Hi ! I''ve written a nice little engine, which seems to run a at good speed. my problem is that for now i''ve hardcoded all vertexes into my engine. now it''s time to develop a level format (something like those .map or .bsp files). The problem is that i''ve never done something like this before and need a little support, maybe what''s essential to put in a map file, load the whole map at once, or in parts, while to player walk through the level, how should i store the values (floats, or integers) and stuff like that. it would be great, if i can adapt the .bsp format, because there are several editors available and i would be able to skip writing my own one. So if there''s anyone, who can show me the right way , it would be very kind, if he/she could help me with my problem, cu Cyberdemon

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Original post by The_Cyberdemon

Hi !
I''ve written a nice little engine, which seems to run
a at good speed. my problem is that for now i''ve hardcoded
all vertexes into my engine. now it''s time to develop a
level format (something like those .map or .bsp files).
The problem is that i''ve never done something like this before
and need a little support, maybe what''s essential to put in a map file, load the whole map at once, or in parts, while to
player walk through the level, how should i store the values (floats, or integers) and stuff like that.
it would be great, if i can adapt the .bsp format, because there are several editors available and i would be able to skip writing my own one. So if there''s anyone, who can show me the right way , it would be very kind, if he/she could help me with my problem,
cu Cyberdemon

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I''ve heard there are some BSP tutorials on the net. Try looking for BSP tutorials on your favorite search engine. Or look through past articles here on Gamedev. Also check out FlipCode
Here''s wishing you luck. I''m still learning basic C stuff so I''ll be a while before I get to where you are.



BeS
It''s Da BOMB Baby!!!

You probably wanna take a look at the Q3A .map format. It''s text based and with help of the fscanf() and fileopen functions you can work your way through...
Dynamic loading? I think a good thing, but i''d stick it on another thread. Warning: pretty hard to implement, needs some good map format design. good luck .

vertices or floats? for textbased? hmmm.. stay with floats, it doesn''t make that much diffrence in size and is worth the accuracy.

essential?
player start position
face/brush data
texturpaths (material indices)
item data/ entities (where''s a weapon)
triggers / script data (does your engine already support that??)

ok,
I think this covers pretty much of what to put in a .map format. to speed up renderings with bsp trees. look at some papers, I saw a link to an artikel on how to save a bsp tree to a file, sorry can''t find it right now.

Ok, hope that helped,
good luck,
cya,
Phil


Visit Rarebyte!
and no!, there are NO kangaroos in Austria (I got this questions a few times over in the states

Heres a few sites with BSP tutorials:
Binary Space Partitioning Trees
BSP Tree FAQ
BSP
DOOM Style BSP Trees
Mr-Gamemaker.com - the BSP tutorial here ROX! Best one I''ve read

Also you might wanna look at using portals:
Flipcode.com - Portal Engine Colum

Hope this helps

Hi !
Thank you very much for
your answers, I think,
they''re a good point to
start out with
Hope I''ll be able to
help you out sometime ,
cu Cyberdemon