Game Development Community

Moving interiors? possible?

by John Courte · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 08/17/2004 (6:44 pm) · 2 replies

Hi all,

first off, Torque rocks! Hats off to all involved in its creation and support.

Second, I have a question about general design technique. Based on what I've read in the Docs and Faq's, you have shapes and interiors, Polygon and BSP based entities, respectively. Is it possible to have a BSP/Brush-based entity on a moving platform, like say a really large ship where you could stand on the deck or look out a porthole and see the ocean going by, or a train, with the terrain moving underneath.

I understand there are some limitations, since the terrain map is finite, but can this be done at all? I realize this is a trick question, since the source code is available, and thus there are theoretically no limitations, but my programming experience is limited to plugins for 3d apps.

thanks,
-stjohn
NextNext Thread
PrevPrevious Thread
More from Game Design and Creative Issues


Torque Owner Teck Lee Tan
#1
08/17/2004 (7:07 pm)
From the description, it sounds like you don't actually need the entire BSP brush to move. Instead, simply give the player the illusion of movement. Take a look at some of the maps in the original Unreal Tournament, specifically CTF-Face and AS-Train to see what I mean. Epic used different methods for each:

CTF-Face: In this case, the skybox actor (I'm not sure if Torque works the same way) was animated to rotate in the middle of the skybox to give the illusion that the entire map was rotating in orbit.

AS-Train: For this one, the ground texture and skybox textures simply panned at different speeds opposite the direction of "movement" (the different pan speeds serving to suggest parallax).

Come to think of it, the train assault map in UT2k4 also uses essentially the same trick as AS-Train.

Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
#2
08/18/2004 (7:06 am)
Soldier of Fortune's train mission used the same technique as AS-Train as well.