats and stuff.

[Mandalorian]

Super cool! I look forward to this project !

[eezstreet]

Properties window now done, see OP for screenshot.

Not all of the properties are available for editing yet. Still have to code special handling for a lot of things like shader/model types.

[Noodle]

This could make modding so much easier, a lot of time is wasted when you have to constantly check if your custom menu works and looks like you wanted to.

[Tempust85]

@@eezstreet

 

If you're interested - I have a clean, "DF2-free" version of DF2's GL2 here for you. I started off from JKE master and added the GL2 stuff in, minus widescreen in-case you have something of the like in JKE already. JK2 should also have GL2 support in the cmake files, but it's untested:

 

https://github.com/DT85/DF2-EDP/tree/Clean-GL2

 

 

Changes from JKE master:

 

- renamed all sp vanilla renderers to GL1

- added GL2 with untested JK2 support in cmake files

 

 

EDIT:

 

I've noticed that some stuff that's in JK2's code, isn't in JKA's code. For example, json. Will the JK2 features be shared at some point?