Custom file formats

[Cole S.]

Hi, i am trying to make my own file format for 2d maps, and i have googled it, but i can't seem to get any good information on how to create it... any help?

[Ginto8]

Just name the file whatever you want.... You could make it "cow.moo", "chicken.fowl", ANYTHING.

hope I helped

[JaxDragon]

I would recommend saving them all as one format(PNG for example). Once the tiles are saved as a PNG, just rename them to have any extension you want. Load them using the same way you would load a png, except your file name shouldnt end with png ^^

[avansc]

i think he is refering to making binar files, not noramal ones

[Cole S.]

I'm talking about having a custom 2d MAP format that i can load into my game engine... not just renamed files.

[Ginto8]

As in a file containing a list of all the tile types and stuff in a map/level? If so, just name the file whatever you want.

If you're talking about something similar to saving an image from raw data, I have no clue.

[Cole S.]

i dont mean a file as in "C:\Program Files" i mean a file format, as in map.<format here> that a game engine can load, it contains the tiles for the map as well as the positions and if it is collidable, as well as some other stuff

[Ginto8]

That's what I meant the first time. The format doesn't matter really, so long as it is a text file (not necessarily .txt, just containing text data), unless, of course, there is already a registry entry for that file format, and that entry says that it's, say, an image file (so you wouldn't use .png, .jpg, etc.). Other than those small restrictions, you can make it whatever you want. like I said before, you could make it moose.cow if you wanted to!

[Cole S.]

So would i use C++ filestream to read chunks of the file or something??? and would there be a way to encrypt the files so you could not read them in notepad or any other text editor?

[avansc]

well thechnically tou can use any extension you want, even .bmp .jpg .mp3 .wav

anyways. if you are just goint to have something like

Code: Select all

map001
object 5
0,0,10,10,brick.jpg
10,0,10,10,brick.jpg
10,0,10,10,brick.jpg
20,0,10,10,brick.jpg

or whatever, that you read each line parse it and rebuild the level each time its loaded that fine.

another ( better ) option it to do it with binary files.

you would have lets say a level class, with all you data variables inside.

and you would just write the class to a binary file, then read the bytes from the file and store it in a level class object again.

down side to this is that your file will be non human readable, so you will have to have an editor.

nice thing about this is that its alot faster, file size is significantly smaller. parsers are practically non exsistant. easy of use. and scalability is infinate.
(so its a far better option.)

[Moosader]

Yeah, you can have it similar to 3D model files, listing each tile like ava said:

mapname

x, y, w, h, image
x, y, w, h, image

so it would load in the information for each tile during the load.

My maps are in a grid, with the number listed representing the x coordinate of the tile (divided by 32).


0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0
1 0 0 0 0 2 2 2
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[avansc]

wht do so few people utilize binary files?

[andrew]

Have a look at this.

You should get some ideas from it even though it's specifically for isometric maps. Also it's pretty old (1999) and even though it says it's C/C++, it's really only C.

[wtetzner]

I've decided to go with SQLite as my level/resource file format. It's embeddable, extremely fast, and cross platform. Also, there are stand-alone applications you can use to query them, so you don't have to write your own editor before you can test your engine. And best of all, you can query it with SQL!

[avansc]

I've decided to go with SQLite as my level/resource file format. It's embeddable, extremely fast, and cross platform. Also, there are stand-alone applications you can use to query them, so you don't have to write your own editor before you can test your engine. And best of all, you can query it with SQL!

as far as i know you still cant write entire objects to it... i may be wrong. but i think a self made binary file would still be beter in terms of that.