4 posts tagged with "Build"

The goal of Polygon Engine is not only to render a PS1 scene. The goal is for a user to create a game from the editor, validate it, build it, test it, and understand why something fails when it fails.

That is a much harder target than a one-off demo.

A PlayStation disc can hold hundreds of megabytes while the console has only 2 MB of main RAM. That contrast defines the asset pipeline: the disc stores the game, but the runtime still needs explicit loading, bounded buffers, and a plan for seek latency.

The CD-ROM is capacity, not working memory.

The editor and the PS1 runtime should not consume the same data. That is one of the most important architectural decisions in Polygon Engine.

The editor wants readable project files, flexible authoring state, stable GUIDs, import metadata, screenshots, logs, and panels. The PS1 runtime wants compact data, fixed limits, predictable memory, and short disc paths.

Polygon Engine started with a familiar idea: let the user build a level from visual objects in an editor. The PS1 immediately pushes back on that idea. A scaled cube in an editor is easy. A scaled cube that sorts correctly, clips correctly, collides correctly, and packages correctly for PS1 is a much bigger requirement.

This is why level authoring in Polygon Engine is split into two related paths: scene primitives and reusable Level Builder mesh assets.