How to start making a 1st person shooter?
Author
Anyone know of any places I could look to start making a 1st person shooter? My main concern at the moment is how to create a map to use - not sure whether unreal volumetric design is the way forward or whether a series of primatives is a better idea. And secondly how to get the character(s) to interact with this level - ie. walk up ramps rather than through them
The book "programming role-playing games with directx" has a good sample of how to move the camera over terrain.
Try to read something about collision detection and navigation meshes and you will have the solution in your mind
quote:Original post by higherspeed
My advice is to start with something, that''s slightly simpler.
I would say this too, but if you look deeper you can see the truth.
Or higher.. look at his date of joining, he''s probably not a noob.
And he''s asking for complicated methods. But something tells me he''s not a programmer. Hm.. I could be wrong!
.lick
Actually after looking at his profile it looks like he knows what he's doing...and it even shows that he has made a couple of games so it would seem like he could handle it?
[edited by - Bakingsoda36 on May 28, 2003 12:52:44 AM]
[edited by - Bakingsoda36 on May 28, 2003 12:52:44 AM]
I suggest you do some research on the various techniques involving BSP trees. In some cases, you can use the same BSP to handle both the rendering of the level and collision detection with the world. This depends on which technique you use (node-based, leafy, solid-leaf, etc...). Collision detection becomes a matter of passing the character''s bounding volume down the tree to see if it collides with anything, and if so, dtermine what sort of surface was hit based on custom flags, normals, or whatever you devise. Not difficult, and very fast.
Once you decide on a technique to use for rendering/collision, then consider how you will create the levels. It may/may not be feasible to use an existing package and run the results through a custom converter. I know UnrealED exports to a text format, so that might be something to look into. If you choose to take the high road and code your own, you could look at using BSP trees together with CSG techniques to create the polygons, then run them through a custom BSP compiler to get the final result.
In the beginning, while testing out your BSP trees, a simple 2D array will suffice for the level.
Once you decide on a technique to use for rendering/collision, then consider how you will create the levels. It may/may not be feasible to use an existing package and run the results through a custom converter. I know UnrealED exports to a text format, so that might be something to look into. If you choose to take the high road and code your own, you could look at using BSP trees together with CSG techniques to create the polygons, then run them through a custom BSP compiler to get the final result.
In the beginning, while testing out your BSP trees, a simple 2D array will suffice for the level.
Author
Cheers.
I dont really want to code my own map editor - i think thats overkill for a demo. I can use 3ds max for simple objects and I can use UnrealEd and Worldcraft [well at least I could it''s been a while]
I am a programmer and still looking for work hence why I''m doing research into this kind of thing. I know unrealEd now uses static meshes and not sure if that would be a blessing or curse if I exported using that editor.
Will look into the BSP trees as I''ve heard a lot about them.
I dont really want to code my own map editor - i think thats overkill for a demo. I can use 3ds max for simple objects and I can use UnrealEd and Worldcraft [well at least I could it''s been a while]
I am a programmer and still looking for work hence why I''m doing research into this kind of thing. I know unrealEd now uses static meshes and not sure if that would be a blessing or curse if I exported using that editor.
Will look into the BSP trees as I''ve heard a lot about them.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
