BCMM Tools
Intro
As I've mentioned in one of the previous articles, BC tools are very old, and so is the game. With that in mind, we do plan to develop some new tools. Some of which have been previously showcased.
TGL Editor
This one is actually already done, and a version of it is floating around. I noticed some bugs with large TGL files, all of which are resolved in the dev version we're using.
BC HP Editor
This tool was in early development last year and should have been a replacement for BCUT. At the moment, it fully supports editing TGLs and Hardpoints (both py and pyc).
It is a modern tool, which means full tab support (browser-like behavior). I've designed these to fully support exporting to and from JSON files (TGL and HP files). JSON files are easier to edit and understand; they are much more human-readable. Along with that, there is a fully supported command-line interface.
You can see the tab behavior below.
Below, you can see what the HP editing would be like.
That was not all, though. I was building a prototype to have a full 3D viewer—a full replacement for MPE. Some early dev demos are below.
In the end, this evolved to fully loading the textures and having a smooth and responsive behavior. You can view more in this video showcase.
Over the course of a few months, it evolved to showing firing arcs as a fun side project, and the heavy lifting was done beforehand.
Do note that the 3D Editor would have been a separate component, and the simpler plain Editor would have remained as is.
Further goals do include adding a DSL (Domain-specific language). The aim of that is to allow SQL-like syntax for bulk updating and/or balancing.
To conclude, this has improved my knowledge and understanding of the NIF format (big thanks to the Nifskope team for their work and their NIF Bible). Our goal is to have a fully functional Swiss army knife tool with BC HPE.
Blender
Given my experiments in my favorite programming language (C#), which allowed me to understand the NIF structure, I am confident enough to adjust Nifskope's existing tools and add support for the BC NIF format (3.1). While one can maybe, with some luck, import a BC NIF into Blender, exporting won't work. This is a result of my playing with the Nifskope Blender plugin.
