Data Structures And The World Question submitted by (12 June 2000) | Return to The Archives

| Being relatively new to the 3D programming world I am having difficulty drawing the connection between a data structure (saved in a file) and the method used to render them. For example, I understand the principle behind an Octree as far as sudividing cubes until they meet certain polygon count criteria, etc. However, how do you go from a data/map file to a structure that you can apply an Octree to. It seems to me that the manner in which this data is stored could have a great impact on your engine performance. Do you need to sort this data in the file so that polygons fall into predefined cubes (Octree developed as you make the map) or just fire all the polygons etc into a map file and let the game engine determine the octree structure at run time? For that matter do you need to sort your polygons along the z-axis at the data structure level before run time? I have found a wealth of information about rendering methods and such, but very little really useful information on creating the actual data file/structure. Could someone please give me a polite shove in the right direction? |

| Let me cover your question one point at a time: 1. How do you go from a data/map file to a structure that you can apply an Octree to? Often times, games will store the data in the file as they would use it in memory. Games tend to use a lot of data and hence, require quite a bit of loading. To minimize this, they store the data in such a fashion as can be loaded quickest.
To answer your question in a point, store the Octree on disk. Sound simple? It actually is...
At some point, you've got your geometry in memory (probably before you write out the data/map file. At that point, build the Octree. Since the Octree is a recursive structure, you have to build it recursively. When you want to use it, you have to traverse it recursively. If you want to save it, you have to save it recursively. How do you do this? You simply recurse the entire tree (not making any decisions along the way, but simply visit each and every node.) At each node, store the data at that node. This data might consist of the number of children, any flags you keep, and any data (i.e. polygons) in that node. Just make sure not to store pointers. Store just enough information to be able to read the tree properly. My trees typically have either: children (nodes) or data (leaves). In my case, I need to make sure I store a flag stating what kind of node this is.
Reading the tree then becomes an exercise of traversing the tree as it is being loaded... read a node (root) check to see if it has any children, if so, allocate them and traverse into each, which then reads a node, checks to see if it has any children, etc. As long as you do everything in the same order, it will work fine.
If your loading is performance critical (or if you just like fast code :) there are a couple things you can do to speed it up. Before you save, run a quick traversal of the entire tree and count the total number of nodes. Write this information to the front of the file. This way, when you load, you can pre-allocate the nodes in one allocation (this also helps reduce memory fragmentation.) Then, as you load, you can simply pluck nodes from your pre-allocated reservoir of nodes as you load.
You might also consider synchronizing your in-memory nodes with your on-disk nodes. If you're storing a flag on disk, include that flag in the node structure. By pre-allocating your nodes and synchronized data/disk structures, you can load very fast. The loading procedure simply needs to pre-allocate a block of memory for all nodes. The size (in bytes) of this memory should now be the same size as the remaining data in the disk file (they're synchronized.) Next, point at the beginning of your pre-allocated block of nodes and just read the entire file in. Note that you'll need to fix-up any pointers in your tree (most likely pointers to child nodes) once it has been loaded in. Also, make sure that you use tight (1-byte) packing on your structures, or you could have problems loading/saving these to disk.
I'm STILL not done babbling yet...
If you're more concerned about ease of use and expandability (and if you're using classes in C++), there's a simple trick that makes things tremendously easier. In each class, create a "read()" and a "write()" routine. These routines will read/write their specific data members as well as call any appropriate read/write routines of classes they own. An example of a polygon class might store the vertex count, the vertex indices a texture ID and a surface normal (of class "Vector"). The Polygon::write() routine would manually store the vertex count and their indices, the texture ID and then call normal.write().
Extending this to the Octree example above, each node would have a read() and a write() routine. Reading the tree in would be as trivial as opening the file, and calling Octree::read() for the root Octree node. The root node would read in its data, then would call Octree::read() for each child, which would continue to recurse.
2. Let the game engine determine the Octree structure at run time?
This is an option. Octrees don't typically take as long as BSPs to generate, but they're also not generally considered structures that can be generated in real-time. If your Octrees are small enough that they can be generated at load-time, then it might be wise if, for example, you're short on disk space. It all depends on what your needs are.
Nothing I've said in this Q/A response (or in this entire column) is ever carved in stone, I'm simply offering options. Though you may decide to take my advice one day, you may decide not to on another. I'm usually pretty careful with my responses (by using phrases like "generally not considered real-time") but this doesn't mean that you should consider them golden! If you need real-time Octree generation, then Go Do It!
I rarely use the word "can't" because I don't want to discourage others (or even myself) from thinking that something is truly impossible. Some day, we will be able to do something that is "generally not possible" today... but if it's ingrained in our heads that we "can't", we'll never try.
This is not a soap-box I'm on... I prefer to call it a "detergent container".
3. Do you need to sort your polygons along the z-axis at the data structure level before runtime?
Assuming this is for a 6-DOF engine, you can't. :) The only reason for sorting on the z-axis that I can think of is for render-time sorting. Render-time sorting happens in camera-space (i.e. the "z-axis" refers to the vector protruding from the front of the camera.) Camera space changes on a frame-by-frame basis. What might be correct sorting for one frame, might not be correct sorting for another frame. This doesn't mean that you can't come up with some really cool pre-sort technique that speeds up the render-time sorting.
Did you catch it? At the top of that paragraph, the words: "you can't" may have sounded like a joke. The fact is, in this case you actually CAN... A BSP can give you a perfect camera-space z-order sort when you traverse it, and an Octree comes close by giving you a "rough sort" when you traverse it. These are just a few.
Response provided by Paul Nettle

This article was originally an entry in flipCode's Ask Midnight, a Question and Answer column with Paul Nettle that's no longer active.

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