Script and content modifications

The demo's scripting mechanism

Much of the demo logic is implemented through a simple scripting mechanism, and can therefore be modified without source level changes.

You can find the demo script in 'SDKRoot/resource/scripts/demo_script.txt'.

This is a simple text format, designed to be semantically equivalent to a subset of XML.
'Elements tags', 'attributes' and 'attribute values' are all whitespace separated, to enable these to be parsed directly by standard C++ input streams.

Content side position definitions and obstacle placement

Things like positions and obstacle placement information are defined by attaching the relevant content data features to a PathEngine ground mesh.

Positions, such as player and enemy agent start positions, are represented using content 'anchors'.
(Refer to this page for more details about PathEngine's anchor mechanism.)

Scenery obstacles, and also things like placed switches, or other 'virtual obstacles' such as containment regions represented in the script, are represented using PathEngine's 'named obstacles' feature.
(Refer to this page for more details about this feature.)

If you have access to one of PathEngine's content side plugins then you can load a demo mesh into the corresponding content applications (with the plugin import functionality), examine and modify content features, and then simply re-save the mesh to see the modifications in-game.