This wiki is archived and useful information is being migrated to the main bzflag.org website
Box
A Box is a BZW map structure that defines a rectilinear parallelepiped in the world.
Contents
Code
The code for a box object is as follows
box position 10 20 30 rotation 45 size 1 2 3 end |
Valid parameters for a box are
- position
- defines the center of the box in X and Y and the bottom of the box in Z.
- rotation
- defines a rotation around the Z axis for the box, in degrees.
- size
- defines the distance from the center to the side of the box in X and Y, and the total height of the box in Z.
In versions 2.0.8 and older, boxes do not support material, custom textures, or physics drivers. The meshbox object replaces the box object and supports all these features and capabilities.
box position 0 40 0 size 5 5 10 rotation 0 top matref something1 sides matref something2 y+ matref something3 y- matref something4 bottom matref something6 texsize 1 1 phydrv physics_driver_name end |
- x+ , x-, y+ , y-, z+, and z-
- Assigns a material to a specific side of the box
- top
- Assigns a material to the top (z ) of the box
- bottom
- Assigns a material to the bottom (z-) of the box
- sides or outside
- Assigns a material to the x , x-, y , and y- sides of the box
- texsize
- Texture sizes, changes how the textures scale on the object.
- texoffset
- Controls the offset of the texture
- phydrv
- Reference to a predefined physics driver.
More information that needs to be merged into the wiki, as well as the BZW manfile: Smart Boxes and Pyramids
Appearance
Box objects by default have a red brick texture on the vertical sides, and a white plaster texture on the top and bottom. A box of height 0 on ground level is visible.
The texsizes of boxes and boxes made of meshes (e.g. meshbox and box with one of the new properties) can be different. The size depends on the chosen display quality setting in the options menu.
Box type | texsize |
box (old style box) | -2.0f -2.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
meshbox | -8.0f -8.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
box with one meshbox property | -8.0f -8.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
Box type | texsize with lower quality setting than in the above table |
box (old style box) | -2.0f -2.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
meshbox | -2.0f -2.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
box with one meshbox property | -2.0f -2.0f -8.0f -8.0f |
This will cause the textures to scale differently for some players in X and Z axis. This can not be solved by adjusting the texsizes in map. The advice is not to mix old style boxes, meshboxes and boxes with one meshbox property, all in the same map.
History
The box is one of the original objects supported by BZFlag and has been a mainstay of maps since the very beginning. Boxes are heavily used by the software when generating random maps. In v2.0.0 the box was replaced with the meshbox object to support Materials and Physics Drivers. The original box definition was left unchanged, in order to maintain functional compatibility for older maps.
Editor Support
The box object is supported by all known editors.