3D Game Programming All In One (2004)

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chapter 17

Making Structures

There are quite a few different options available to the game developer when creating objects for use in a game. We've already seen how to make things like trees and weapons using MilkShape to create DTS-type objects. But what about complex

structures, like buildings and bridges?

Well, you can also use DTS objects for those, making sure to create multiple collision meshes where needed. Buildings have a lot of surfaces that either you can walk on or at the very least you can't walk through. So you will spend a great deal of effort creating collision meshes. Also, DTS objects don't inherently understand the concept of lighting and shadows, so if you make a building as a DTS object, you will also have to light it yourself using another object—which is possible, but you'll have to do that for every building. This is a real issue for structures that are interiors. Bridges and ramps are not such a big deal when it comes to lighting, but you still have the collision mesh workload.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. In Torque a different kind of object is sup- ported—a DIF-type object, also called an interior. Now, using the word interior is a bit misleading, because you could, and probably will, use the same kind of object for complex structures that don't have interior lighting but do have many collidable surfaces. Therefore, I prefer to use the word structure to describe DIF objects.

There are several tools available to use for creating DIF objects. A very good open source (it doesn't cost you anything to use and it is published under the GNU General Public License) is QuArK (short for Quake Army Knife).

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Installing QuArK

All of the parts you will need to install QuArK on your hard drive are included on the companion CD. After installing the program, you'll need to verify the configuration, as described in the following sections.

Using the Installer

When you install QuArK, you will also be installing a stripped-down version of the Python scripting language.

Do the following:

1.Browse to your CD in the \QuArK directory.

2.Locate the Setup.exe file and double-click it to run it.

3.Click the Next button for the Welcome screen.

4.Follow the various screens, and take the default options for each one, unless you know you have a specific reason to do otherwise.

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502 Chapter 17 ■ Making Structures

Figure 17.6 The Torque Map Editor in QuArK.

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Table 17.1 Torque Settings for QuArK

2.Choose from the menu Torque, Export mapfile only. This creates newmap.map.

3.Now, from the menu, choose Torque, Build DIF only, as shown in Figure 17.8.

You will see a console window appear, and a bunch of stuff will be written into it. This is the output of the map2dif_DEBUG.exe map compiler program that comes with Torque. We are using the debug version because its output provides a lot more information that could help solve problems that we can encounter with more complex maps. The program takes newmap.map and compiles it into DIF form.

Anyway, you should see a line near the bottom of the output that reads something like this:

Writing Resource: persist..(./maps/newmap.dif) Done.

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If you see this, your map has successfully compiled.

4.Next, from the same menu, choose Torque, Prepare used textures.

This will create a list of all the textures used in your creation and copy them to the prepared textures directory. After a brief pause, you will get an information alert, like that shown in Figure 17.9.

5.Browse to your map output directory, C:\QuArK 6.3\torque\tmpquark\maps, and locate newmap.dif.

6.Copy newmap.dif to your Emaga6 sample game, into the directory C:\aEmagaCh6\ control\data\structures.

7.Browse to your prepared textures directory, C:\QuArK 6.3\torque\tmpquark\ textures, and locate concrete.jpg and NULL.jpg.

8.Copy concrete.jpg and NULL.jpg to the directory C:\aEmagaCh6\control\data\ structures.

9.Use UltraEdit to open the mission file for Emaga6, C:\aEmagaCh6\control\data\ maps\book_ch6.mis.

10.Locate the first instance of this line:

interiorFile = "~/data/structures/hovelb.dif";

and change it to the following, to reflect your new structure:

interiorFile = "~/data/structures/newmap.dif";

11. Directly above that, find this line (the numbers might be different):

position = "-4.05031 54.9271 207.919";

Figure 17.8 Selecting Build DIF only.

Figure 17.9 The texture information alert.

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and replace it with this exactly:

position = "8 50 198";

The preceding steps are a way to manually insert your creation into the mission map file at the location of one of the existing hovel structures. Because of differences in construction between the two structures, you needed to adjust the position of the new structure somewhat.

12.Run your Emaga6 sample game. After spawning in, you should see the new structure directly in front of you, as shown in Figure 17.10. Run on over and go inside. Take a good look around. There's your first structure created with QuArK!

Building Bridges

So, you've had a taste of how you can use QuArK. Now let's dive in and muck about with it a bit and actually create something. Because this is our first structure from scratch, we'll start out with something not too complex—a stone bridge.

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in the handle, hold down the button, and then drag the brush around to resize or move it as needed.

Also, you should note the texture that the brush sports—a striped texture. This is the default texture for new brushes; the texture's name is Construction. You will assign your own textures later.

4.Using the handles, resize and move the brush until you have something resembling Figure 17.13. This is the roadbed of the bridge.

5.Create two more Cube brushes and place them as shown in Figure 17.14. These will be the bridge pylons.

Next, you are going to add some texture to the bridge.

6.Click inside the Roadbed brush to select it.

7.Right-click anywhere in the view to get the pop-up menu. As long as you have a brush selected, you will get a pop-up menu containing functions that will be applied to that brush, even though you haven't actually right-clicked on the selected brush.

8.Choose Texture, as shown in Figure 17.15.

The Texture Browser will appear,

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