A6 engine
It's quite a good engine with a complete set of tools. It works at every level.
If you don't program at all, it's a put-up-and-play engine. It's got a good level editor, you build your stuff, place lights, textures, compile and play. The level editor is pretty hammer-like. It even imports hammer maps.
Mid level programmer- thru scripting you can modify basic things like player behaviour, menus, uis, etc.
full powerfull programmer. full c++ support.
I got the commercial version, but ironically I have more fun creating stuff with Irrlicht. Anyway, I learned a ton from it. Oh yes, it's got a very good documentation and community supporting it.
cheers!
If you don't program at all, it's a put-up-and-play engine. It's got a good level editor, you build your stuff, place lights, textures, compile and play. The level editor is pretty hammer-like. It even imports hammer maps.
Mid level programmer- thru scripting you can modify basic things like player behaviour, menus, uis, etc.
full powerfull programmer. full c++ support.
I got the commercial version, but ironically I have more fun creating stuff with Irrlicht. Anyway, I learned a ton from it. Oh yes, it's got a very good documentation and community supporting it.
cheers!
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Robomaniac
- Posts: 602
- Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2003 2:03 am
- Location: Pottstown, PA
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The A6 map format is pretty much like worldcraft's-hammer map. A6 has got it's own compiling tools for lightmaps and stuff. They got their own bsp version. Getting to load and A6 map would be pointless, it's their bsp version we'd be interested in but then we wouldn't be doing anything new from loading Quake 3 bsps. In other words, what would we gain by creating a loader for A6 maps?
i own a6 com too, and tried to create a wmb-loader but there seems to be absolute no information about the format, so creating a loader is far too difficult for me (perhaps if the octree-culling option is available it will be more easier..but this can take a while)
a loader for a6 would only be good for people who own a6, but since the editor of a6 is very easy to use ( in my op the best editor for leveling) we would have a good editor and lightmap compiler (perhaps we could load infos for sounds and models too)
like afecelis i own a6/com but im more interested in irrlicht (but because of the lack of good/easy leveleditors with lightmap compilers i still use a6)
a loader for a6 would only be good for people who own a6, but since the editor of a6 is very easy to use ( in my op the best editor for leveling) we would have a good editor and lightmap compiler (perhaps we could load infos for sounds and models too)
like afecelis i own a6/com but im more interested in irrlicht (but because of the lack of good/easy leveleditors with lightmap compilers i still use a6)
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Guest
i found this on their forums. maybe it helps?
but i don't know why anyone would want to import a6 bsp files into irrlicht?the times of bsp are over! i am also an a6 user and a6's biggest disadvantage is that it is still limited to bsp/csg geometry...The format is sort of open if someone is interested. Some developers for external editors are working on lightmap export for GameStudio. Here's what I've sent all of them on their request as a sort of documentation:
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How to export lightmaps to a WMB file
I suppose that you are familiar with the BSP file format. The WMB file is built similar to a BSP file, consisting of lumps, however with different content lists. A WMB file consists of the following lumps:
enum {
LUMP_COLORMAPS = 0,
LUMP_PLANES = 1,
LUMP_TEXTURES = 2,
LUMP_VERTEXES = 3,
LUMP_VISIBILITY = 4,
LUMP_NODES = 5,
LUMP_TEXINFO = 6,
LUMP_FACES = 7,
LUMP_LIGHTING_SW = 8,
LUMP_CLIPNODES = 9,
LUMP_LEAFS = 10,
LUMP_MARKSURFACES = 11,
LUMP_EDGES = 12,
LUMP_SURFEDGES = 13,
LUMP_MODELS = 14,
LUMP_ENTITIES = 15,
LUMP_LIGHTING_D3D = 16
};
Replacing the lightmaps will affect lumps 16 and 7. The rest of the lumps does not matter for the lightmaps.
Lump16 contains a number of 256x256x24 bit lightmaps.
Lump 7 contains the surfaces in the following format:
typedef struct {
long key;
long firstedge;
short numedges;
short texinfo;
byte logratio; // 4 for 1:16 ratio, and 3 for 1:8 ratio
byte lnum; // number of the 256x256 block that contains the lightmap
byte offsx,offsy; // offset into the block, in pixels
long lightofs;
long planenum;
} SURFACE;
What you'll need is logratio, lnum, and offsx/offsy. logratio gives the number of texture pixels per lightmap pixels, either 4 for 1:16 ratio, or 3 for 1:8 ratio.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I admit that you need some experience with the various Quake and Halflife BSP formats in order to find this information useful. However, anyone who wants to do a lightmap exporter can contact me - I'll answer all questions.
woha...where did you find that??..i searched the whole forum for such information*gg*..could you give me the direct link?
i agree 100% with you that a6 biggest disadvantage is the bsp restriction (thats why im looking forward to octree-culling)
but if you want to make a game for non high-end pc´s and you have huge indoor levels, bps is still the best
i agree 100% with you that a6 biggest disadvantage is the bsp restriction (thats why im looking forward to octree-culling)
but if you want to make a game for non high-end pc´s and you have huge indoor levels, bps is still the best
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QuickQuestion
Thanx for the quick responses. I just had a few more questions. I have been reading alot about the A6 engine since yesterday, and I have what I would call my only problem with it so far. I know most of you who responded said you owned the "Commercial" grade engine, so I was looking at the differences between the different versions. How limiting is the fact that the commercial version only allows 1 object to be registered for the physics engine, since the Proffesional version allows unlimted objects to be registered. Does that mean, ONLY one object in the entire game will have collision detection/response?
Also, how important is the difference between, HIGH RES shadow maps, and normal shadow maps? Do the HIGH RES remove banding?
Also, how important is the difference between, HIGH RES shadow maps, and normal shadow maps? Do the HIGH RES remove banding?
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Guest
i think by default there is one light map pixel for each 8x8 color map pixels and in high res mode there is one light map pixel for each 4x4 color map pixels. but i am not exactly sure. but this doesn't have to do anything with banding...
with the commercial edition you can only have 1 active ODE physics entity at a time but of course you can use a6's collision detection with as many entities you want. ...there is a newton plugin for all editions and if you have the skills you could create your own wrappers for other physics engines...
with the commercial edition you can only have 1 active ODE physics entity at a time but of course you can use a6's collision detection with as many entities you want. ...there is a newton plugin for all editions and if you have the skills you could create your own wrappers for other physics engines...
the editor itself is not the main problem i think..its the wmb compiler, but since the wmb format changes with every beta of a6, its useless to create a plugin for irrlicht (and because of the fast changing of the format theres no documentation for the wmb format so it ll be very hard to add support for wmb)
I too have developed stuff with the A6 engine and I can honestly say it's better to learn C++ and then a real graphics engine such as IRRLICTH . At first I liked the fact that it had the editor and all you had to do is change a few scripts...it was easy....but it never really seemed like I was programming a game. So I ventured out and looked at Genesis 3D, Cae3D, Crystal Space, Ogre, and many more..... I stumble across IRRLICH and have been learning how to do everything with it.... for some reason I understand the basics of the API and the community is great.