I am making a sort of flight combat game. the end result will hopefully be similar to star fox (the way the ship moves where it is allowed to go ect) and i was wondering if any of you fine people can help me. can anyone tell me the best way of loading a level like this, what sort of special effects i should use (im sort of a newbie so something not to hard) and if i should use octrees quadtrees or anything of that nature for the game.. thank you -kajjait

well, if you''re a newbie i wouldnt be wondering about
which sort of special effects to use...
if i were you i''d concentrate on how to use the basics of GL.
loading a "level" like that is entirely up to you and your design.
i tend to create my own formats (which are essentially
multiple files crammed together seperated by parsing delimiters).


example:

[header (number of files, ect]

[sprite block]
[bitmap header, tile width, tile height, ect]
[bitmap data]
..repeat
[end sprite block]

[font block]
[tga header, width, height, ect]
[tga data]
.. repeat
[end font block]

ect ect ect...

of course, you dont want to compile anything into these big
ass files until you know you''re done with them.. because
once they''re in there, they''re a tad hard to edit.

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

well im not that much of a newbie, i have a decent understanding of OpenGL and have made a few attempts at a game engine but nothing has ever been finished... i have done several forms of level loading in the past from heightmaps to 3d models.. i was just wondering what would be best for this type of a game, because i dont want to spend days coding it and figure out if i do it a different way it will be 50% faster.. (this has happened before) :[

maybe it would be a better idea to modify an already existing engine, like from the book i have , "OpenGL Game Programming"