by Simion32
»
September 15th, 2019, 7:14 am » Short link
The Future of DKC Level Builder
I realize it has been a long time since anything was posted here, and I thought I'd post an update to let you guys know where this project is at, and where it's going in the months and years to come.
While I've been working on NitroGUI v2.0 I've come to the ultimate conclusions about DELTA, DKCRE, and DKCLB in general. I've spent an enormous amount of time planning and getting things together to attempt to make an update to DKCRE once NitroGUI v2.0 is done, but I'm feeling that it may not be time for me to do that, and here's why.
The updates to the interface will require me to fully re-code DKCRE all-the-way, and it isn't looking like a good prospect for me making progress on DELTA and/or DKCLB in general. DELTA Game Engine will not require so much effort, and a new DELTA editor will be easy for me to get going from the NGUI jump-off point that is fast approaching. Essentially, I have more momentum in the direction of DELTA than I do DKCRE, and it's looking like I'll have to ride this train of development where ever it's going to take me.
So, you may be wondering why I've posted this here in the DKCLB topic if I was mainly concerned with the rest of the project. Well, I've decided that I no longer have the time or resources to fully develop on DKCLB alongside DELTA, and what this means is:
— DELTA will become its own closed-source game engine and editor, with a for-pay version for those who want to sell games.
— DKCRE will have its updates delayed for probably another year or so, after which I expect it to be able to open and edit DKC2/3.
— DKCLB Toolkit will be made open-source, with collaborative development being done.
I will no longer have the time to fully develop for DKCLB, although I still plan to manage the project as the project's "master".
So there you have it. I'm sorry that it has come to this, but the decision had to be made. DELTA will be given heavy priority from here on out, and there will be little to nothing on DKCRE for a good while. I just don't have the time to juggle all the extraction and DKCLB stuff while attempting to develop DELTA, which I consider more important than getting LB working.
All of that said, I will still be doing development on DKCX for VideoViking, but it will have to springboard off of the open-source LB environment instead of me solely hand-coding every LB object that might be used. DKCX will most likely remain closed source at least until its time of release (I still need to discuss this over with VideoViking).