Supported file formats
Scene description
Ini description
Scripts description
General comments
All levels must be located inside of the data directory within individual directory. Directory name does not matter as long as it is not starting with "." (dot symbol) Each level should have one ini file (name does not matter, but there should be only one ini file) with description of the level. Level has three parts to it: ships, level objects and path.Path is used to guide ships and their ammo through the level, while level objects are a mere decoration. Path consists of points (intersections) and edges connecting points. Each point have at least 1 and at most four 4 neighbors. Neighbors are referred as Up, Down, Left and Right neighbors. I think (though I am already not sure :) ) I put a limitation that all neighbor must be in 90 degrees angles (it was faster to make it work, but code itself is designed to be independent of this fact, so if you want to have arbitrary angles it is not hard to fix, I just need to remember where) Also points could be at different heights, but I did not test it.
Each Ship has a body and a bullet (yes only one bullet). Negative Y is considered to be the axis of forward movement and positive Z is the upper side of the ship. The same rules apply for a bullet.
Level objects can be whatever you want them to be and it is up to you to make sure that they do not interfere with the logical movements of the ships on the path.
Supported file formats
3D models:- COB or SCN binary files created by trueSpace6.0 by Caligari.
- ms3d files created by MilkShape 3D by Chumbalum
soft. (tested textured models only)
2D images: Only 8 bit BMP files are supported.
Sound files:
Only WAV files are played from a 3D position.
Ogg Vorbis,MP3,FLAC,MOD, S3M, XM, IT can be used for background
music or sound effects, which does not require positioning.
Scene description
One may choose between implementing level completely within trueSpace scene or using ini description.Only POLYHEDRONS are loaded. Grouping is not supported, so if you have complex object you should boolean union it first. Objects must be triangulated. All level objects must be grouped and name of the group should start with "Level" prefix. If there is no such group in the scene, then all polyhedrons with the names started with "Level" are loaded. Ships are grouped with their bullet and group should have name starting with "LoadedShip". Ship object must have name starting with "Ship", while bullet should have name starting with "Bullet". Location of the bullet in relation to the ship will be considered as in loaded state, when fired bullet will not keep its Z offset. Center of the ship (defined by location of the axis) will be placed on the path. The initial position of the ship (ship polyhedron, not ship group) must have the same coordinates as on of the points on the path, otherwise ship will not be positioned.
Note: I did not have enough time to understand how properly determine location and parameters of the objects, so when you model your object, chances are that you do not see it in the game, the reason is that SSR does not load object positions correctly. You should save object as binary 3DS (do not forget to triangulate it first) and then load it in the scene. This would erase transformations made by ts to the object and its location could be properly determined by SSR.
Cameras are ts objects. The view you see within tS and within program are a little bit different. Test it :) You can have as many cameras as you like.
Lights are usual tS objects. Only spot, infinite and local lights are supported. Exponent value for spot lights is not applied correctly.
Shaders are limited to phong and texture shaders and only color component is used.
Path is created by a single closed NURBS curve (only one can be in the scene). I suggest you to switch snapping to the grid and put its resolution to 1 meter, then use Add Polyline to draw your path. Very important thing is to mark each point you come through, even if it is already there. It means that you click at each intersection, even if path is already there. I know it is pain, hope to correct it soon. Also you should finish at the same point, where you started and close the curve.
When creating your level you may look at "ssr.ini" and switch on reporting from all managers (under log section) or just look at "ssr.log", it should give you some information about what when wrong and so on.
Limitations and things that does not work as they should are because
of "not enough time", so feel free to offer your help and fix the thing :)
Ini description
Ini file contains sections (enclosed by []). Each section has key-value pairs separated by sign "=" (equal). Comments must have ";" as the first symbol in the line. There should be single ini file in the level directory with the following sections and keys:| Section |
Description |
|||||||||||||||
| [general] | Contains
information about level name and number of players allowed in the game. Note: that this section should be within first 10 lines of the ini file
[general] level_name=level1 max_players=3 crc=1 |
|||||||||||||||
| [level] | Path information and common
level settings
[level] texture_path=textures script=scripts/level.scr level_scene=level1.scn bg_color=0.0,0.0,0.0 |
Following sections are used only if "level_scene" key is not set for section [level] in ini file:
| Section |
Description |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [path] | This section contains
description of the path, which all ships will follow, it should contain
points location and their neighbor description. All point should be
numbered sequentially starting from 0. Values should be separated by
comas
[path] point0= 1, 1,0 point1=-1, 1,0 point2=-1,-1,0 point3= 1,-1,0 point0_nb=-1,-1, 3, 1 point1_nb=-1, 0, 2,-1 point2_nb= 1, 3,-1,-1 point3_nb= 0,-1,-1,2 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [cameraXXX] | Camera description. Ini file
must have at least one camera, upper limit is unbound. Cameras must be
nubered sequentially starting from 0
[camera0] name=Camera0 loc=0.237596,10.2729,20.728 look_at=0.237596,9.85025,19.8216 up_dir=-7.43949e-042,-0.906308,0.422618 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [lightXXX] | Light description. Must be
numbered sequentially starting from 0
[light0] type=2 loc=7,0,5 exponent=0 ambient=0.13,0.13,0.13 diffuse=0.13,0.13,0.13 specular=0.13,0.13,0.13 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [objXXX] | Objects of the level. Must be
numbered sequentially starting from 0
[obj0] file=objs/level.cob loc=0,0,0 rot=0,0,0 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [shipXXX] | Ship description. Level should
have at least two ships (or how are you going to play?). Must be
numbered sequentially starting from 0
[ship0] ship_file=objs/ship1.cob bullet_file=objs/bul1.cob ship_loc=9,5,0 bullet_offset=0,-0.4,0 bullet_rot=0,0,0 ship_rot=0,0,0 script=scripts/ship1.scr |
Script description
Scripts are text files, containing blocks. Block has type and name separated by "=" sign (equal sign). Block should have0 or more statements. Statement has name and the value separated by "=" sign (equal sign) and ended by the ";" (semicolon). Names could contain only alpha-numeric characters and underscore sign.
Example:
type_of_the_block=name_of_the_block
{
statement_name_one=value_of_statement_one;
statement_name_two=value_of_statement_two;
}
There are three types of blocks: action,sound and pts.
- action blocks have predefined names, which are used by the program
- sound blocks have user defined names and are used within action blocks to play or stop sounds. They have only one statement: file=file_path, where file_path is a relative path to the level directory.
- pts blocks have user defined names and are used withing action blocks to start or stop particle systems
Level script supports actions: start and finished. Statements from start are executed when level is loaded (could be welcome greeting or background music). Statements from finished are executed when game is finished (someone won the game)
Names of actions and sounds for ship scripts are local to the script, which means that two ships could have the same names (and actually it could be the same sound file, which does not matter anyway). But names of level script are global and have preference over local scripts (do not ask why). This gives you an ability to affect level objects from the ship scripts. Sounds and particle systems from the ship script are attached to the ship object or bullet object.
Ship script supports actions:
- fire - bullet is fired
- loaded - bullet is returned
- moving - ship is moving
- hit - ship is hit
- accelerate - ship is accelerating
- slowdown - ship is slowing down
- collision - ship collided with another ship
- bul_moving - bullet is moving
- PlaySound - plays sound
- StopSound - stops sound
- LoopSound - players
sound in a loop
- StartPts - start particle system
- StopPts - stop particle system
- file - filename of the sound
- surf_loc_rot - location and rotation of the surface (6 floats)
- type - type of the particle system (moving, marking, follower or circular)
- surf_type - type of the emitting surface (0 - volumetric, 1 - circular)
- regenerate - 0 if particles should not be regenerated as they dye off
- particles - number of particles
- volume_surf - volume of the surface (for volumetric type of the surface)
- circ_rad_incs - radius
of the circle and numbers of angles in the cirlce (for circular type of
the surface)
- texture - texture file name used by the particle system
is changed and C is true or false flag. If C is true (1) then this value is randomly chosen from the range [A,B) for a new born particle. If C is false (0) then a new born particle has value A and it is gradually changing to value B during the time denoted by live parameter.
- size - size of the particle
- gen_rate - generation rate
- red - red component
- green - green component
- blue - blue component
- alpha - alpha component
- x_vel - velocity in X direction
- y_vel - velocity in Y direction
- z_vel - velocity in Z direction
- x_grv - gravitation in X direction
- y_grv - gravitation in X direction
- z_grv - gravitation in X direction
- live - live of the particle
Types of pts:
- moving - generation surface is attached to the object, new particle will have velocity modyfied by the rotation and velocity of the parent object
- marking - velocity of the object will not effect velocity of the particles
- follower - particle position always will be generated by the surface and added to the current location, which basicly stics particles to the parent object
- circular - new particles
has velocities directed out of the center of the generation
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