hiya, Im in the early stages of developing a engine. Im planning on using either the havok or novodex(?) physics engine, event scripting with lua (im going to try and create a system that alows the AI to sorta guess what it should be doing based on various game states and designer controlled input which will probably utilize lua) etc. I have a lot of stuff figure out. However, I want to add support for "large" cities and indoor areas and bsp trees + occlusion culling (occloders could be doors, large poly's etc although im curious about building a hom from the bsp tree)... Anyway, the tools available such as Q3 radient, worldcraft/hammer (can you get the source to the newer versions??) etc are not really suitable for my project for example: they don't support XML output, lua scripting etc and in the end, I would perfer to have a lite weight program which does only what I need it to do. My dilema is that I have never attempted to code a bsp compiler and my knowledge of the windows api isn't all that much so creating the GUI would be another problem. As far as polygon creation is concered... that can be done in a commercial content package such as maya. Anyway, another problem would be lightmap generation (I wouldn't be able to create a radiosity system!)... Why go through the trouble? Simple, I want to, I think I would have fun and it would be one hell of a learning experience! Anyway, what I am asking is this: there is a ton of stuff about bsp trees I don't know for example, what is the best algorthym to use? I don't know how I would handle lightmap generation because I don't want shity looking lightmaps, etc. If someone could give me some pointers, ideas, linx, tips etc I would really really appreciate it and i'll give you a gmail account or something. Note that I plan on this project taking a long time, all the way through college please don't call me a dumb newb if you find that im being over ambitious ;) Thanks a hell of a lot for any feedback! ~Jinx3d1 ps.. sorry for the size...

Have a look at the OpenGL section:
http://www.gametutorials.com/

There are tutorials to all your questions !
BSP,Lightmaps etc.

cheers
OMC

www.delgine.com is a good map editor / lightmapper.

www.gameinstitute.com

this place has a decent course on bsp/pvs theory and coding. Along with taking the course you also get their GILES map editor and BSP Compiler. The course is $125 I think but you get to work at your own pace and there are dedicated forums and chat rooms available to the class.

Quote: Original post by Jinx3d1
Why go through the trouble? Simple, I want to, I think I would have fun and it would be one hell of a learning experience!

I wish you good work! This is what I am also doing and I can tell it's real fun. It's also quite interesting how, by not jumping on the coding bandwagon you can sometimes find out something which is just the opposite that what everyone is saying.
What you're beginning to do is something only few people understands and even less people have the will to carry on.

As for the links, before jumping on the coding stage, do you understand all the implications in your design? For example, have you ever done black-box analisys on a commercial game? I guess this is legal in all parts of the world (it's surely legal here) and it can give you some interesting hints.
I also suggest to ask someone which is involved in content creation. Artists are who will ultimately use the technology you just began to forge out se you shall keep in contact with them provided you can.

Enjoy!

There are some links on this thread for BSP tutorials and references.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=289141

The old map editor Qoole that was for quake, quake2, half-life, etc was open sourced a while back. It should serve as a nice base for a smallish editor. I'm actually planning on using it as a base for an editor for one of my projects. Although if you plan on compiling it under Visual Studio .NET 2002/2003 then you will have to make a few source changes since MFC changed slightly in some places in VS .NET.

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&q=qoole99+source&btnG=Search



-SirKnight