Introduction
In Ogre, all aspects of an objects visual appearance are encapsulated in a Material. The Ogre Material Framework is a robust system allowing the programmer to define one or more rendering passes and optionally techniques for degrading gracefully based on a number of factors such as system hardware and/or level of detail.
The goal of this project is to develop an editor for Ogre’s Material Framework. The Ogre Material Editor will provide the developer with Material Script and Shader editors, and allow them to enable/disable Passes and Techniques enabling rapid prototyping of new Materials. The Ogre Material Editor will be similar in appearance and functionality to the ATI RenderMonkey™ Toolsuite.
The original project proposal can be read here. (Dead link)
For questions use this forum topic. (Useful information you also find in the old forum topic.)
General Information
Contributors
Brian Hudson (Hudson)
Casey Borders (CaseyB)
Source Code Control
http://ogre.cvs.sourceforge.net/ogre/ogrenew/Tools/MaterialEditor/
Installer
Features
Syntax Hilighting
Syntax hilighting has been implemented for Material Scripts, Cg, GLSL, and HLSL.
The Material Scripts syntax hilighter colorizes material keywords (i.e.: material, technique, pass, etc...), attributes (i.e.: ambient, diffuse, on, off, etc...), numbers and comments.
The Cg/GLSL/HLSL syntax hilighters colorize keywords and built-in functions.
Code Folding
The material script editor supports basic code folding based on opening/closing braces. The vertex/fragment shaders editors (Cg/GLSL/HLSL) also support code folding.
Call Tips
Call Tips are currently supported for material scripts. Call Tips are already supported for the vertex/fragment shader editors (Cg/GLSL/HLSL) but the required calltips file has not yet been created for these languages.
Context Sensitive Documentation
Context sensitive documentation is currently supported for material scripts. Context sensitive documentation is already supported for the vertex/fragment shader editors (Cg/GLSL/HLSL) but the required docs file has not yet been created for these languages.
Miscellaneous
Workspace Tree
The Workspace Tree manages all of the current Projects/Materials/Techniques/etc and acts as the central point for the navigation and enablement of other user interface elements.
Property Editors
The vast majority of properties/attributes for Materials, Techiques, Passes, and Texture Units can be modified in the user interface via the property grid.
Material
The material property editor is shown when a Material is selected in the Workspace Tree.
Technique
The technique property editor is shown when a Technique is selected in the Workspace Tree.
Pass
The pass property editor is shown when a Pass is selected in the Workspace Tree.
Texture Unit
The texture unit property editor is shown when a Texture Unit is selected in the Workspace Tree.
Wizards
The Material Editor provides (very basic at this point) wizards to ease the create of Projects/Materials/Techniques/Passes/Texture Units. Alternatively, Materials/Techniques/Passes/Texture Units can be added directly to the associated material script and the user interface will update accordingly upon script compilation.
Project
The Project wizard creates a new Project within the Workspace.
Material
The Material wizard creates a new Material within the given Project.
Technique
The Techique wizard creates a new Technique within the given Material.
Pass
The Pass wizard creates a new Pass within the given Technique.
Texture Unit
The Texture unit wizard creates a new Texture Unit within the given pass.
Feature Requests
- Auto code completion/suggestions
- Material inheritance view
- Declaration view
- Drag & Drop support
- Import/Export Wizards
- Workspace persistence
- External lexers
- HDR Color Picker
- Build against Shoggoth
- Integrate with the new compilers
- Integration with FX Composer 2
- Graphical Node/Link Material Editing
Dependencies
OGRE
The Material Editor is currently built against Ogre 1.4.4 Eihort which may be downloaded here.
boost
The Material Editor utilizes boost::any, boost::bind, boost::function, and boost::signal.
On Windows with MS Visual Studio .NET 2005, the easiest way to install the boost libraries is by using the BoostPro 1.34.1 installer provided by boost-consulting.
For alternative methods, consult the boost Getting Started page.
wxWidgets
The Material Editor is built using the wxWidgets cross-platform GUI library.
The latest stable release (at the time of writing, 2.8.4) can be downloaded from here.
A guide for building wxWidgets and configuring it to work with MS Visual Studio .NET 2005 can be found here. Guides for other IDE's can also be found on the wxWidgets wiki here.
wxPropertyGrid
http://wxpropgrid.sourceforge.net/
wxPropertyGrid is a property sheet control for wxWidgets. It is a specialized two-column grid for editing properties such as strings, numbers, flagsets, string arrays, and colors.
The Material Editor allows users to modify the various properties of materials, techniques, passes, and texture units.
The latest stable release and installation instructions can be downloaded from here.
NOTE: This should be installed AFTER wxWidgets.
wxScintilla
http://wxcode.sourceforge.net/showcomp.php?name=wxScintilla
wxScintilla is a wxWidgets wrapper around the Scintilla edit control.
The Material Editor for all of it's code editing features.
NOTE: This should be installed AFTER wxWidgets.
Compiling
MS Visual Studio .NET 2005
TODO
- Review latest FX Composer 2 release
- Fix Known Issues
- Implement better resource management facilities
- Implement basic scene management
- Finish Project persistence
- Improve synchronization between code editors & other UI components
- Possibly create a custom MaterialSerializer?
- Make runtime render system switches fully functional
Known Issues
- Edit menu items enablement state does not update
- Default wxColourProperty does not support alpha
- Use a float array for now until the HDRColourProperty is created?
References
Ogre Manual
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_14.html#SEC23
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_15.html#SEC31
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_16.html#SEC35
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_17.html#SEC62
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_18.html#SEC89
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_19.html#SEC97
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_20.html#SEC98
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_21.html#SEC99
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_22.html#SEC105
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_23.html#SEC106
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_24.html#SEC113
http://www.ogre3d.org/docs/manual/manual_25.html#SEC119
Books
Forum Posts
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33484
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32212
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32202
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32176
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31893
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31894
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=189833&sid=6c8483bb9967b2b3ade8c2c88e16d350
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32072&sid=ce193664e1d3d7c4af509e6f4e2718c6
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29941&highlight=