Level Editor for Corona SDK

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hey Corona devs!

I just wanted to ask your opinions on a project I’ve been working on for the last months.
I started developing an importer for a third party app, that can be used as a level editor.

I wrote a blog post about here. In this article I explain why I wrote this module and in what direction this project might go in the future.

Here is the blog article.

And here is a video that shows the most important features that are currently implemented:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9olZiHqAgc[/media]

I would really like to know if this is something that is worth developing for other Corona developers. 

Let me know what you think!

Best | René

#2

@all,

Please answer René and perhaps ignore what I’ve written below till after you write your own response.

I’ve made some suggestions that might actually be off-putting and I don’t want to do that.  I want you guys to give René a meaningful response, untainted by my input.  

@René,

I for one think this is a great idea. 

Crowd Fund The Development

It was suggested below that you try to crowdfund this.  That is an excellent idea, in fact this is my favorite suggestion so far.

Not only will it give you  real proof  that folks are willing to back the project, but it will give you funds to support further development and open you to a new audience. 

(It is important to get as much surface area for your idea as possible, and Kickstarter has a huge audience.)

Must Be Sustainable

If you decide to make this, it needs to be sustainable.  That is, I would love to see you make this a real business sustaining product for you. 

To do that, you’ll have to charge real money (I said as much on your blog’s feedback).  You can’t target free and low-$ users with this.  A lot of folks will dislike this suggestion, but without $ you can’t do the work nor can you maintain the product.

Honestly, I’d like to see something in about 1/4 to 1/2 the price range of Build Box.   However, having said that I’d make some big requests:

  • Template System - I’d love for this tool to be able to load previously saved ‘templates’.  As I read it, this would already be supported in the sense that you can reload an ongoing project.
  • Starter System - I’d also love to see a built-in starter system.  This would be like templates, but simple starter games with specific mechanics already laid out.
  • User Mod-able - This may be stretching things, but if you can come up with a way for users to modify the interface and behavior of your tool and its sub-editors that would be a big deal.  This would create a eco-system around your tool for paid and free ‘mods’.  It would also take a huge load off of you for ‘coming up with every possible feature’.

I’m sure I’ll have more ideas later, but for now I just wanted to respond early and say this looks great and I really think it is a good idea!

Windows Support Not Possible

I understand why this is a Mac-ONLY product, but it will alienate a few users.

(For those who don’t know, René’s tool is based on Hype, which is a Mac-ONLY product.  There is no way he can make this for Windows without switching away from Hype.)

That said, for whatever reason, this community seems to have a very high number of Mac users so you should be safe offering such a product.

(For those who don’t agree… sorry! While I am a Windows user, I still think __René is best served catering to the Mac majority here.  Anyways, if you want to publish to Apple store you need a Mac. So, eventually all devs who have money to spend on hardware and tools are Mac owners.  I have both OS X and Win machines, I just do all my dev on Win.)

Respect!

#3

Hi!

Looks very interesting but one requirement for my part would be that it would work under Windows 10.

Not everyone use macs.

#4

@René,

Super exciting. And as @roaminggamer said: respect. 

I’d pay the $99 for hyper pro. It is a very reasonable price. Also, the prices you have in mind for your plugin are also very reasonable.

(Sorry @roaminggamer, but i think the prices you suggested are a bit high).

I can’t comment on feature requests before playing around with the software first. But from your intro video, you seem to have added the most essential features. 

Keep up the good work.  ;) 

#5

Looks very promising!

I would do a crowd funding to get it started… and if that doesn’t match up with the time you spend - release it to be a open source community project, with an option to donate to you for your effort managing it.

#6

It does look quite interesting but I’ve been using Level director x for a few years now and for under $20 for the full version, it is an absolute bargain, it is cross platform, supports animations, physics, joints etc and is written mainly for Corona SDK, so for me, I couldn’t justify the price of Hype.

#7

Thanks for all your valuable feedback!

@roaminggamer

Very good thoughts you bring up here. I like the idea of building an eco system, where even other developers can contribute by building plugins. But I think this would not be possible with Hype. AFAIK Hype is not “open” in a way that you can write plugins for it. So here I would say Tiled or even a complete new Editor would be the way to go.

Crowdfunding seems like a very interesting idea for me. I have to check the possibilities, legals and what funding platforms would be best for such a project. 

@Elliott
Honestly after I started this thread I get into the third party section and saw Level Director X the first time. From a short test I see some features the Hype3 will never be able to support (i.e. animated sprites). On the other hand I can see that Level Director X does not support transition/timeline animations to create animated UI elements or characters (that are not sprite sheet based). I think currently both approaches do have there pros and cons. Would be interesting to compare them in more detail.

#8

@DevilSquid – René

Congrats for your project… 

I am for some time looking for an editor.

I looked at Hype and really like it, hope we had something like that in Corona.

The only problem is really that it is not open source so we cannot change it.

Not sure if it would be possible to go around that limitation and use Hype´s HTML/Widget to signal new functionality when you parse the XML file. 

I already tried Level Director X, and also Overlap2D (open source). This last one is very close to Hype, but it does not have animation, but it supports sprites, spine, physics and particles… exports an easy readably json file and like Hype easy to use.

Back to Hype, I really like it, also the fact that we could export to HTML5 (Corona promise this for some time now), we work with mobile learning, so we could use Hype to design the course screens for the App and for the web as well.

Let me know how could we help in terms of financial support and time taken for you to complete the Hype project.

Regarding crowdfunding I think it is a way to go, but to build a new editor, not sure how long it would take, and even if could it be build using Corona for the desktop. But nothing is perfect, and because Corona does not support HTML5, we would miss the Hype export to HTML feature.

Another Editor is Cocos Creator, not sure if it is open source, but I think it is, it supports even lua export, animation, spine, sprites etc maybe this is another option to consider… your thoughts are welcomed…

UPDATE: Took a closer look at Cocos Creator, maybe this is really the way to go… has everything we need, if you are interested let us know how can we support you in developing a module for it…

Cheers

Rui Tito

#9

Hi all,

@René, Firstly you have made very good job, it seems very cool and useful.

I announced a web based corona level editor concept a few years ago, too. But It couldn’t get enough attention. 

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/62730-a-new-level-editor-easyleveldesign/

Also I faced some limitations about developing web based level editor. 

After some times later from my announcement I started to develop a new one for windows desktop.

I tried to prepare a video, it was not so good but excuse me. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbGqrFFulXQ&feature=youtu.be

Here one example unfinished one of my test games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBXPcJDnnPU&feature=youtu.be

I realized that I really love it after developing some parts of level editor. I can say, I am passionate about developing tools to make developers work easy. Actually I am doing this in my fulltime job.

I would be very happy if I find a way for earning money continuesly with this kind of editors. 

I want to allocate full time to develop fully functional one especially for Corona.

I would be pleased to hear your thoughts. 

Engin.

#10

Hi Engin,

I can see that already a lot of work went into that editor. Properties are added much better like this. The spritesheet support is very cool. But yes … the video is quite “dry” without any sounds or explanations.

One thing that is really important for me is to be able to animate things in the editor. Let the UI elements wiggle or even animate a character i.e. to let designers choose how thnsg are moving. That is why I really want timelines where you can set keyframes to achieve that.

Very good work!

#11

Hi René,

Many thanks for your sincere thoughts.

I wanted to make a quick introduction. Preparing video is too hard to me :slight_smile:

As I mentioned above, I am planning to develop a new edition of my editor with full of useful features.

In this one, we can export our work after we finish it, but if we want to make a change and get a new export, there is an override risk.

It wouldn’t be nice to lose our labors like that. 

I want to develop Unity-like editor( absolutely with less features at the beginning:) ) that we would make any necessary changes, modify codes in-editor without any override risks, we could make animations with timeline, etc.

All things can be done, but most of these features require two parts of development. One of them is editor side, and other one is lua side.

It needs too much effort to apply all things in harmony.

I think lack of sophisticated Corona level editor is a rare opportunity for me to show my skills in engineering.

If I do, I will use Electron, Reactand a light-weight database(I didn’t think about it yet).

But I can not decide that whether it is really necessary or not, or is it worth to develop.

I really want to develop this kind of Corona SDK Level Editor. 

But it really needs financial and community supports and feedbacks.

Since I have married it is hard to quit my full-time job.  :slight_smile:

#12

As the author of Level Director X, I think other 3rd party developers would agree that it seems quite difficult to make a living from selling tools/utilities to Corona users. From my experience, the pros have their own tools and the hobby developers don’t really want to invest money into something that may never see the light of day. I’ve been maintaining Level Director for a number of years and the sales barely cover the cost of the yearly domain fees, but that works for me, I enjoy working on it and love seeing games made with it get released, that’s my reward. My advice would be to treat it as a hobby and get a basic version released to gauge interest and take it from there.

#13

Hey Corona devs!

I just wanted to ask your opinions on a project I’ve been working on for the last months.
I started developing an importer for a third party app, that can be used as a level editor.

I wrote a blog post about here. In this article I explain why I wrote this module and in what direction this project might go in the future.

Here is the blog article.

And here is a video that shows the most important features that are currently implemented:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9olZiHqAgc[/media]

I would really like to know if this is something that is worth developing for other Corona developers. 

Let me know what you think!

Best | René

This is something I’ve been meaning to write myself for a long time but never seem to find the time between clients and my own projects, but if you release it I would buy it, the time it saves is well worth the money you would charge for it.

#14

While we’re sharing, here’s a of some stuff I do in my own custom embedded editor:

 [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt3vg573PKQ[/media] 

Over the last few months I revamped the whole node-linking feature and went to town adding “state” components (I might rename these to entities or something). This is something that might be familiar to anyone using, say, the Blender material editor, or Unreal’s Blueprints (in this case, the similarities are probably about 50/50 inspired vs. coincidental). This is also where I use expression evaluators, though I didn’t get a chance to show it just yet.

I’d like to make some of these capabilities to others down the road, but who knows when. It’s complex, to say the least.  :smiley:

Obviously the styling of it all could use some work, but hasn’t been my major concern.

#15

@DevilSquid

How is the project going?  Any updates?

Also, I’d love to buy any of the apps you created using this method.  Can you provide a link?

This is a super-impressive endeavor, keep us posted!

Jonathan

#16

Hey sporkfin,

well, still thinking about the options and talking to other developers what they think.

But at last I can tell that I released our Idle Traveler game that has bee created with Hype3 as an editor (you may have already seen a bit in the video above).

Unfortunately it is only released for Android now (Apple has some problems with our tax agreement, we think it is because of a ‘comma’)

Here is the link to the game on Google Play Store

#17

It’s not available in my country yet (U.S.) or so the message says.  I’ll check again later, thanks!

#18

Just my 5 cents… this is something that should be in core.  Corona really lacks in the UI department.

#19

@all,

Please answer René and perhaps ignore what I’ve written below till after you write your own response.

I’ve made some suggestions that might actually be off-putting and I don’t want to do that.  I want you guys to give René a meaningful response, untainted by my input.  

@René,

I for one think this is a great idea. 

Crowd Fund The Development

It was suggested below that you try to crowdfund this.  That is an excellent idea, in fact this is my favorite suggestion so far.

Not only will it give you  real proof  that folks are willing to back the project, but it will give you funds to support further development and open you to a new audience. 

(It is important to get as much surface area for your idea as possible, and Kickstarter has a huge audience.)

Must Be Sustainable

If you decide to make this, it needs to be sustainable.  That is, I would love to see you make this a real business sustaining product for you. 

To do that, you’ll have to charge real money (I said as much on your blog’s feedback).  You can’t target free and low-$ users with this.  A lot of folks will dislike this suggestion, but without $ you can’t do the work nor can you maintain the product.

Honestly, I’d like to see something in about 1/4 to 1/2 the price range of Build Box.   However, having said that I’d make some big requests:

  • Template System - I’d love for this tool to be able to load previously saved ‘templates’.  As I read it, this would already be supported in the sense that you can reload an ongoing project.
  • Starter System - I’d also love to see a built-in starter system.  This would be like templates, but simple starter games with specific mechanics already laid out.
  • User Mod-able - This may be stretching things, but if you can come up with a way for users to modify the interface and behavior of your tool and its sub-editors that would be a big deal.  This would create a eco-system around your tool for paid and free ‘mods’.  It would also take a huge load off of you for ‘coming up with every possible feature’.

I’m sure I’ll have more ideas later, but for now I just wanted to respond early and say this looks great and I really think it is a good idea!

Windows Support Not Possible

I understand why this is a Mac-ONLY product, but it will alienate a few users.

(For those who don’t know, René’s tool is based on Hype, which is a Mac-ONLY product.  There is no way he can make this for Windows without switching away from Hype.)

That said, for whatever reason, this community seems to have a very high number of Mac users so you should be safe offering such a product.

(For those who don’t agree… sorry! While I am a Windows user, I still think __René is best served catering to the Mac majority here.  Anyways, if you want to publish to Apple store you need a Mac. So, eventually all devs who have money to spend on hardware and tools are Mac owners.  I have both OS X and Win machines, I just do all my dev on Win.)

Respect!

#20

Hi!

Looks very interesting but one requirement for my part would be that it would work under Windows 10.

Not everyone use macs.