Simple indoor level editor

Mephs · 2004-03-22T11:34:33

Heyas all, Well, I''m at the point now with my terrain level editor where I have the basics up and running (heightmap, splatting, streaming data, etc etc). Everything that I have yet to accomplish, I have a good idea of how I shall go about it. This leaves me with a mini dilemma. I''d like to include indoor areas in my game, as I feel that purely outdoor areas would feel like a cardboard cut-out scene that doesn''t really have any depth. Now I''m quite well versed on indoor level rendering, having coded a quake 3 bsp viewer, however, I''d like to start thinking about my own indoor levels and I''m not really sure how best to progress. My idea currently is that I''ll take an approach similar to Morrowind, in that indoor levels will be made in their own editor, and can be accessed in game via portals, in the sense that to access the inside of a house, you''d use the door and be warped inside the house... to access the inside of a tomb, you use the tomb door and are warped inside of the tomb at the entrance, etc etc. Now my problem lies in that I do not have time to code something akin to worldcraft as I''m working alone and I would like to finish this in my lifetime!! What I propose is something along the lines of having pre modelled brushes. Each brush has a set of textures that can be changed for every instance of the brush, every instance of a brush can also be scaled, rotated and possibly deformed in a simple manner (I do not have time to go into things like vertex editing). I also think that rather than delve into BSP trees and the like, I may simply divide my indoor areas into chunks, and frustum cull them, as I don''t plan to have huge indoor areas anyways. I feel I''m lacking some way to make sure the level is enclosed (ie the player cannot fall out of the level). I could perhaps enclose the level within a large room or force the person editing the map to ensure that all brushes join seamlessly, but neither of these ways seems quite right. I also feel that this method lacks the fine control it may need to create truly impressive indoor environments, but I''m convinced that there is an easy way to do it without having to have control over individual vertices... I''d much rather deal with things on an object level rather than a polygonal/vertex level, as I feel this would make the level editor much more intuitive to use. So to sum up, I''d like to promote the most intuitive interface possible, dealing with things on an object level, allow as much flexibility as possible, and keep things simple to code. I''d also like to work out how to keep the level useable in game at all times (ie never allowing any gaps between meshes, etc), so would anyone happen to have any thoughts as to how to achieve my objectives? Thanks for any assistance, Steve

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming

Started by Mephs March 17, 2004 03:19 PM

10 comments, last by Mephs 20 years ago

Xgkkp

122

March 22, 2004 09:05 AM

quote:Original post by Mephs
What I''m still confused about though is 3D tiles with irregular shapes. Take for example a section of cave that is rounded and not a regular shape like a house room would be. How would you ensure that the tiles join together correctly? Is this best left as something for the modellers to deal with to ensure that sections join as near seamlessly as possible (which to me seems like a harsh restriction to deal with), or would there be any way you could enforce this through code?

Well I think the caves are modelled to fit together - but I don''t see why this is a harsh restriction (and as for placing the "Tiles" (Blocks would be a better word I think) - the grid snap helps alot)

Mephs

354

Author

March 22, 2004 11:33 AM

Perhaps I'm not thinking as a modeller would, but I'd see it as a harsh restriction to have to ensure that cave sections fit seamlessly with other cave sections.

/------------|            ||            |\            / \          /  \        /   \______/

Take the above bad ASCII art to represent the joining end of a section of cave, remembering that the cross section would probably be more irregular than ASCII art can depict. To ensure that many cave sections are interchangeable, every single joining end of a section of cave would have to have the same cross section at the joining point. This means that the modeller will have to base all his models (or enough that there is room to shuffle tiles around a bit) around having that particular cross section. That is why I think it is a harsh restriction. I think it would be much easier on the modeller to just be able to build any shape section that they desire, within the block size limits (1x1, 2x1, 2x2 etc), and have the editor deal with joining tiles (by manipulating the mesh vertices automatically). Ok, it might take longer to code such a system, but I imagine it would take the modeller longer to ensure that cave sections are interchangeable, especially if you plan on having a wide range of tiles. Perhaps someone has a better suggestion though, or am I seeing this modelling restriction as a bigger problem than it actually is?

Is that making sense?

Cheers,

Steve

[edited by - mephs on March 22, 2004 12:34:33 PM]

Cheers,SteveLiquidigital Online

Simple indoor level editor

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Simple indoor level editor

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Reticulating splines