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Help needed - how to setup a level for use with PureLight

by Richard Marrevee · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 09/23/2011 (8:55 am) · 2 replies

I've recently bought Purelight and right now discovering the possibilities. Now I'm having a rather large dungeon level which is in fact 1 large dts (or dae, cause Purelight use Collada) The dungeon is mostly dark but there are some spots where there is light (lamplight or sunlight). Also I have many props (like tables, rubble, beds and more of this stuff) in this level, which are seperately designed and thus seperate dae's and I have placed them in the dungeon using the T3D world-editor.

But now I have Purelight and I want to set this level ip for this. The problem is that when I create the scene and load it into Purelight all meshes are located at 0,0,0. Moving these models in Purelight seems to be a little bit hard so the questions are:

- How do I build my level? Putting all meshes in 1 big model is not an option, because the level is zoned.
- Do I have to export all models with the same origin? If so, how about object-instancing in T3D?
- Does LOD's work in these models?
- After scene-creation with Purelight can I convert the DAE's to DTS using DAE2DTS? I know T3D generates the cached DTS, but I would like to have some control.

I hope someone with more experience with Purelight can put me in the right directions (this is something I am missing in the Purelight manuals), cause levels made with Purelight give very good results.

Thanks.

About the author

Started programming in 1984 on an Oric, when time progressed switched to MSX, Amiga and finally the Windows PC with T3D. Now developing an epic fantasy game: The Master's Eye. Creator of the DoorClass pack and VolumetricFog pack @ richardsgamestudio.com


#1
09/23/2011 (10:02 am)
I found that setting out my corridors/rooms/etc (as independant objects and I adding my props as groups of meshs) in a 3D modeling app, means that each section got the position when exported as a DAE and added to PL. And thus exported from PL with the correct position in the generated mission file.

You could also ignore all of that and just import sections into PL one at a time, lightmap them, and export out, ignore the generated mission file and manually place them in Torque as instances.

I added LODs by setting it up in the Shape Editor.

I'm under the impression that T3D uses DAE2DTS for conversion anyway.
#2
09/23/2011 (11:34 am)
Thanks Steve, as always:)