BSP-Level based game Engines tutorial

A level which will be Compiled into a BSP is build with many different kinds of objects.
With this tutorial the author intends to introduce these objects to his audience.

This tutorial explains how the technology behind the mapping process works, and how the game engine knows what it has to calculate. The required background knowledge is included.

Is a Box! A box made of boxes makes a level, not a very pretty level, but in technical terms it is a perfect level.

Each one of these boxes have been created inside the Level-Editor, such a box is called a brush. A Brush can be deformed and reshaped in many ways. In this tutorial we assume that a brush is a square or cubic box, with exactly six surfaces.

To create a brush you need to press the left mouse button and hold it, while you move your mouse in any direction, to determinate the shape of your brush.

A Surface is a single side of an object, our object is a brush, which has because of its geometric shape exactly 6 sides.

Each surface can only carry a single Texture, this means that our brushes can have up to six different textures; One on each surface.

If we have a brush with six textured surfaces, the game will draw all of these Textures, even those invisible to the player. For example, the outside of our „perfect level“, this makes six surfaces drawn per brush. The player can only see one surface of each brush, that makes 30 unnecessarily drawn surfaces.

The CAULK-Texture is an Image shown in the Level-Editor but not in game. During the compilation of the level into a BSP-File, the compiler marks all surfaces with the CAULK-Texture as invisible. You can load CAULK from the menu of the Level-Editor: Texture -> Common

How the „perfect level“ looks from the outside. It is „caulked“, and will not be drawn in game.

A texture is an image imported into a game. The texture is a visual cover for a surface, like paint on a wall.

Continue on the next page with Chapter: ADDING DETAIL TO „THE PERFECT LEVEL“