(UPDATE 2 - 2/14/2016) Coding an external ship editor

[TomW1605]

I can upload an example ship blueprint if you want to see exactly what kind of design you would need for optimal conversion

could u i would be interested to see

I'll see what I can do. I'll need someone with a mac to help me test it though.

if u can get to a stage that u need it tested with in a year then i can help after that i loose my mac

 

[Cheapskate]

could u i would be interested to see

if u can get to a stage that u need it tested with in a year then i can help after that i loose my mac

Here's a small example for a tiny fighter ship

To determine ship size, just use the image size. That will be the size of your ship!

Rule breakdown for processing [or Legend]

+Black - negative space
+White - Hallway
+Silver - hull wall
+Dark Gray - doors
+Bright Silver - glass
+Gray - chair [chair, bed, furniture, etc. Basically, it's a half slab]
+red - anti-matter cannons [with dark red being it's control block. the Editor will automatically assign all connectable blocks to their control block if you define it]
+ Yellow/Dark Yellow - Shield capacitor / recharger
+Blue - engines
+Green/Dark Green - Power capacitor / reactor
+Cyan - Core

[I think that's all the colors?]

After placing this image into the converter part of the editor, all you would need to do is define the wall height [which is 3 by default] and let it run. The Converter will give you an operational [but not very optimized] ship.

 

[TomW1605]

will it support wedges and other shaped blocks? or will it do the same as SMEdit and give u a ship that needs to be smoothed?

 

[Cheapskate]

will it support wedges and other shaped blocks? or will it do the same as SMEdit and give u a ship that needs to be smoothed?

You will be able to fully define what colors represent what blocks [including wedges, slabs, etc] in the image you upload... but there will hopefully be an auto-smooth feature in the editor itself that will add all the smoothing that StarMade itself can support.

 

[TomW1605]

there will hopefully be an auto-smooth feature in the editor itself that will add all the smoothing that StarMade itself can support

this i am really really looking forward to.
[DOUBLEPOST=1454983281,1454983245][/DOUBLEPOST]by the way what language are you wrighting this in?

 

[Cheapskate]

this i am really really looking forward to.
[DOUBLEPOST=1454983281,1454983245][/DOUBLEPOST]by the way what language are you wrighting this in?

GML, if you can believe it.

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

I program in K. It's easily the best language.

 

[TomW1605]

GML, if you can believe it.

i would offer to help but all i know is python and a little C++ and HTML

 

[Cheapskate]

I program in K. It's easily the best language.

Why? : O

i would offer to help but all i know is python and a little C++ and HTML

Thank you! It's entirely possible that I will need your help in the future. Can I message you with any editor-related questions I have? Also, have you done a lot of bitwise and or HEX stuff in the past?

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Because for large database crap my god is it fast. Plus it's fun because it's makes you look cool.

 

[TomW1605]

Thank you! It's entirely possible that I will need your help in the future. Can I message you with any editor-related questions I have? Also, have you done a lot of bitwise and or HEX stuff in the past?

happy to help where i can. beyond hex colours and hexadecimal numbers i haven't used hex operations. but i am a quick study if i find it interesting.

 

[Cheapskate]

New Update as of 2/10/2016.

 

[Splamy]

Heyo, I've done some coding for myself today and it seems like the rawChunkData block in the smd2 file has changed with file version 2 (files starting with 00 00 00 02).
I have tested it with a few blocks and the ids/hp seems to match, as well as the new 5 bit orientatin seems to fit since the are for e.g. the corner block 24 possible rotations. (⌈log(2,24)⌉ = 5)
For anyone interested, my new block look like this (C#):

Spoiler

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public class BlockDataV2
    {
        public byte _a;
        public byte _b;
        public byte _c;

        public byte Orientation { get; set; } // 5 bit
        public byte Hitpoints { get; set; }   // 8 bit
        public ushort BlockID { get; set; }   // 11 bit

        public void RawToProp()
        {
            int buildint = _a << 16 | _b << 8 | _c;
            BlockID = (ushort)(buildint & 0x7FF);
            buildint >>= 11;
            Hitpoints = (byte)(buildint & 0xFF);
            buildint >>= 8;
            Orientation = (byte)(buildint & 0x1F);
        }
    }

 

[Megacrafter127]

Heyo, I've done some coding for myself today and it seems like the rawChunkData block in the smd2 file has changed with file version 2 (files starting with 00 00 00 02).
I have tested it with a few blocks and the ids/hp seems to match, as well as the new 5 bit orientatin seems to fit since the are for e.g. the corner block 24 possible rotations. (⌈log(2,24)⌉ = 5)
For anyone interested, my new block look like this (C#):

Spoiler

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public class BlockDataV2
    {
        public byte _a;
        public byte _b;
        public byte _c;

        public byte Orientation { get; set; } // 5 bit
        public byte Hitpoints { get; set; }   // 8 bit
        public ushort BlockID { get; set; }   // 11 bit

        public void RawToProp()
        {
            int buildint = _a << 16 | _b << 8 | _c;
            BlockID = (ushort)(buildint & 0x7FF);
            buildint >>= 11;
            Hitpoints = (byte)(buildint & 0xFF);
            buildint >>= 8;
            Orientation = (byte)(buildint & 0x1F);
        }
    }

That is the format for any block with 24 orientations. Logic blocks have:
orientation : 3
active : 1
hp : 9
blockID : 11
Other blocks have:
orientation : 4
hp : 9
blockID : 11

Apart from the bits for the blockID, the exact allocation of the bits depends on how many orientations the block with the given id has.
This is why I use the following union of structs(on machines operating in bigendian, littleendian has the same structs in reverse order, so that reversing the 3 bytes does not remove bits from their field. The compiler has to group bitfieds in structs together for this to be directly applicable):

union block {
  char raw[3];
  struct logicBlock {
    short orientation : 3;
    bool active : 1;
    int hp : 9;
    int id : 11;
  } logic;
  struct normalBlock {
    short orientation : 4;
    int hp : 9;
    int id : 11;
  } normal;
  struct fullRot {
    short orientation : 5;
    int hp : 8;
    int id : 11;
  } fullRotation;
};

 

[Splamy]

That is the format for any block with 24 orientations. Logic blocks have:
...

Aaah, well that explains a lot. Thank you, I haven't found anything about that in the wiki.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Aaah, well that explains a lot. Thank you, I haven't found anything about that in the wiki.

From Blueprint File Formats - StarMade Wiki :

 

[Splamy]

From Blueprint File Formats - StarMade Wiki :
View attachment 22436

Yeah, I've looked to the wrong one (File format - StarMade Wiki)

 

[Cheapskate]

From Blueprint File Formats - StarMade Wiki :
View attachment 22436

Thank you! These are quite helpful. I do have a question, though. The Header code for the wiki references blocks AND elements. What's the difference between these, if there is one?

Also, is what's a good [and hopefully, free] program to open up the StarMade ship files? [I'm writing this program on an astonishing 0$ budged] I've been using HexEdit, but it doesn't really seem to produce anything readable. I'm still trying to figure out why the Header is longer than it should be.

 

[Megacrafter127]

From File format - StarMade Wiki (may not be up to date anymore, unknown bytes may have been introduced)

Spoiler

In essence an 'element' in a header file, is just a blockId with the number of times it is used on the blueprint in question. When spawning a blueprint, starmade actually checks whether or not this differs, and may prevent the use of blueprints, where the mismatch exceeds a threshold, and may even ban the user in question, if the server.cfg specifies that.

 

[Cheapskate]

Update 2 - 2/14/2016 is out! Check first post for details.