Level editor - .b3d exporter

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Level editor - .b3d exporter

panton(Posted 2008) [#1]
Hi there.

I want to create a level editor for my game.
To create new maps.

My question is, how can i save all models printed on the screen
and are in the new map export to a single .b3d file??

Thank you very much.


regards
michael


D4NM4N(Posted 2008) [#2]
Theres an eporter in the export sticky thread in this forum area.
http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=66815

Simply parent all your world objects to a single pivot and then try using the exporter JFK added there. (You may need to make some adjustments to it to save a hierachy)

Also there is an X exporter which I put together too. Its not compatible with everything (is any X export?!) but it works in B3D and DBP. However, it does handle an entire mesh tree which i think is what you want. I do have a truncater as well that removes NANs and whitespace which makes it more compatible.


panton(Posted 2008) [#3]
Ok thank you so much!


Kryzon(Posted 2008) [#4]
I would recommend using an already built 3D Modeler like 3DS Max, and placing Dummies (for position and rotation), and Primitives (for hotzones) around on object positions, naming the objects properly, and then exporting with, say, B3D Pipeline (turning on the Export Helpers as Pivots, of course!).

Then you could load your level in Blitz3D (With LoadAnimMesh, of course, so you keep those child informations right), and then getting them through FindChild with the name you applied with the modeler. For the primitives, you'd hide them with an alpha of 0.0 (so they'd still be processed with collision), and no need to hide the pivots as they have no visual aspect.

Then you'd have a whole working level editor very quick and easy to use. I've been working with this from a long time. You can animate a dummy, for example, and inside Blitz you can parent a camera to it and have fully animated camera Cutscene! You can have Waypoints (with pivots, as well), all just too easy to use. It's a very adequate approach to Level Editing.