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[pjcast]

Feel free to add to this post. However, here is my wishlist:

Basic features:
* Particle Editor - Create/load/save particle systems.
* Overlay Editor - Position/edit/size/etc overlay items
* Mesh Viewer - View/play animations, change materials, add lights  for testing out styles
* Scene Editor - Complete solution for scene editing. Placing meshes/lights/physics proxy's/etc, working with other plugins to allow for custom level creation
* Material Editor - Basic materials and Shader editing

Seemeless format support (able to 'save as'/export to other formats):
* .Scene
* Ofusion
* Collada

Extra desired features:
* Support for script editing, running, debugging

[pjcast]

I've realised I need to implement some drag and dropping support in various places. First, I think only project explorer (in the base IDE) really needs draggin enabled.. As, I could imagine you dragging a material file from the resources into the main scene form (when in editor mode), it would be nice if the editor enable's dropping support, and could just place the texture right on the mesh Also, dragging Mesh's from resources over to the scene would be good as well.

Dragging and dropping might be served well on the SceneViewier too, but, seeing how it is not really attached to an editor, it only displays object that have been added via the OgreConainter.AddObject method, so it is ideal that you could use it to rearrange node hierarchies, remove/add ent's from the scene, etc. Of course, by draggin Entities over from the resource menu, you would also have to assign it a name.

For scene editors, I imagine some meshes would be better served with autonames (like a mesh paintbrush or spray paint can .

[pjcast]

Dragging and dropping has been added

Now, I'd like to try my hand at creating a custom syntax rule for material files. Then, after that's done, I'll see about working on the WGE scene editor to allow changing of skydome/skybox/environment settings. Then, adding the ability to add/remove entities is next. After that, I imagine movement/rotating/etc would be requried to progress further.

[pjcast]

Syntax is going pretty nice so far I have most all keywords highlighted, cold folding, just need to get parameters colored now.. Also, keywords will only highlite when they are in the correct section (for instance, you can't use texture in a technique, only in a texure_unit). Anyway, back to work I go.

[pjcast]

It was a little tedious, however, I've added all paramenter syntax words now. And of course, they only apply to the propert scope. One thing I havn't really done yet is extensive vertex/fragment  program syntax. I'll be adding a quick Material Plugin, so you can at least pop open the material into the syntax text editor. Of course, I don't have the time to do a realtime preview type of material editor atm. I am still hopeful someone else will be picking that up too But, i might as well get something started.

[syedhs]

Your wish list is already impressive. But I would like to add another one  :wink:

- There will be a window maybe called Resource Manager. It will list all the materials, programs, overlays etc (well.. Ogre's resource) in the form of 'List View' in report mode. The list view may look like below:-

+---------------------------+------ ----------------------------------------+
| Resource                    |    File name                                           |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
|Example/Skyboxnoon |   c:\media\material\sample.material   |
|....                               |   c:\media\material\sample1.overlay  |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+

And then, you are able to search/edit/remove the particular resource. I think this is a real nice feature, coz sometimes I have to remember 'where the heck did I write this and that  material..?' The resource list is of course derived from resources.cfg like the usual Ogre app  :roll:

Oh btw, Great job so far..

edit: sorry, the layout above is messed up.. :?

[pjcast]

A listview is interesting.

Though, I'm wondering, have you noticed the Project Explorer? You can expand the resource groups, individual groups, resources, and materials to see what is included. Of course, you cannot search it (yet anyway). You can also drag and drop things from it (ie, drop a material definition to the loaded scene, to change materials - when using WGE Scene Editor). How would you compare your List view to the current treeview? I'm still trying to visualize your way. You can even double click (or right click) various things to open up material (top level only atm) into a text editor, or open a mesh into the mesh viewer.

Also, for textures, I plan to have a scrollable pane that will show all textures in resource groups (either using FreeImage directly, or loading from an Ogre::Image buffer into a .Net window).

[syedhs]

Okay I have to admit I didn't download the latest OgreStudio.:oops:  Let me have a look first...

[syedhs]

Okay found and download it, yes the treeview is pretty much okay with me - no need for listview. And here is a quick comment: material text editor is nice if by default, it is loaded with all materials nodes collapsed. User will need to expand only those of need  to be edited. What do you think?

[pjcast]

Oh, at first I thought you were talking about treeview node's collapsed, and not the actual cold folding - took me a couple minutes to realise.

I'm not sure how much control that the code editor control exposes (I know I can collapse all nodes - not sure about specific nodes), but I'll look to see if it's possible, and if not, how deep of changes could be made to the editor control to support selective folding. Good suggestion.

[pjcast]

Well, fold all will collapse all top level materials to just the material name. So, you could expand only what your interested in. However, it also folds all sublevels to, so involveds a lot of clicking.

Is that something you coud live with? To me, it doesn't matter too much either way.

[pjcast]

Never mind

I figured out how to only cause the material block to be collapsed.. Using the OgreMaterial.syn file, using the Scope property of DefaultExpanded="false" made only that block collapsed. I'll commit the changes to svn, and the next release of the Installer will include the change.

[syedhs]

I am sure many users will appreciate the changes you just made  

[chuck_starchaser]

It's funny; I was also thinking about a materials library manager app, a while ago. Check out this post.
I'm thinking now, it could be a plug-in.
The jest of it is: Getting away from the "texture" concept; even from the "material" concept as currently understood, and going up one level of abstraction, to dealing with "This should be fur; we need velcro here; varnished wood there", etceteras. No dealing with materials as code at all.
The basis of it:
 A simplified materials class using a common material/shader. Instances of this "material" (which I called "Real Materials" in that post) are defined by a set of textures and a parameter for each: Albedo. Plus, a common parameter to all textures in the set: Size (in millimeters, kilometers, or whatever).

A material could be defined by one or more of the following textures:

diffuse
specular
shininess
emissive
normal
height
 + "detail" versions of the above.

(By "detail" I mean a tileable texture that maps a number of times relative to the main texture, say 16 times horizontally and 16 times vertical, which helps hide pixelation artifacts when a texture is very close, and "adds detail" . Just thought I'd mention it because we added this feature to the Vegastrike engine, and it doesn't take much code at all, nor does it require a second UV mapping. It only requires an extra texture unit in the GPU; and the visual benefits are enormous. But anyhow, even if few people would use it, the possibility should be there, I think, for defining a finer-grained texture for any material.)

The library manager should enable one to categorize, search by name, search by "used-on", sort by albedo, or shininess or average color. And ultimately it would be great to add username at the front of material names (invisible), so that people could share their material libraries with others, on the internet, while avoiding name conflicts.

[chuck_starchaser]

Here's something for the wish-list: Configurable keyboard and mouse navigation. Better yet if there were pre-packaged templates. My problem is I'm so used to Blender I always try to rotate the scene by dragging the mouse with middle button down, select with right click, etceteras; not to mention my repeated and vain attempts to zoom with the mouse scroll wheel. It would be really nice not to have to get used to two totally different navigation schemes.
Come to think of it, not just navigation: I'd go for entire keyboard layout, like shift-K for cut, shift-D for duplicate, x, y or z to constrain motion/scaling along one axis, shift-x to constrain motion/scaling to the y/z plane, and so on and so forth. "." to switch to cursor as center; "," to switch to object's center as center... Would make this app an instant hit with the Blender crowd...
And I suppose the Maya and Max crowds would apreciate templates to suit their work habits, too.