BZFlag

World Creation

Work In Progress

We are working on updating and improving this documentation. Some information may be missing or inaccurate.

BZFlag worlds (abbreviated BZW, and sometimes called maps) are written in plain text and are named ending with the .bzw file extension. Any basic text editor is technically able to create and edit a world file. There are various map editor tools at different levels of completeness, but none exist that cover all the features of the BZW format.

One very important note is that BZFlag uses a right-handed Z-up coordinate system. What this means is that the up direction is Z+, north is Y+, east is X+, and rotation moves counter-clockwise. Some 3D modeling tools use a Y-up coordinate system, and you would need to translate the coordinates when exporting.

Primitive

These are primitives like boxes, pyramids, teleporters, arcs, cones, and team bases.

  • Arc: Something
  • Base: A rectangular team based, used in Capture the Flag
  • Box: A rectangular box
  • Cone: Something
  • Link: Portals that can be linked together for quick transportation
  • Mesh Box: Something
  • Mesh Pyramid: Something
  • Pyramid: A square pyramid
  • Sphere: A sphere or hemisphere
  • Teleporter: Portals that can be linked together for quick transportation
  • Tetra: Something

Mesh

Mesh objects (and related objects) allow for free-form 3D models.

  • Mesh: A rectangular box

Other

There are objects that do not have a visual representation or are not normal types of obstacles.

  • Define: Something
  • Dynamic Color: Something
  • Group: Something
  • Material: Something
  • Options: Set command line options for the BZFlag server
  • Physics: Applies physics to a tank
  • Texture Matrix: Apply animation effects to a texture
  • Transform: Something
  • Water Level: Defines a water level, below which tanks are destroyed.
  • Weapon: This creates a world weapon that fires at the specified interval
  • World: Controls some attributes of the world, most of which can also be set via BZDB variables.
  • Zone: Creates a rectangular zone that can be used for player spawns or flag spawns, and can be used with plugins.