Terrible editor, or am I missing something?

[Hezkore]

Is it just me or is the map editor just... terrible... like really god awful?

I mean, I've made a few racing maps and some derby maps and I can hardly finish them before the editor bugs out and all my work gets all messed up.

I'm running a clean install of GTA:SA and clean MTA:SA 1.2

Now before you all start going "OOHH DON'T COMPLAIN, IT'S HARD TO MAKE THIS KIND OF STUFF!!"

Let me just say, yes... yes it is... I do know this because I'm a coder myself and I am very impressed by how well all this works.

It truly deserves a lot of attention, because so much love and detail has gone into this projects.

I was trying out early builds many years ago and the quality they've gotten to now is amazing.

Everything works great too!

I mean the server browser is really great, even though I have some issues displaying Lan servers, but that might be my fault.

But because of all this, I also expected the Editor to be really powerful and well made, but it seems like It's gotten no attention at all... It's like pre-alpha:ish.

I also have memory of the editor being at least usable in the old versions.

I remember moving a light dot around instead of this crosshair, and I also remember being able to rotate objects instantly instead of having to place them first.

And I'm not the only one having issues with the editor.

My girlfriend's sitting behind me on her own PC and she's trying to make maps, but facing the same issues as I am.

So it's probably not my PC...

Here's just a few example of the problems I've been having. (all this in 1 day of usage)

Controls are AWFUL, I've worked with many many editors (both 3D and 2D), along with 3D applications like Maya, 3D Studio Max, Blender etc.

But MTA:SA's editor takes the price of terrible controls, I mean you can't even fine adjust stuff with the mouse, you have to click an object and then use the arrow keys, why can't I drag the X,Y,Z Gizmo they already have in place?

When I right click something, the object jumps to my new mouse position, it should be relative in position to the mouse, not absolute.

Button makes no sense either, like why can't I use W A S D to move stuff around, my hands are already on those buttons?Makes no sense using arrow keys... And there are no options for it either.

Keys get randomly stuck too.

I can't press Space to fly up with the camera, or Ctrl/C to go down, pretty annoying having to stare straight up into the sky in order to have to go up a little bit.

And when you create/drag stuff around, you can't rotate the object... which seems very odd.

Should I really have to place the object, then click on it, THEN rotate it?

[uPDATE] Seems you CAN rotate using the mouse wheel, but only in certain situations.

Duplicating object works like crap too, when you CTRL click something you're supposed to copy an object, not have the old object randomly jump to your mouse, then have a new object follow your mouse... o_O Completely bugged out, and has destroyed my levels several times.

[uPDATE] Found the C keyboard shortcut, makes it easier but that doesn't forgive the crappy duplication when using a mouse.

Page Up and Down which you use to move objects in the Y axis, also scrolls the chat list, which just seems sloppy imo. >_>

Also the interface buttons should cancel anything you do in the world, now if you click for example Racer Spawn and then change your mind and click Checkpoint directly, you'll instead place a Racer Spawn when you think you're just selection Checkpoint.

Clicking the dropdown boxes in Map Settings is bugged too, the "down arrow" is just a thin gray line, and half the time you can't click on the dropdown box in order to expand it, so I have to save the level, disconnect, start the editor again, load the map, go into Map Settings and pray it works, and usually it does (once or so).

And settings you set via the dropdown boxes aren't even saved, I don't know how many times I've changed Respawn to None and Skin to Random, it just won't save!

[uPDATE] Noticed that it's when you do a Full Test of the level the values are reset to default, every single time too.

The Save Dialog comes up randomly too, when I try the level (after having saved multiple times) it comes up and bugs me...

Happens even after I've loaded a level.

Sometimes when I test the level, the spawned vehicle bugs out and starts spinning around, or falls through the ground.

And it happens no matter how many times I try it, but I've found that deleting the spawner and placing a new one SOMETIMES helps.

Other times, it bugs out again and even can even crash the game, loading the map after that usually results in the Game Mode Race being deleted, so I have to re-add it again.

Now and then my checkpoints in Race doesn't link correctly.

I know you can re-link them via the F3 menu, but a lot of the time that doesn't even work, no arrow ever appears inside it pointing to the next one, even though it says it's linked and all.

Might be a limit on them?

And sometimes I can't even return to the editor after being in Full Test mode.

Instead of going back to the editor, some top times table or whatever comes up.

Now I could go on, but I have a feeling you guys don't want my endless spam of complaints heh.

I guess what I'm wondering really is...

Is the editor being worked at?

Are there known issues with it?

Cause I'm sure as hell am having a lot of issues with it...

And lastly, are there any alternatives to the in-game editor?

It's such a shame the editor is in this state, I'd love to make some awesome maps.

[Faw[Ful]]

Well I d'ont try the editor on 1.2, but the 1.1 editor is the best map editor for MTA for me. You have the old editor, this one is good for the first, but strange to work with the blue menu. After we have the new editor with alot of bugs for example you cant open big maps. Now 1.1 have fixed these issues, of course we are stuck with weird things like you said, the test map is very bad compared to the old editor, but you need to live with it. I never use the editor button in the game menu, I start a local server, I start the editor there and I have the game in windowed mode, I have my resources files outside of the game , I have the full control on the command prompt server and my resources files, I make backups of my maps and when problems appear I can restart the editor or resources fast , I can delete or edit the editor dump or editor test resource because they are often the source of problems. In the past, I need to split my map and at the end I need to open the .map file with notepad copy the lines of all my .map files and paste them into 1 .map file, check the meta.XML and compare it to other ones that work. At least the .map file is something easy to understand and easy to edit when you open it with notepad, you can't do this in other games editor map files (Well they are more complex of course ) ... yep mapping on MTA is sometime a pain in the ass even if the map prop models was done in a 3D digital software.