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Sector editor?

Started by _eye Nov 29, 2002 at 1:00 AM 2 replies 700+ views

Original Post

Nov 29, 2002 at 1:00 AM

Hello all: Ever since I read tutorial #10, I''ve been wondering about the following: Since the 3D "engine" contained in that example builds everything out of triangles and their vertices plus texture coords, and since the vertices are stored in a text file, would it make sense to make a simple "world" editor to complement that tutorial ... complete with multiple texture data? (Understanding that the original code would need to change in order to assign different textures). Also, since the tutorial code uses a simple algorithm, I figured the upper limit for scene complexity might be <1000 triangles ... but I haven''t tried it yet. So my question is: would it be worthwhile to build some battle-chess like game around this demo? Or what about some type of adventure game? As an openGL newbie, I''m not ready to dive into the whole oct-tree discussion. Basically I''m looking for a framework that''s easy to use ... so I can actually do something useful! Finally, "portal engines" look cool ... but using other people''s engines is always a pain for me ... I''d rather start with something I understand, so I can modify it as necessary.

Dwarf with Axe

Nov 29, 2002 at 10:32 AM

Nothing wrong with building a game around it - in fact, I encourage it. But me being Dwarf, responsible for that whole 2DLibrary thing that was popular for about a week

, I say try with 2D first.

Even if you want to jump into 3D game development in the future, you can gain a better understanding of 3D if you first work with 2D. Why? Well, you can learn two axis at once, then grab another along the way, or you can try and learn all three at once (which is the road I took, which quickly went uphill and off a cliff).

SO my advice to you is to do whatever your coder heart desires. If you think that the base code that you are going to be working around will be sufficient, then by all means use it. If it is, then you''ll know that you can use that sort of stuff in the future on similar projects, and if not, well, you live and learn, right?

~ Jesse

The gl2D Project | Free programming books

_eye

Nov 29, 2002 at 1:08 PM

Hi again:

Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking about 2D stuff too, but the game I want to make is 3D (of course!)

I built a simple editor based on the tutorial, but it uses the "preview" mode. I took out the "head bob" and I made it so you can only move forward or backward, or sidestep left and right (no turning: roundoff error). Also, the coordinate system needs to be standardized. As it turns out, I''m actually thinking a 2D map would be best for editing, with the preview mode for fun, especially because the view and controls are not ideal for editing! And, I would like to incorporate knowledge of which textures to use, and add them to the text file (simple database).

It should be easy to make maps!! Maybe I''ll generate a few "automatically" as well!!!

_eye

Nov 29, 2002 at 10:28 PM

Hi:

I''ve decided to make a little game engine that uses texture-mapped quads.

I''m writing a simple editor in java. My goal is to assign different textures to the quads, and calculate the floor and wall tile positions.

It would be neat to specify up to 2 textures per quad ... that would be easy to implement and it could permit more interesting scenes, for example using light maps (?).

When it works, I can submit the "tool" for fun.

Right now, the practical limit for how big a "sector" can be is ~50x50 cells, although I can draw up to 100x100. I''m thinking you could still use smaller sectors though, and chain them together ... everything is stored in a text file. So ... the "chaining" info would also have to be stored ... more on that later.

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