Posted by BitShifter on June 22, 2000 at 06:43:16:
In reply to: Rhino level creation - the basics posted by Will. H on June 21, 2000 at 14:24:28:
: OK, I have not got a clue. Let me get this straight. You cannot open the whole level in Rhino, just the individula rooms. Anything I create has to be of the same geometry as TR's block system. The big question!!! I have the latest version of RView. When I import the .dxf file, will it re-callibrate the collision detection to the rooms new mesh??
: Also, can someone give me instructions as to what I need to put in the grid setting boxes to make the grid the same sizes as the blocks.
Just thought I'd share some of my flashes...
Think of the room as defined in the room meshes as a series of vertices from which hangs polygons, on which hangs textures as specified by their texture list offset. All this is uniquely graphic.
Now the collisional room is defined in the sector part of the room chunck.
Think of sectors as glass blocks piled up in such a way as to make the walls (as defined by their 129 altitude) and floors and ceiling (as defined by their altitude), the slant of each square being defined in the FloorData chunck.
Unless you want Lara to sink under the graphic floor or go through walls or be able to jump straitgh up through ceilings, the collisional blocks have to match exactly the textures position.
Which brings up two realisations I've had: 1) there are no mandatory correspondance between the vertices and the sectors but all through the level we can see the squares (sectors are 1024 unit on a side)....so 2) I deduce Eidos has some engine that takes the collisional carved "cave" and generate vertice sets that matches the corners of each sectors, then generate all polygons automatically, on which they can click, select and paste textures.
So maybe we should go the same route. If ever I take up writing a level editor, that's the way I would do it.