Morning After
Elxx | June 4, 2009Well, almost four weeks have passed since the epic Sandbox 1.0 release. People have sent me some great feedback and many of the servers currently running are rivaling the popularity of the BF1943 booth at E3. Glad to see you guys are enjoying it. Also, a big big thanks to DICE for the shoutout on Battlefield.com! I hope it has introduced some new people to the magic and confusion of Sandbox.
Ever since groups were introduced in Sandbox 0.5, many people have complained that they’ve forgotten what groups they’ve saved. Forget no more! The Sandbox Network website is now up and available for all players. After you go through the short registration process, you’ll be able to see all the groups you’ve saved through the ages and even rename them and add descriptions. As usual, it’s still a work in progress - soon, you’ll be able to send groups to your friends and delete old ones you no longer need.
On the Sandbox Twitter, I promised that developer tools for Sandbox 1.0 would be released shortly after the mod’s release. It took me a bit longer than I hoped (mostly because I forgot to put them on my external drive before leaving for Europe), but they’re all here now and ready for your experimentation.
Sandbox-Tools 1.0.0 (20.3 MB)
You’ll see four folders in there:
- AtlasGenerator - All the Sandbox in-game UI textures (object spawn buttons, kit selection, command roses) are stored in atlases. The original PSDs and TGAs are included here along with the script to generate your own atlases so you can add new objects or modify parts of the UI. Requires Python 2.3 or higher
- gui_log - This is a great tool for debugging BF2 Python code. Requires Python 2.3 or higher
- MenuGenerator - This is the script I used to line up all the object spawn buttons nicely on the scoreboard without having to manually adjust them whenever I added new objects. Requires Python 2.3 or higher
- SandboxFlashMenu - The source files & images for the Sandbox frontend menu and loading screen. Requires Flash 7.0 or higher
No, I will not hold your hand and teach you how to use these tools. If you contact me on MSN about it, I’ll likely spout off an undecipherable series of song lyrics and Dr. Seuss stories and sign off.
Enjoy your summer! I’m definitely enjoying mine.
















