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This section describes the objects used to build a world. This is useful to understand the format of the Crystal Space map file (see section Format of Map File (XML)). To understand this you should know the basics of the Portal Engine. This section describes the components of the world independent from the file format, so it is also useful if you want to build a world from within your program.
The world is built up from the following objects:
(iSector). For technical details, see the portal engine discussion
(see section Portal Engine). Basically sectors define an area
that can contain several geometrical objects. As opposed to earlier
versions of Crystal Space, a sector does not itself represent geometry.
Instead all geometry in a sector is made from Mesh Objects.
Theoretically a sector is infinite although in practice it is usually
logically bounded by sector walls or a sky object. You can create sectors
using the engine (iEngine) or they can be created in a map file.
(iMeshFactoryWrapper, iMeshObjectFactory). See the mesh object
section for more specific information about mesh factories (see section Mesh Object Plug-In System).
Mesh object factories are objects that can be used to create mesh objects
that inherit characteristics from their mesh factory. Basically a mesh
object factory is like a blue-print for creating a mesh object. Mesh
factories can also be hierarchical like mesh objects. In most cases
(i.e. like genmesh (see section Genmesh Mesh Object and thing
(see section Thing Mesh Object)) the factory defines the actual geometry of
an object. You can then create multiple mesh objects from those factories.
They will all share the same geometry.
(iMeshWrapper, iMeshObject). See the mesh object section for
more specific information about mesh objects (see section Mesh Object Plug-In System).
Mesh objects represent geometry in some
sector. Everything you can see (walls, actors, particle systems, ...) is
represented by some kind of mesh object. This is a very important concept
in the Crystal Space engine. Mesh objects can also be hierarchical.
A mesh object can have several children which in turn can also have children
and so on. The children of a mesh object are positioned relative to the
parent. So when you move the parent the children will automatically move
with the parent. Children of a mesh can be meshes or lights.
(iTextureWrapper). See the material section for more information
about textures. (see section Materials and Textures).
Basically a texture represents an actual image that can
be used in materials. Textures are used to give your mesh objects a real
appearance. Textures are never used alone but always in a material.
(iMaterialWrapper). See the material section for more information
about materials. (see section Materials and Textures).
Basically a material represents a surface appearance
for a polygon or triangle. A material is most typically made out of a single
texture but it is also possible to make materials out of a combination of
textures (using a shader) or even without any textures at all (for example
a solid color).
(iShader). See the shader section for more information about shaders
(see section Shaders). A shader is a piece of code that is typically run on
the 3D card. It is this code that is responsible for actually rendering
the surface attributes using the material data. A material and a shader
work closely together.
(iRenderLoop). See the renderloop section for more information about
renderloops (see section Renderloops). A renderloop is an engine structure that
tells the engine how to render the objects in a given sector. Basically it tells
the engine the steps required to do the rendering of the mesh objects and
also the steps required to do the lighting. You can make your own renderloops
but typically you would use one of the standard provided renderloops
from the `data/shader' directory.
(iPortal, iPortalContainer). See the portal discussion
(see section Portal Engine).
The idea is that sectors are normally totally independent areas
unless you connect them through portals. A portal is basically a 3D polygon
that has no material but instead represents a view of the destination sector.
(iLight). A light is needed to illuminate your level.
Lights can also be part of a hierarchical object (like mesh objects).
There are different ways how lighting is applied to objects. See section Lighting.
(iSceneNode). A scene node is a generic representation of an
object in a hierarchy. Currently mesh objects and lights are scene nodes.
(iCollection). These are simply groups of other objects.
Do not confuse them with hierarchical objects or with regions. Crystal Space
itself does not use them but you can use
them for your own purposes in your application.
(iRegion). A region is also a collection of objects but the purpose
is different (as opposed to collections). A region can contain
textures, materials, mesh objects, mesh factories, lights, collections, sectors,
sequences, triggers, shared variables, .... Regions are useful when you
want to load/unload big parts of a world dynamically. This can be used in
cases where the world is too big to fit in memory and you want to use dynamic
loading. It is important to realize that the concept of a region is not
geometrical. A region is typically a collection of objects that are located
close to each other in 3D but it doesn't have to be that way. Regions can
be organized in any way you want. Some examples:
(iKeyValuePair). A key/value pair is a {key,value}
tuple describing some game specific concept. Key/value tuples are represented
by a pair of strings (or one name and several named value strings). If you
have built levels for Quake before, you are probably familiar with this concept
from Quake's Entities. Almost all objects in the Crystal Space
engine support these key/value pairs (this is done through the iObject
system) so you can attach this kind of
information to anything. Crystal Space itself will not use this information
but your game can query it and perform the appropriate actions.
In theory it is up to your program as to how these key-value tuples
are interpreted. However, Crystal Space has set some standards to make life
easier for level designers and also to make levels as portable as possible
between different Crystal Space games. Note that key value pairs actually
allow multiple named values for a single key.
See the section about game data for more information on this subject.
(see section Managing Game Specific Data).
(iMapNode). A node represents a point in space. The engine
itself will not use nodes but a game can use them to represent game specific
data. See the section about game data for more information on this subject.
(see section Managing Game Specific Data).
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