Ogre Forums

@qsilver:
This sound absolutely awesome!
Agree completely on the limitations of the .bsp format.
It seems like you are doing an excellent job here.
Take your time, it will be worth the wait.
That 2003 academic paper seems to be a very good find!
I thought of doing something similar, but using the code from the gamemaker bsp compiler.
The portals from the vis calculation could be used, and the leafs could be written out in separate .mesh files.
I am sure that your solution will be way better.

in a bsp compiler?

i want it to be able to work with gtk radiant

stubert: I'm pretty sure it will work with just abomut any editor that outputs a map.

This does sound absolutely frickin awesome. jacmoe explained to me a very long and roundabout way of doing this, that doesn't work very well. I can't wait!! By the way, how will textures be handled? There are many different ways that Hammer can handle textures: .wad, .vtf, and that's just those. Will there be a prefered way to texture a map so that the compiler will handle it without problems?

As for the VIS, will you tell the compiler to read a certain texture, (hint texture for HL) to break up VIS? I almost prefer to do my own VIS leafs with hint brushes, so that would be awesome.

.level would just hold entity information, which then in turn could be read by Ogre as a text file, and then we can just write classes to create entities as we see fit? Will this also be able to create brush entities? Meaning, for example: an invisible box, that we describe how that area functions e.g. moving a player somewhere etc.

A month sounds reasonable to me. Take your time... but the sooner the better.



FYI, note that the HL2 editor can open and edit .map, but not create them, and I would suggest against using displacements. We'll see how those work with this compiler later.


... and now the waiting process begins...

[double post]

Ok, you can use HL2 editor to edit .map files, but it won't keep any of the nifty geometry that HL2 uses. e.g. Torus' (awesome for creating curves in pipes) and displacements get very messed up if you save them in a map, and attempt to re-load the map.

I don't think there is a .vmf>.map converter, and much more I'm worried about the licensing issues involved with this, since Valve is so anal retentive about such things.

Does anyone have any ideas? It would be awesome to be able to use the complex geometry of HL2, but I'm not sure if it's even a possibility.

... and I don't wanna go back to QuArK just so I can use beziers...

DarkSeraph wrote:I don't think there is a .vmf>.map converter

Yes, there is.

DarkSeraph wrote:I'm worried about the licensing issues involved with this, since Valve is so anal retentive about such things.

Don't worry. It's all about content these days - they are more anal about you copying the assets files, than using their tools.

I'm still wondering how textures will be handled, since Ogre will use a normal filetype and .map needs to work off of .wads(or maybe you can get it to work through .paks)

Hopefully qsilver is all settled in his new job (I hope he likes it) and he can find some free time.

Forget about .wads and .paks - this is going to be a lot better than that.

jacmoe wrote:Forget about .wads and .paks - this is going to be a lot better than that.

lol I know, but the thing is: how do we get the textures in the editor, so the .map can tell the converter what geometry is what texture? The editors don't easily take .tga .png or w/e you want, they tend to be quite specific.

In the editor you would use the texture as you usually do, is the exporter that does the job of extracing them or simply use their filename so the engine can find them on the media paths

and actually pk3 are simply zip files

I dont know what qsilver is doing, but rest assured that handling textures references out of map files is easy

Lioric

It's been a good week, so I thought I'd *bump* and see if there are any updates.


Right now I'm trying to make sure that I can use the HL2 editor, editing .rmf files, which I can use HLFix to change to a .map file, and then I need to see if this compiler could use it. I guess we'll see.

I'd just like to say real quick that I disagree with jacmoe saying that Valve "won't care" about people using their tools on their own games. I thought part of the reason of creating your own BSP compiler was to get out of being bound by the license terms of id Software. If you're making it now so that it only works with Valve's tools, you're just jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. It still sounds like a cool project, but I'd be careful about giving other people the idea that they'd be allowed to make their own games using the HL2 editor and this.

That's not what's going on. Not at all.

I'll attempt to answer more in detail than Jacmoe We didn't create a BSP compiler because the BSP tree itself is too limiting, no specific company can have a license on Binary Space Partitions. If you read all of the posts in this thread, particularly the ones by qsilver and not me asking my noob questions you'd figure that out.

qsilver wrote:Here's the thing: the .BSP format sucks. It combines lots of useful information into a compact, unreadable, hard-to-edit file. There are no tools to edit the lightmaps inside the .BSP file, nor are there tools to tweak the geometry without recompiling everything. It is a closed and unnecessarily obscure format.

I see, but that still doesn't really change the fact that you're using Valve's tools... is this compiler going to work with other tools, like Quark, which have better (though still a bit murky) licensing restrictions?

Hmm could it be...

* quote from reality engine specs:

Artistic Pipeline: No CSG, no BSP, no leaks, no vis, no portals, no manual occluder placement, no topology restrictions. Artists create geometry in Max and Maya, meaning you can focus on hiring top quality artists to create your core scene geometry without worrying whether they know the ins and outs of geometry restrictions placed by most other engines. Your core level designers get a fully WYSIWYG environment for all their development, and can play the level within the editor with one button click.

* Automatic Cell-Portal decomposition (.pdf)

* volumetric cell and portal generation (.pdf)

Ok.
The bsp format, the map format, even the pak and the wad format is out in the open domain, and has been for years already.
What's not open is the tools: rad, vis and compiler.
If you compile your map file using the Id tools or the Valve tools, you cannot use it commercially without paying them a lot of money.
If you don't want to use Hammer og Radiant for level construction, you can use Quark, etc. There's lots of good map editors out there.
As long as you don't submit your map file to their toolset, you are home-free.
I know of at least one commercial game engine having a Hammer .map importer. (But if you want to be safe, use Quark, etc.)

Anyway, we don't really know what this qsilver project will be like - we just have to wait.

The reason why DarkSeraph is harping on about getting .map files into Ogre is that he's working on an Ogre FPS.
I can understand that.

jacmoe wrote:The reason why DarkSeraph is harping on about getting .map files into Ogre is that he's working on an Ogre FPS.
I can understand that.

lol yeah... I should chill a little bit

I probably should spend my time learning how to do all of this in Blender instead, my only concern is how easy entities are to do in Blender. Besides that I can't think of any reason not to use it, in fact it would be better since it would allow me to make more detailed maps. So uhh... not that this is the right place to ask, but does anyone know about getting entities in Blender? Or how to easily make a file that Ogre can read to create entities? (such as player starts etc, we'd obviously actually have to make the class and how it fits in with the rest of the program)

you can add properties to objects with the logic panel (in the button window). Make up your own scheme, you're able to understand in your project. I don't know if the dotscene exporter exports them already. If not, it should be really easy to change it accordingly.

Why, cyberdigitus appears to be on to something...

Yes, the ultimate goal of this project is to compile anything into a level. Indoor or outdoor, .map or .mesh, Quark or Maya. But for now, I'm focusing on more traditional (ie, simpler) brush-based level geometry.

As for status, I don't even have a working computer at home right now. So nothing new to report there.

Good to hear from you at least, qsilver. I'll try to keep my eye on this thread for any updates, but until then I should spend my time learning Blender. Hope your new job is going well, and you like California (though we're having bad weather for summer this week)

Maybe you should change the name of your project Q, it seems to be causing confusion among members who don't read the thread.

I'm working on it. I have a program .map to MESH & parse entities like i said in other post in the forums give my 3 days & you see what i did.

BTW, Qsilver if you i will need help if you want to join forces, you only have to said

Are there any updates on this effort?
I thank you for your replies in advance.

If you mean the efforts of BlasterN, then yes: check the links in his post just above you.
Otherwise: the world has moved on.

I appreciate the reply jacmoe. Forgive the unfortunate habit of disregarding anything below the "_________" in posts.