suitable level formats
Author
Hi, I''ve been trying to find out about various formats for storing game levels and I''ve run into a bit of an issue.
I know there are the various tree varients - BSP, Quad, Octree etc. but what I''m really looking for is something that handles dynamic geometry fairly well.
In addition to that, I was looking for something that was reasonable in both indoor and outdoor settings - am I getting towards the impossible here?
Anyway, basically I was wondering if anybody could recommend a format to look into or give me some ideas on what I can do to store levels that easily get blown to pieces, as well as having both outdoor & indoor areas. The outdoor areas may not be a massive consideration however, as they won''t be particularly big in the scale of things i.e. it isn''t like I''m looking for a large scale terrain handler.
This is all in three dimensions.
So, if you can point me in any directions, articles or trains of thought on this I''d be very grateful.
Thanks,
Mezz
I''ve actually been looking for a similar file format, but for static geometry. The best I have found so far is the Quake 3 .bsp format.
Moe''s Site
Moe''s Site
I use Worldcraft coupled with a utility that converts .map files (Worldcraft''s format) to my own. For dynamic scenes, you''d probably want to lean away from BSP''s and go with Octrees, Fustrum culling and some half-baked portal hack. As for a format that supports your desired features, well, your better off doing what I did and creating your own. Unless your going to be doing some sort of special optimizations and such, almost any format will allow you to create destuctable gemometry as that is a more a process of your engine than a map format. For indoors and outdoors, again, as long as the geometry is uncompiled and optimized, just about any format will produce geometry suitable for indoors and outdoors. Hope this helps,
-Jesse
-Jesse
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