Hi.. I''ve been going around for some time thinking of what a good 3D-engine should look like.. And I''ve finally come to realize that in order to make even a simple 3D-engine u need to have some kind of map-editor that can build the 3D-environments which the engine uses. What is an engine with a lot of cool stuff implemented in the code without an effective way to load and display worlds in it? Personally, I don''t want to hard-code 1000''s of triangles vertices...!?! Sooo.. Here comes the point of this post: How do u make an editor that can e.g make a file that specifies where a building should be placed in the 3D-world, what light should be turned on and where, shadows, reflections and so on?? Any great links, tips or even some advice?? Would it be wise to use OpenGL to display the temporary world in the editor?? Hope somebody can help me.. ''coz I think this is a hell of a task to overcome...;-) Thanx Halloko

Just came past this link this afternoon. It might interrest you : http://perso.club-internet.fr/lacrapul/

"...''coz I think this is a hell of a task to overcome..."
So dont do it! Use already existing free tools, such as WorldCraft, QERadiant, Quark ...

They are all free and the file format(.MAP) is extremely easy. Since you dont even have an engine I dont think it is wise to write the tools first.

There''s a tutorial on flipcode on using worldcraft map files :

Go to
http://www.flipcode.com/tutorials/tut_levedit.shtml