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Dust
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 320
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 Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:37 am Post subject: Coming Soon - Delta3D Level Editor! |
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http://www.delta3d.org/article.php?story=20050323154723989&topic=news
| Quote: | Coming Soon - Delta3D Level Editor!
Wednesday, March 23 2005 @ 03:47 PM EST
The Delta3D team is proud to announce that Delta3D Level Editor is now scheduled for release. In fact, it's not too far away! You may be surprised to know that the level editor has already been in the design and development phase for several months!
As you know, Delta3D is a fantastic engine based on numerous, best-of-breed Open Source toolkits including Open Scene Graph, Open Dynamics Engine, Open Audio, CAL3D, and more. However, using the engine to build a game or simulation, is currently no small task. To create your virtual world, you'll have to place each object manually, in code.
Change is a coming!
The Delta3D team has been aware of the need for an editor since the beginning and now, it's happening! The editor is at the top of the list and is actively underway. So far, we've completed both the requirements and design phases and are actively working on Iteration 1 with a scheduled release in August/September - to coincide with the Version 1 release of Delta3D.
So, what's it do?
The level editor will allow you to visually construct your world including the placement of terrain, objects, and actors. You will be able to use the same types of viewports used by professional engines to view, manipulate, and navigate your world. You can see real time what your world is going to look like including the precise placement of your important game objects. Most importantly, it is constructed from the ground up to be flexible and support the long-term needs of the Delta3D community with our new Actor concept.
Actors
What is an Actor? Well, just about everything. Actors can be anything from a moving tank, to a Non-Player-Character (NPC), to a directional light source. It can be something as simple as a trigger or as complex as terrain data. The possibilities are endless because an Actor is simply a class that encapsulates a game object and its behavior. Actors know how to draw themselves and add themselves into the underlying Delta3D scene.
And, Actors have one additional important property - they know how to expose themselves and their detailed properties to the level editor. And that's really when the magic begins. You can create your own actors that will be exposed directly to the Level Editor! You can expose as many or as few properties as you like and still maintain complete control over how your Actor behaves and draws itself. This critical architecture takes the Delta3D engine to the next level enabling much more rapid development of your games.
Once finished, the Level Editor and Actor classes will become the fundamental elements that you use to construct your worlds. Using the level editor, you will build your maps by placing Terrain, lights, vehicles, player objects, NPC's, and more - all Actors. Then, you can load the entire map and all of the actors directly into your game at runtime.
Does it work?
So, how does all this magic work? Well, the whole process is supported by our new Dynamic Actor Layer (DAL). The DAL loads libraries of actors dynamically in both the editor (design time) and in your application (runtime). Each library contains a set of Actors that becomes part of your game. Of course we will support all of the basic Delta3D objects as Actors. But, you can write your own too! The architecture is completely designed to support custom libraries with custom actors.
So, why would you want to write an Actor? Because Actors can be directly manipulated within the Level Editor! Creating these thin Actor wrappers (called ActorProxy) will enable the Dynamic Actor Layer to learn about your game objects and let you place them visually in your world. And, you'll even be able to edit properties, visually, on the fly with our ActorProperty concept.
Once you've created your map, the DAL can save it out to XML and load it directly into your game. The result is an elegant process allowing developers and designers to work together to create new games. You can even share your libraries of Actors with other developers in the Delta3D community.
Actors, Proxies, Properties, Oh My!
Don't worry. All this magic happens under the covers. You won't need to know all these details if you simply want to build a level. The level editor will present a simple, easy to use interface for building your worlds. It's all click and drag. However, despite the easy to use User Interface, you'll know that under the covers is a powerful, flexible architecture opening up new avenues for Delta3D developers and game designers alike! |
and so can the terrain look like
http://www.delta3d.org/article.php?story=2005032211541140&topic=projects and http://www.movesinstitute.org/~wdwells/8754/index.html are more pics
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