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Hello all.

I'm a bit new to 3D objects and meshes, and I would like the describe what I need to do, what I've tried already, and you can tell me if this is possible at all or if the language is not meant for such things. And sorry for the long post I appreciate any help you can give.

1) Take objects (plains, boxes, ramps, etc.) and build a landscape chunk out of them, maybe 10x10 objects in size.
2) Make the landscape chunk 1 single object (join as mesh?) to help speed rendering later on.
3) Create a map of these separate landscape chunks, maybe 5x5, and only show the local 3x3 portion of it (hide the rest).

Is this possible? I can't use matrices or the terrain because I need this map to be "blocky", complete with walls. Basically the entire map could be made with plains either flat or at angles (ramps).

Now I already fooled around a little with meshes (don't have the code handy but I can post it later tonight if needed) where I create two box objects, join one of them as a limb, create a mesh from the entire object and save to an X file. Then when I load the X file, the textures are all missing. It seems that the mesh did not retain the textures but of course I am a noob and may be doing something wrong. I realize meshes are internal representations of objects and not the objects themselves, but I figured the texture data would be right there with them?

I've tried making maps with single objects and DBPro does not like the high object count to bump past 600 or so (even when using INSTANCE commands), that is why I feel simple plains joined together into a single mesh would be much faster to render than 100 separate plains being rendered separately. And these would be extremely low-poly objects (<300?) in the end.

I need to have my maps able to be created with a home-grown "editor" program, I can't rely on using a 3D modeler to make these maps, I want the users to be able to create their own easily and within the confines/rules of my game. Hence the need to create these landscapes entirely from DBPro.

Mesh with Memblock manipulation?
The new vertex commands in U6?

Thanks for your time and hope this isn't too stupid a question.

What I usually do in such a case is build the map blocks in a free 3D tool with .X export such as DoGA CGA. I find it easier to work directly with .X models that way and write up a tutorial on how to make the map blocks in whatever editor I choose to support. Perhaps I'll include a sample template so they mod people will have a head start.

Check out my web sites and visit the TCOM2 gallery. You can find some examples of tiled 'levels' that are made like that. I go to the additional step of reading in script files that describe the scene and allow me to set features, load maps, and create basic entities in more or less plain English.
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TAZ

Thanks Zircher for the link. I'd like to make it super easy to build levels for the game... so easy a young kid could do it. I think using a 3D Modeler, exporting it to X file and scripting entity placement is not the direction I want to go.

I'm a little disappointed that we can't just add a single polygon to an object's mesh with native commands (I'm assuming there's no way due to the lack of replies).

Does anybody know if the new vertez manipulation commands will have a "create vertex" or something so we can piece together a non-primitive object through DBPro?

And another question: If I link a bunch of objects to another via the limb system, then use "make mesh from object" command and save the mesh... is it loaded as 1 object? Or is it loaded as an object with a limb object attached to it?

Thanks again for any insight into what is possible with DBPro.

> Thanks Zircher for the link. I'd like to make it super easy
> to build levels for the game... so easy a young kid could do
> it. I think using a 3D Modeler, exporting it to X file and
> scripting entity placement is not the direction I want to go.

How young? My son pretty much mastered DoGA CGA at 10 years of age and was writing html and tweaking javascript. DoGA is dirt simple to use, similar to virtual Technics. The user selects parts from a 'parts bin' and can place/rotate/stretch them to make custom models. Of course, DoGA exports to the X format.

> I'm a little disappointed that we can't just add a single
> polygon to an object's mesh with native commands (I'm assuming
> there's no way due to the lack of replies).

You can do it, but it is not trivial. You have to convert the mesh to a memblock, edit the memblock, and then convert it back to a mesh.

This thread will give you an idea. It is a randomize mesh tile program that I wrote.

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=21116&b=1
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TAZ

Side note on the DoGA thing, if you want to add custom parts to the selection, you can do that as well. But, that requires a little more effort. It does give you an angle if you want to say include a page of custom player faces, predefined doors, or something like that.

Hi Zircher.

In another post I've found out that "make mesh from object" command really does take multiple objects and turn it into a single mesh. And also those meshes hold the UV data, so if I use a large single texture file for the level (which is possible for my game) I should be able to load meshes and texture them to match what the original objects were displaying.

Oh and the self-made level editor was going to be one of the "goodies" that users would have to pay for by registering... so I guess that's my main reason for wanting to be able to do this for my project.

Thanks for your insight!