[GD-General] Arcade games' levels

[Death H. <dea...@ga...>]

Hi!

    I have a few questions on the subject.

Have you ever played Pandemonium? Tarzan? 3D games where levels are full 3d
enviroments, but you move your character only left-right/jump. I'm wondering
how is that achieved. How do I know where is the 'walking path' for the
character? How are levels like these edited? They act as if they were 2d,
just look and move in 3d.

How are the levels in standard 3d arcade games modelled? Like Rayman2, MDK2,
etc. In Unreal, Quake and similar FPS games, everything is composed of
brushes and everything is geometrically pretty regular. But in those games,
everything looks much more natural, not everything is inside some buildings,
and there are so many types of surfaces with which you can interact.

I hope I'm not offtopic...

DHunter