Hi ho everyone... I have a quick question for you all. I, like every other schmuck in the world, and trying to wiggle my way into the world of game programming. Right now I almost have a decent handle on the principles of Direct Draw, and I''m trying to find all the tutorials I can. I have a semi-decent knowledge of C, C++, though I''m not incredibly knowledgable of windows programming. My main asset is my grasp on LPC, a C-derived languaged used to code MUDs. My question springs from the the web page of the author of the latest feature article concerning what makes gaming teams fail. After visiting the site of Spin Studios, I found Map Maker 5. This program has a nice interface used to create MAP files. Now... What the heck is a MAP file, how am I going to use it when I start writing my RPGs that will run SquareSoft out of buisness, and should I buy the Map Maker? Any comments at all would be really appriciated, and please forgive my sarcasm Cheers ! Ere

hey man!

If you concider yourself a hacker then you would have aready found out that the .map file contain what is in a map! it is not graphicly but it is in words like code! Check around in one and you will see what i mean. basicly it holds all the data for you level!Hope this helps man!

node_5r

Hacker(?) Interesting.

Anyways, the file that program will produce will be it's own way of storing data. For instance, if you use that program to make your map, you can't just open it up in another program. (unless that program was make to read that kind of map file).

Confusing so far. Sorry for the disorganized ramblings.

A data file is just a file that holds, well... data.. ones and zeros. A .MAP file could have easily been called an .ATLANTICCOD file. It's just an extention the developer used. It doesn't really mean anything. The .MAP file could have, instead of the information for a map, just been another name for a .BMP file.

Some file extentions have been standardized. Like .BMP .GIF .JPG .MOV .AVI .EXE .BAT .ZIP .ARJ whatever else. Nothing can stop you from writing your map file into a file name with the extention of .exe. However, even if the extention is that same as an executable file. You can not execute your file.

Now I must be confusing you even more. Sorry about that. I'm sure someone will have a more elegant way of explaining this to you.

Edited by - Gromit on 2/12/00 12:42:15 AM