KCTools [v1.2.2] - Fast external replacement for DromEd lighting and other tools - by HavvicGames
skacky on 4/6/2025 at 20:18
Incredible doesn't even begin to do this tool justice. I've been toying with a mission that took about a dozen hours to light with 4x lightmaps. This puppy here took the compile time to about 30 seconds. Yes, it's ludicrous, and it looks just as good. With 1.28 the DromEd integration is seamless, too. Just install this in your DromEd directly and boom, that's it.
HavvicGames on 31/7/2025 at 19:29
New version! Highly recommend updating, there's an important lighting bug fix and lighting time improvements :)
Changes:Lighting:* Fixed water polygons not being lit when a cell has no solid polygons
* Fixed an infinite loop when a mission contained a model with self-referential sub-objects
* Improved raytrace scene construction time
* Reduced memory allocations during cell visibility calculation
* Reduced cell visibility calculation time by up to 1.5x (mostly on large open maps with high light counts)
* Reduced cell visibility false-positives
* Removed "--simpleVis" flag
Model Export:* Fixed a crash when a model has self-referential sub-objects
* Fixed a crash when exporting models using PNG or DDS textures from outside a zip file
* Added vertex normals on models that use them
* Added PCX, TGA, and BMP texture support (stock SS2 models can now be exported with textures)
* Replaced custom image decoders and ImageSharp library with Magick.NET
General:* Fixed temporary extracted files ("obj.crf" and "fam.crf") not being cleaned up on Windows systems. Relevant files are now read directly from their archives and cached for repeated use.
* Rewrote model loading and split it into a separate standalone Formats library (release Soon™)
* Various other refactors, internal changes, and chores :)
(
https://github.com/JarrodDoyle/KCTools/releases/download/v1.2.0/kctools_1.2.0_dromed_win_x64.zip) Main download here.
ZylonBane on 2/8/2025 at 01:18
Is it supposed to teleport the DromEd camera to a random part of the level after every relight?
HavvicGames on 2/8/2025 at 21:37
Because things are being fun externally Dromed/ShockEd has to save and later reload the mission. There's no nice built in way to restore editor camera position on mission load so the Dromed release version comes with some scripts that use some very yucky methodology to do so.
If the camera is going to some random position (i.e. not where you were previously, and not player spawn or 0,0,0) then I guess something's wrong with the restoration. Are you using DromEd or ShockEd? All my usage and the usage of my testers is with DromEd and so far it's worked perfectly.
The main reason this is worrying is because a messed up load is a destructive action. You're being teleported to *something* and then that something is being deleted :(
If you can, sharing the mission might be useful.
ZylonBane on 3/8/2025 at 13:55
Using ShockEd. Random teleportation happened with every mission I tested with.
R Soul on 3/8/2025 at 20:11
Great work with the model exporter. It was able to convert some models that the Free The Objects tools could not handle.
When it comes to dds textures, the model just has placeholder textures:
Inline Image:
http://catmanofiowa.com/RSoul/img/imported_dds.jpgIs this the known current state with that format or is it a bug? Either way it makes a little tricky to work with objects with dds textures. Would it be feasible for models with that format to simply have those textures copied to the output directory and referenced as files rather then packed into the mesh?
HavvicGames on 4/8/2025 at 19:58
Thanks for the info and reports. Here's a new version that should resolve things for both of you
Changes:Lighting:* Update helper scripts to support SS2 (changed the marker property used to a leftover non-functional debug property, verified it's never used in any Thief/SS2 FMs)
Model Export:* Fixed DDS textures not always being correctly applied
(
https://github.com/JarrodDoyle/KCTools/releases/download/v1.2.1/kctools_1.2.1_dromed_win_x64.zip) Main download here.
R Soul on 4/8/2025 at 22:01
Nice, file imports correctly:
Inline Image:
http://catmanofiowa.com/RSoul/img/sofa_texture.jpgThe above was made by Christine. She had most of the source files but the above type of sofa was not among them. A while ago I wanted to make an edited version, but all I could get from bintoe was a point cloud. I was determined/silly enough to actually join the dots and rebuild it. If I'd known your program would have been created I would have waited :sweat:
R Soul on 7/8/2025 at 21:47
Just did a test with no output directory specified. The readme says if not set the glb will be exported alognside the original, but in my case it went to kctools_1.2.1_win_x64\models.
Running on Windows 10.
I don't mind it going into a models subfolder, but seems worth mentioning the difference to what's mentioned in the readme.
HavvicGames on 7/8/2025 at 21:50
Yes you're right. I believe early on the models were being exported alongside their original model and I forgot to change the help text when changing the default behaviour.
