Among other things, I have been trying to grasp the concept of Map Entities. Ok, why? If you could pretty much do the same things with a model, why should you use Map Entities? In Grimber's FPS tutorials, he has us create a pane of glass as a Map Entity. (I have not finished it, by the way.) Why not a model?

When should you use a model, compared to a sprite or map entity?
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Please help me defeat my seemingly indomitable ignorance...

Depends on what your doing. If you were creating structural items [building, door, table] then you should go with maps, otherwise models. depends on the item

But why? Does the engine interact diffrently with models or map entities? If there is collision between 2 models, rather than a model and a map entity, is there a diffrence?

Map entities have different behavior in influence of light (they have own lights and only flat dynamic light support) and they allways have polygonbased collision. Besides they can't be scalled or animated as modells can. The disadvantage of modells is, that they are more difficult to be created than map entities. But on the other hand models can be far more detailed than maps.

So basicly, I can use a model any time I want to, but they are harder to create. And if I'm understanding correctly, map entities have things like ambient and albedo, whereas models do not.

Models have everything, but sometimes it's earier to just create a map entity. With map entities, you can simply apply tiled texture, with models, you have to create UV maps and such. Plus map-ents can be lit by static lights (within the map ent)...

I think the answer is the collision , Map Entities are basically Bsp based blocks that are treated as models , the advantage of using them is you can assign actions to them , while still mainting their accurate collision , which is why they are used for things like elevators and the like. This were implemented before gamestudio had correct polygon collission , no need to really use them if your building your levels out of models with polygon collision for everything. On the other hand , if your using regular blocks for your levels , and you want something like an elevator to carry the character or a door to block a path , then using a map entity is the solution , because you cant assing an action to a block , and models have poor collision. Hope this clears it up a bit for you.

OK, that's helpful, thank you. Not that I'm skilled enough to figure out how to make my blocks use polygon collision... But otherwise, I use normal blocks.

my.polygon = on;

or set the polygon flag in the properties menu of your model.

Map ent's already use poly collision. Entities need it enabled (as stated above)...


Polygon collision just means collision will be precise. Otherwise collision will just be with an "invisible box" around the model...

Okay, thanks. Don't the relatively new "C_" instructions for scripting use polygon collision? Don't actually need an answer to that, so thank you.