Vasara, a texturing plugin for Aleph One

[Hopper]

Vasara aims to provide all of the functionality of Visual Mode.lua, but with an interface more intuitive to newcomers or infrequent mappers. To that end, Vasara comes with a full GUI explaining all keyboard shortcuts, and mouse control where appropriate.

The primary mode, Visual Mode, is where you apply and align textures and lighting. Aim and "paint" with the primary trigger. Hold the trigger and drag to align textures. Use the second trigger to sample textures and lights. The header lists key controls for actions like Jump or Undo, and the footer summarizes your current texture settings.

Tap the Mic key for Choose Texture mode, which offers a clickable grid of textures in the current collection. Switch collections by clicking the buttons at the bottom. Or, use the keyboard shortcuts to cycle through textures or collections.

The Action key activates Options mode, where you control how you texture. This mode includes a real-time preview of all lights on the map. The texture preview also shows how your current texture mode will look.

The Map key activates Teleport mode, to jump around the map. Click the primary trigger to jump to the polygon in the crosshair. To teleport to areas you can't see, use the Previous and Next Weapon keys to select a different polygon by number. The current polygon is highlighted in the view and on the overhead map.

When you apply a control panel or switch texture, you'll enter an editing mode to configure it. Switch types are on the left, options like the controlled platform or tag are on the right.

So this is a GUI for Visual Mode.lua?

No. Vasara is a separate tool, and does not work in conjunction with Treellama and Irons' Visual Mode. It's a different way to texture your maps, and shares some (but not all!) key commands. Vasara can do everything Visual Mode does, and contains some code from Visual Mode 3, but that's all.

So this replaces Visual Mode?

No. Vasara is a different project built by different people (Hopper and Ares Ex Machina), and both will remain on Simplici7y. Treellama and Irons were not involved in Vasara's development, so please don't blame them for anything you hate about Vasara. Which texturing tool you use is completely up to you; you don't need Vasara if you like Visual Mode, and you don't need Visual Mode if you like Vasara.

So how do I use it?

Install Vasara into Aleph One's plugins folder (it's not a Weland plugin). Vasara needs two plugins to provide the texturing and the GUI. Make sure both "Vasara HUD" and "Vasara Script" are enabled when you use it. You can leave any HUD plugins on (unless they come after Vasara in the plugins list), but be sure to turn off the Visual Mode plugin.

So who's responsible for this?

Hopper and Ares Ex Machina did the design and coding, except for the parts we swiped from Visual Mode, which in turn swiped ideas from Forge, and so on back to the dawn of the universe. So, take your pick for assigning credit, but send bug reports or feature requests to Hopper or Ares Ex Machina.

[Ares Ex Machina]

You guys have got to try this out!

Today's tip: because there is a key attached to each of the four modes, you can quickly reach any other mode with a single key-press, regardless of which mode you're currently in. And the Secondary Trigger is always there to take you back to Visual Mode.

Oh, and Happy Bungie Day!

[RyokoTK]

It seems to disagree with the Phoenix shapes model. If I run it in an application with the Infinity shapes selected, it works fine, but if I exit to the main menu and switch to Phoenix shapes the script doesn't run properly. I'd assume it's a result of Phoenix having so many textures?

[Hopper]

In your Sewage collection, there are 58 bitmaps but only 57 frames. That confused Vasara, because drawing is based on frame index but texture counts are reported by bitmaps. Fixing the underlying Shapes issue is the best solution, but I've worked around it in the attached.

FYI, Eternal has the most textures of any scenario I know, so that was our main third-party test case. Depending on your video card, it may be the only place you'll notice Vasara's "Loading textures" startup phase.

[Grymy]

This has inspired me to attempt mapping again. I got Vasara to work beautifully with a bunch of popular maps I downloaded off Simplici7y, but it always fails on the test maps I've been trying to create using Weland 1.4.1 (which I'm pretty sure is the latest). My test maps play normally with the normal infinity environment, but with the Vasara plugin, I can see and navigate the map, but the Vasara HUD is missing, and instead there is a string of errors listed. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

[RyokoTK]

Okay, I started tooling around with it a little bit. It's very cool! It's not especially necessary if you're a veteran VML user, but it does have a couple other quality-of-life improvements like the screen not scrolling when you slide a texture around.

[Hopper]

it always fails on the test maps I've been trying to create

Thanks for the bug report! Vasara incorrectly assumed that a map would always have at least one platform. Try the attached version.

[Grymy]

it always fails on the test maps I've been trying to create

Thanks for the bug report! Vasara incorrectly assumed that a map would always have at least one platform. Try the attached version.

Nailed it. It now works with my 3 polygon worthless test map . Thanks for the quick response!

[Ares Ex Machina]

Undo Tip: In Vasara's Visual Mode, press Mic+Primary Trigger to undo multiple steps, and Mic+Secondary Trigger to redo multiple steps. You can also flip back and forth with the single-step undo/redo by pressing Mic+Action (same as Visual Mode.lua).

[Shocktart]

EMERGENCY: Cannot save. "\" key fails to bring up the chat box.
My preferences have "\" selected as the chat key.
Both plugins are enabled simultaneously.

Please help.

[Hopper]

Are you running an older version of Aleph One? Starting in 1.1, the console is always enabled during solo play, and plugins don't need to do anything special. Vasara is designed for 1.1, so it doesn't include the special MML that used to be necessary. I forgot to set the version requirement in the plugin, though.

If you are running 1.1, try turning off Vasara, starting a normal game, and bringing up the console with the chat key. Does it work then?

[Shocktart]

Works now, thanks.
The program no longer explodes when applying sliding textures.

Any way to remove transparent textures that I misplaced?

[Shocktart]

Works now, thanks.
The program no longer explodes when applying sliding textures.

Any way to remove transparent textures that I misplaced?

[Windbreaker]

Works now, thanks.
Any way to remove transparent textures that I misplaced?

Not sure if Vasara has an option for this or not, but I just go into Weland and find the line that I accidentally textured, double click then hit "remove textures".

[Shocktart]

Overwriting my previous save is met with an error, it makes saving my work seem dangerous to me.
I need to make an entirely new save, switch tabs to the save folder, make sure the new name is there, close AlephOne, delete the old and rename the new.

[Hopper]

You're not the first to run into this, but judging by the lack of response last time, you might have to live with it.

[JohannesG]

I am running into an issue with Vasara 1.0.3 on Ubuntu 18.04. Upon starting a map with Vasara enabled I get the error message "[string "HUD Lua"]:399: attempt to index field 'cursor_menu' (a nil value)" in the console, and no mouse cursor is visible which makes working with Vasara a bit tricky. (That is, if there is supposed to be a cursor in Vasara? hard for me to know as I've never used it before)