Questions about map editor and campaigns

VCMI, Is clearly the most important project in the Heroes 3 world at the moment. Likely the most important since Heroes 3 Complete. Of all the things that make up this game the most intriguing for me is the map editor and by extension the campaign editor.

erm, while powerful, is very difficult and has a steep learning curve. Would it be possible to automate a lot of the processes that would normally be performed by it. Perhaps it might even be possible to bypass it for a lot of things. Like changing creature stats. or building prices and requirements?

As for the campaign, there is no easy way to pass WOG features like commander data and stack experience from one scenario to the next. Will these things be standard VCMI?

All the game data is saved and possible to pass. I’m hoping to add native support for modules like commanders and stack experience within few months, once all remaining game mechanics are handled.

Thanks for appreciation. We have strong competition for this title.

As of the map & campaign editor, currently we don’t have plans to write one. It’s one of optional thing we are not going to start before VCMI 1.0. We will try then to write something more powerful than original editors, with more options.

It’s possible that such features will be in one of post-1.0 builds. The problem is that passing any additional info would either require a script or a change in campaign file format. Neither of these will be possible soon.

Might it be easier to have a specialized VCMI map and campaign format that only VCMI can read, along with the standard Homm3 formats?

Yes, that’s possible. VCMI will have either a completely new file format for maps and campaigns or a modified versions of original ones. Anyway, it makes no difference for regular users. We just need to choose what extension our maps should have.

Maybe use the same format for new map editor as for save? (extending it to random, saved before randomized, objects)
or maybe use compatible with wog format for maps, but only diffrent version of campaaign file, and support “starter” file (the map could be started from map file, or from the starter which calls map file and make changes on map load, so one can create a map that work great under vcmi, and work proper on wog without some features?)

Yes, that’s possible. But another problem just came on my mind: when you play VCMI or Heroes, you can alt-tab and preview the map in map editor to see how does it look. It makes FoW partially pointless… I think FoW could be displayed as grayed non-initialized terrain instead of completely hidden areas. End of offtop.

Your idea could be good, but I think it would be easier to just modify h3m loading.

Interesting idea. But those ‘starter files’ should consist of scripts. And script support is not going to be implemented soon.

I’m running H3 on Linux/Wine. It used to work. But currently original H3 crashes. WoG crashes. VCMI at least runs for some rounds.

So for me conclusion ist: VCMI is the only relevant project around H3 at the moment. HotA (and others) are interesting, but useless if the program always crashes. VCMI ist the base to keep H3 alive.

Sieg, it compiles on linux in native mode - let try without wine (you have to download development/source package and do some makes/compiles)

I know. And i tried both.

Unfortunately vcmi isn’t ready. So from time to time the game crashes while doing something with some object. F.ex. i tried the map “Mandate of heaven”. The game crashed always when i visited one of the obelisks. And it was not possible to use any of the subterranean gates. Although here the game did not crash. Then the game crashed when i built the mana forge in the dungeon town. Seems the mana forge is not implemented.

And so on. I tried other maps, too. Most times vcmi crashes is when using some object. But sometimes it also crashes out of nothing. The log then complains something about some mutex in the boost lib.

But sure, vcmi is not really playable for now. I know that. So i don’t want to complain here. It’s just a fact. And i know i have to be patient.

Obelisks are implemented, Mana Vortex is also implemented. Subterra Gates were corrupted recently. Just see the implementation status and report any new bugs you find.

Game no more crashes at random and seems pretty playable on Windows platform. If you notice some desynchronization issue, please give detailed description so it can be fixed.

Is it best to report those crashes there (implementation status)?

How about bugs.vcmi.eu/my_view_page.php?

Item implementation status is here: spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= … pLe4raNAWA . You can check there if a certain object / spell / something else has been implemented and is supposed to work. If it’s not, you should report it on our bugtracker - link provided by Warmonger. Reporting of any crashes / hangs is also welcome.

O.k., thanks.

Another question: Each map played with vcmi the AI was just sitting in the town doing nothing. I think it’s not supposed to. Is this still an open issue? There was no crash or special message regarding this.

Why don’t you just read this and this? All the info is avaliable.

Because i did not know about this.