why hasnt someone thought of this before jesus
I'm sure they have. But the math is really complex, so few would want to delve into it. As I mentioned in
another thread, I've been working on a tool for trench digging that involves similar maths. So I've scratched the surface of what this might take. Pretty much a bunch of vector math, scratch paper, and headaches. But I think it needs to be done, nonetheless.
I'm certain they want something more interactive, plus PTG's ability to let you specify values is still pretty limited.
Exactly.
Something like this is totally possible, though not something I'd personally have the skills to make. Main challenge honestly would be doing the client-side calculations to translate mouse position values into positions on the brick grid.
This is actually really easy to do with raycasting and containers.
Couldn’t we use part of the script from MissionEditor, or am I mistaken?
Perhaps the tool could have some MissionEditor-esque GUI. But I doubt the code from the actually MissionEditor would translate over that well. Perhaps we could create something that converts heightmaps to bricks. That'd probably be pretty simple (simpler than an in-game tool). But I think we would all prefer we have a tool that allows for the creation of caves, something that heightmaps don't facilitate.
I could see a third-party program potentially being a good solution. It would have more flexibility than an in-game editor, and rendering bricks in it would be considerably faster than loading them in-game. Plus, I bet converting a mod-ter map to a cube map would be a lot easier and faster. Hell, I bet there's already a few softwares out there for map creation that we could re-purpose; just convert their map files to BLS files with mod-ter or cube bricks. Anyone know of any good, open-source map/landscape editors?