I've been interested in the component entity system for a while, and figured I would fallow this guide on making one, break it down and figure out how everything works. http://www.richardlord.net/blog/what-is-an-entity-framework It worked pretty good for a while but I am having difficulties with the core of it, I can register components and systems to my engine, but one of the things this guide does not cover is how to actually convert all these components into nodes that the systems can use. Would anyone have any insight as to how this would be completed? The guide uses action script, but i am coding in c++ btw.

Also on a side note, do you feel that the component entity system is a good one? I spoke with a teacher about it and he said it wasn't how he liked to think about things, so he didn't use it. Also mentioning that if you go to EA none of the games he worked on used this system. He wouldn't say that it was bad, he just said that nothing hes worked on has used it, because they didn't need to.

I'm wandering what the advantages of it over others is, as well as any disadvantages.

Also on a side note, do you feel that the component entity system is a good one? I spoke with a teacher about it and he said it wasn't how he liked to think about things, so he didn't use it. Also mentioning that if you go to EA none of the games he worked on used this system. He wouldn't say that it was bad, he just said that nothing hes worked on has used it, because they didn't need to.

With six years at EA, all but one game engine used this type of system.

I guess it depends on your game team and engine. There are many to choose from.

Also on a side note, do you feel that the component entity system is a good one? I spoke with a teacher about it and he said it wasn't how he liked to think about things, so he didn't use it. Also mentioning that if you go to EA none of the games he worked on used this system. He wouldn't say that it was bad, he just said that nothing hes worked on has used it, because they didn't need to.

With six years at EA, all but one game engine used this type of system.

I guess it depends on your game team and engine. There are many to choose from.

I'm pretty sure the EA where I live is focused entirely on sports games, so maybe it just isn't as favorable an approach to those.

And Thanks you so much BeerNuts, Examining that will help a tonne!

Ok, I am left with a problem. I was thinking "Wow wouldn't it be great if I could use bit fields to make nodes." For example lets say I had a bunch of components

position 0001

velocity 0010

display 0100

collision 1000

and then a bunch of node recipe's

movenode recipe 0011

displaynode recipe 0101

My only problem here is that a bit field is going to be like... 64 bits in size at most as an __int64. What happens if I get more then 64 components! Is there some super clever way of dealing with this sort of thing, or should I go with a different method of creating these recipe's? like for example just having a <list> of intager ID's and it tests the recipe's that way. I imagine that would take more space but hey, at least I can have more then 64 components right?

another thought was to have a list of all the nodes that can be created with no components registered to them, and then for an entity taking all of its components, registering them to everything in the list, and then all the nodes that have had all their components filled are registered and the other ones are left, all of them get cleared and it restarts for the next entity.

Ok I see! That's exactly what you did in your system then, I just didn't realize what a bit-set exactly was when I was reading that. Thanks yet again BeerNutts