Firstly search for primary spacial geometry codecs like Octrees and BSPs.
As in your precise map stage format, chances are high you will have one thing very custom-made to your sport. Are you utilizing 1 large mesh in your sport world (Like a FPS), a bunch of modular meshes one thing like an indoor Skyrim space or for the outside areas they might additionally in all probability have a heightmap (Saved as a texture? perhaps a bunch of floats? Perhaps inputs for a procedurally generated algorithm). Would you like a large open gameworld like GTA/Simply Trigger or a bunch of small detailed areas? Do it is advisable to embed lighting maps or is that accomplished on the fly? Customized meshes/objects or all construct from parts?
You would possibly really need to begin with one thing like XML or ASCII and simply convert it into one thing binary at a later level upon getting your particulars hammered out. You would possibly discover the XML offers you ok efficiency anyway.
idGames really use plain ASCII for his or her stuff and in doom3 no less than it compiles a lot of the stuff on load since lighting now would not should be prebaked because it’s accomplished on the {hardware}. It is break up over a couple of totally different information however I believe they’re all ASCII (even the ‘compiled’ stuff). So you do not really want any superefficant packing strategies.
You may take a look at utilizing codecs which are outputted from 3D modelling software program like 3D Max, Maya, Blender and so forth. That method you do not have to make a stage editor. However you’ll have to discover a solution to embed sport info in your 3D scenes.
COLLADA is a really basic objective 3D XML format. However it is perhaps a bit too basic and have wealthy and requires some parsing and cleansing up. Additionally, you will need to fidn a solution to gameify it (Perhaps 1 file for total stage format whereas protecting your mesh stuff in one other file and even totally different format).
Another random advise could be to present each object a novel id (no less than the non-static ones), that method you may simply save/load simply the modified information. It will in all probability additionally assist with community replication for multiplayer.
Different recommendation could be to separate up all the pieces. Do not attempt to embed textures in your stage format. In the event you do need to pack all the pieces collectively for redistribution simply zip it.
