Chapter 17: Making Structures

Overview

There are quite a few different options available to the game developer when creating objects for use in a game. We've already seen how to make things like trees and weapons using MilkShape to create DTS-type objects. But what about complex structures, like buildings and bridges?

Well, you can also use DTS objects for those, making sure to create multiple collision meshes where needed. Buildings have a lot of surfaces that either you can walk on or at the very least you can't walk through. So you will spend a great deal of effort creating collision meshes. Also, DTS objects don't inherently understand the concept of lighting and shadows, so if you make a building as a DTS object, you will also have to light it yourself using another object—which is possible, but you'll have to do that for every building. This is a real issue for structures that are interiors. Bridges and ramps are not such a big deal when it comes to lighting, but you still have the collision mesh workload.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. In Torque a different kind of object is supported—a DIF-type object, also called an interior. Now, using the word interior is a bit misleading, because you could, and probably will, use the same kind of object for complex structures that don't have interior lighting but do have many collidable surfaces. Therefore, I prefer to use the word structure to describe DIF objects.

There are several tools available to use for creating DIF objects. A very good open source (it doesn't cost you anything to use and it is published under the GNU General Public License) is QuArK (short for Quake Army Knife).