New Editor

Just over two weeks ago I set out to remake the central tool used for content creation in Annihilation Arena II, that is the level editor. The main problem was the underlying data structure system that was just not designed for the expansion and new ideas that have been taken on as the game development has progressed. Whilst fixing this it also appeared like it would be a good idea to give the whole user interface a re-design too. If this tool was to be used to make many levels it had better be fairly efficient to use.

The old editor simply showed a 2D tile layout depicting the level. This becomes unclear as you put layers of tiles down. I originally got round this with blending but it's still a bit of a nuisance. A trigger zone was laid out by placing four points to define the rectangle... could get confusing as the number of triggers grew. Item and tile placement was slightly restrictive due to the fixed 2D view, no zoom. The UI system was far from intuitive but just designed on the go. The 2D editor did it's job at the time allowing me to quickly build some basic test levels to play around in but was obviously not going be adequate for the rest of the project.

The old 2D level editor

The new editor supports everything the old did and more. It will also be FAR easier to add new things to, should I need it, as the development proceeds. The new 3D view can be moved around with much greater scope. It gives you a far better feel for how the level will look in game. I've kept the scenery tiles as buttons as I prefer the quick human visual look-up rather than clicking on a drop down box. The editor is actually a pleasure to use now!

New 3D Editor

note the trigger box in red