Hi !
How do I make maps for Irrlicht? Someone told me about Hammer from Valve, but I don't know if its maps can be loaded in Irrlicht. Then I tried GtkRadiant. I thought, this must be the right choice, but then I read about the x-file-support thread and some guys said there are better editors than radiant for this format. But then again, Irrlicht's importer for x is said to be buggy.
So what now? I can programm very well, but have no idea about all these different editors and formats. Can someone give an introduction or perhaps just a statement what should I use? I think I can manage to learn such editors, but I don't want to try every editor to know which ones are good and which ones are crap for Irrlicht.
Marc
Making Maps
Making Maps
2D-Splatter-Action => http://www.walkover.de.vu <=
First, don't worry. 
The huge movement that is in the insides of irllitch is all good imho
X format is having its final touches as far as I can see. An I don't have enough level editing knowledge (I work in objects and characters, usually) to know if it'd be better using BSPs with the combination I'll tell you bellow, or directly X format, as as it improves inside irllitch, it'll support special shaders, vertex colors, and more things.hehe, even a bone animated scenery, a structure of bone weighted grid would move like evil mud in a blobby way... (joking
)
As far as I am seing, thes newbie in level editing tells you seems there are some options :
- BSP . For now, only quake 3 bsp(the only supported by Irrlitch). Halflife bsp can be compiled with a free compiler. But recently a user pointed to a free compiler for q3 bsps. So imho should be the same.
The problem is not the compiling then, is more now of the *.map editor. As you have to create a *.map with an editor, and then use an special compiler to create the bsp. In the Halflife way, it would be using for example hammer editor and the zhlt tools to compile the map.
The fact is I don't know if Hammer is not available to release comercial products (games to sell, for example, or online game that charge a small quota) As I read lately at GTK Radiant site, GTK Radiant , qradiant, etc, are non usable for comercial products. I like to know I can use it for comercial before learning a tool. Maybe just an obssesion I have.
Happily, Quark (Quake Army Knife) is free. You can then use for comercial products...BUT...you need a free compiler. If you make a *.map with it, and compile with q3 Id Software tools, we'd be in the same legal problem. So, Deps pointed to a free q3compiler q3map2 or something, yes, I think was this one...
http://www.shaderlab.com/q3map2/
a tutorial for dummies (me) to use it
http://www.inficad.com/~mnichol/dummies/index
and for the tut, and work easier with the compiler, you need this graphical tool :
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/pl ... _setup.exe
I have not put my hands in all this, nor in level editing at all, more than handling with Max in certain job. So I don't either know if the way Quark--->export as *.map ----> open the *.map with the q3map2 tool, so to finally compile as quake3 BSP, does really work. But it should.
Then you would open the bsp with irllithc. Hopefully done in a much easier way than modelling with a 3d package, also , as far as I know, you'll have there the lightmaps, collisions, viewing fields, etc.
If THAT works, is surely the easy way for a non artist, and surely for anyone, to bang quickly levels, structures, etc, all ready to put in game, I suppose.
The other way...well I don't know. Use a dx editor like Deled, and adapt it's output and stuff to integrate with irllitch..I don't know.
Much harder. Deled doesn't have lightmaps. You would have to combine with LM tools, or FS Rad, free tools for lightmap generation.
I surely would prefer this way, as I don't like to be restricted to the boleans and primitives of a ready-made level editor, but model carefully each object in my modeller. But surely the whole level editing is done in a small portion of time in an editor (the only really free as I see) like Quark. The screens made me think of it as very graphical and easy tio use.
BUT you should not get hard to learn it before you have picked an already made *.map (suirely you can download from inet) , make the test to compile it with the free compiler q3map2(and the gui for it that I mentioned) , and once having the compiled BSP, make a try to load it in Irllitch and check all works well. Even better, ask Deps is he would trust in this method, or if he had luck with it.
I think that probably inirlitch at the end you will be able to load a bsp, as well as just create the x file, add a tga lightmap generated with any of the 2 lightmap tools fo rfree I mentioned, and see the way of making collission boxes for the scenery, weirder thing by code, or making a crappy rough editor for it, loading a "reference" of the x file scenery and ouput that collision boxes in othe rfile to be loaded in irlitch at same time that the scenery mesh (with its lightmap tga in second uv channel)
Somewwhere I have read thoug, BSPs are better for rooms, for small in polygon count areas, so indoor FPS games, and worse for huge terrain open fields, like medieval RPGs, where some one told me are better portals.
But as I am not a programmer or a level editor, I'll shut my mouth now.
Anyone less newbie than I in this, fill free to quote all this as I probably said many nonsenses.
If I was right, I hope it helps you.
The huge movement that is in the insides of irllitch is all good
imhoX format is having its final touches as far as I can see. An I don't have enough level editing knowledge (I work in objects and characters, usually) to know if it'd be better using BSPs with the combination I'll tell you bellow, or directly X format, as as it improves inside irllitch, it'll support special shaders, vertex colors, and more things.hehe, even a bone animated scenery, a structure of bone weighted grid would move like evil mud in a blobby way... (joking
) As far as I am seing, thes newbie in level editing tells you seems there are some options :
- BSP . For now, only quake 3 bsp(the only supported by Irrlitch). Halflife bsp can be compiled with a free compiler. But recently a user pointed to a free compiler for q3 bsps. So imho should be the same.
The problem is not the compiling then, is more now of the *.map editor. As you have to create a *.map with an editor, and then use an special compiler to create the bsp. In the Halflife way, it would be using for example hammer editor and the zhlt tools to compile the map.
The fact is I don't know if Hammer is not available to release comercial products (games to sell, for example, or online game that charge a small quota) As I read lately at GTK Radiant site, GTK Radiant , qradiant, etc, are non usable for comercial products. I like to know I can use it for comercial before learning a tool. Maybe just an obssesion I have.
Happily, Quark (Quake Army Knife) is free. You can then use for comercial products...BUT...you need a free compiler. If you make a *.map with it, and compile with q3 Id Software tools, we'd be in the same legal problem. So, Deps pointed to a free q3compiler q3map2 or something, yes, I think was this one...
http://www.shaderlab.com/q3map2/
a tutorial for dummies (me) to use it
http://www.inficad.com/~mnichol/dummies/index
and for the tut, and work easier with the compiler, you need this graphical tool :
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/pl ... _setup.exe
I have not put my hands in all this, nor in level editing at all, more than handling with Max in certain job. So I don't either know if the way Quark--->export as *.map ----> open the *.map with the q3map2 tool, so to finally compile as quake3 BSP, does really work. But it should.
Then you would open the bsp with irllithc. Hopefully done in a much easier way than modelling with a 3d package, also , as far as I know, you'll have there the lightmaps, collisions, viewing fields, etc.
If THAT works, is surely the easy way for a non artist, and surely for anyone, to bang quickly levels, structures, etc, all ready to put in game, I suppose.
The other way...well I don't know. Use a dx editor like Deled, and adapt it's output and stuff to integrate with irllitch..I don't know.
Much harder. Deled doesn't have lightmaps. You would have to combine with LM tools, or FS Rad, free tools for lightmap generation.
I surely would prefer this way, as I don't like to be restricted to the boleans and primitives of a ready-made level editor, but model carefully each object in my modeller. But surely the whole level editing is done in a small portion of time in an editor (the only really free as I see) like Quark. The screens made me think of it as very graphical and easy tio use.
BUT you should not get hard to learn it before you have picked an already made *.map (suirely you can download from inet) , make the test to compile it with the free compiler q3map2(and the gui for it that I mentioned) , and once having the compiled BSP, make a try to load it in Irllitch and check all works well. Even better, ask Deps is he would trust in this method, or if he had luck with it.
I think that probably inirlitch at the end you will be able to load a bsp, as well as just create the x file, add a tga lightmap generated with any of the 2 lightmap tools fo rfree I mentioned, and see the way of making collission boxes for the scenery, weirder thing by code, or making a crappy rough editor for it, loading a "reference" of the x file scenery and ouput that collision boxes in othe rfile to be loaded in irlitch at same time that the scenery mesh (with its lightmap tga in second uv channel)
Somewwhere I have read thoug, BSPs are better for rooms, for small in polygon count areas, so indoor FPS games, and worse for huge terrain open fields, like medieval RPGs, where some one told me are better portals.
But as I am not a programmer or a level editor, I'll shut my mouth now.
Anyone less newbie than I in this, fill free to quote all this as I probably said many nonsenses.
If I was right, I hope it helps you.
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Guest
My suggestion is to follow the conventional wisdom and use GTKRadiant to create standard Quake 3 maps to import into Irrlicht. Since Quake3 BSP are highly optimised for levels this makes the best sense.
BTW there are heaps of tuts on how to make Quake 3 BSP (the output from a compiled Quake 3 MAP file)
BTW there are heaps of tuts on how to make Quake 3 BSP (the output from a compiled Quake 3 MAP file)
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Peter Müller
- Posts: 292
- Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 5:28 pm
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
One question:
Is it possible to load Counter Strike Maps with the Irrlicht Engine Praser?
Is it possible to load Counter Strike Maps with the Irrlicht Engine Praser?
http://www.games-forge.de - Die Community für Nachwuchsprogrammierer
shoot-em-ups 3d with bsp?
i´m making a shoot-em-up 3d, like raystorm, ikaruga etc...
is BSP a good choice?
is BSP a good choice?
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Peter Müller
- Posts: 292
- Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 5:28 pm
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
Big outdoor maps should be created form a heightmap
http://www.games-forge.de - Die Community für Nachwuchsprogrammierer
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Guest
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brcolow
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brcolow
I'm also looking forward to trying out your terrain tool. I've been hitting your website every couple days (and noticed lots of changes to it too, hehe, like going from static html pages to dynamic pages and back again) to see if your download has become available. I also noticed you said it'd be available after May 20 but then took that message down 
You say a couple weeks - if you need anyone to test it out, let me know, I'm willing.
I use Ogre instead of Irrlicht and they have a Paging Landscape terrain system which supports multiple texture splat layers with alpha seperating them, so I'm really looking forward to see if your editor can give me terrains that I can use. I assume it can, as that's exactly what you're doing.
I'm less interested in mesh placement, since I'll be using a different editor for placing meshes (actually using 3ds max for world creation, including placing objects, lights, etc. and giving them custom attributes). I can see how placing objects would be beneficial to people who want to use lightmaps though, so the objects are considered during lightmap creation. I'm not using lightmaps though
Anyhow, let me know when your tool is finished, or likely, I'll just keep watching your web site. I don't want to wait 2 weeks!
Hehe, I watched your videos and noticed near the end of one of them, that you closed the app and it caused an exception. Thought it was kinda funny, because I can imagine you saying "aww crap" and thinking, screw it, I'm not redoing the demo or cutting that out of the video. Too much work
falagard at hotmail dot com
Clay
You say a couple weeks - if you need anyone to test it out, let me know, I'm willing.
I use Ogre instead of Irrlicht and they have a Paging Landscape terrain system which supports multiple texture splat layers with alpha seperating them, so I'm really looking forward to see if your editor can give me terrains that I can use. I assume it can, as that's exactly what you're doing.
I'm less interested in mesh placement, since I'll be using a different editor for placing meshes (actually using 3ds max for world creation, including placing objects, lights, etc. and giving them custom attributes). I can see how placing objects would be beneficial to people who want to use lightmaps though, so the objects are considered during lightmap creation. I'm not using lightmaps though
Anyhow, let me know when your tool is finished, or likely, I'll just keep watching your web site. I don't want to wait 2 weeks!
Hehe, I watched your videos and noticed near the end of one of them, that you closed the app and it caused an exception. Thought it was kinda funny, because I can imagine you saying "aww crap" and thinking, screw it, I'm not redoing the demo or cutting that out of the video. Too much work
falagard at hotmail dot com
Clay
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brcolow
