Doom 3 Editor = Bleh
<div class="IPBDescription">Yes, that had to be capitolized.</div> Mad rant ahead with some decent points... You've been warned.
Decided to try to figure out how to make a doom 3 map after messing around with the weapon_chaingun.def files (a 600 ammo clip is funner then you'd think <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) I had thought the editor would be like HL's Hammer editor. How wrong i was. This... This... UGH i can't even find the proper (forum rule abiding) words to describe how this.. <i>thing</i> acts like to a newbie doom 3 mapper. Of course, there are plenty of other words to describe the editor, and to say about the editor as you make maps, however, they are all of the four to eight letter variety often begining with the letters "B" "C" "D" "F" and "S"
And it doesn't exactly inspire me that there's no help file, either. It's so convoluted and complex that there are VIDEOS on how make even a simple room, and on top of that even the <b>simplest</b> video is <i>FIVE MINUTES LONG</i>. Comparing VHE to the Doom 3 editor, VHE wins in aproxamately... 1 Minute.
1 or 2 minutes to make a simple cube room with textures and entities in VHE, compared to Doom 3 editor's FIVE MINUTES. And this isn't just a "Oh, you know how to use VHE" thing, no, absolutely not. There is a definite time limit to which you can perform and execute construction of a room. For example, to select a different object in VHE all you have to do is click on that object. However, in the Doom 3 editor, you have to press Esc to exit your current selection, HOLD DOWN shift, and then finally click on a object to select it. I watched that simple video a few times and <i>memorized</i> what to do, and i <i>still</i> took 4 minutes.
Complex, clunky, and ugly.
What i'm trying to say is:
<b>IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?!</b>
Really, is there any other editor out there that could possibly support Doom 3 WITHOUT having the pitfalls of the packaged editor? I <i>really</i> want to berzerk on a mass of zombies right about now...
[Disclaimer: This is not a post dissing any editor, not even the Doom 3 Editor. I am simply stating how difficult it is to LEARN for the first time, compared with other far sleeker editors.]
Decided to try to figure out how to make a doom 3 map after messing around with the weapon_chaingun.def files (a 600 ammo clip is funner then you'd think <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) I had thought the editor would be like HL's Hammer editor. How wrong i was. This... This... UGH i can't even find the proper (forum rule abiding) words to describe how this.. <i>thing</i> acts like to a newbie doom 3 mapper. Of course, there are plenty of other words to describe the editor, and to say about the editor as you make maps, however, they are all of the four to eight letter variety often begining with the letters "B" "C" "D" "F" and "S"
And it doesn't exactly inspire me that there's no help file, either. It's so convoluted and complex that there are VIDEOS on how make even a simple room, and on top of that even the <b>simplest</b> video is <i>FIVE MINUTES LONG</i>. Comparing VHE to the Doom 3 editor, VHE wins in aproxamately... 1 Minute.
1 or 2 minutes to make a simple cube room with textures and entities in VHE, compared to Doom 3 editor's FIVE MINUTES. And this isn't just a "Oh, you know how to use VHE" thing, no, absolutely not. There is a definite time limit to which you can perform and execute construction of a room. For example, to select a different object in VHE all you have to do is click on that object. However, in the Doom 3 editor, you have to press Esc to exit your current selection, HOLD DOWN shift, and then finally click on a object to select it. I watched that simple video a few times and <i>memorized</i> what to do, and i <i>still</i> took 4 minutes.
Complex, clunky, and ugly.
What i'm trying to say is:
<b>IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?!</b>
Really, is there any other editor out there that could possibly support Doom 3 WITHOUT having the pitfalls of the packaged editor? I <i>really</i> want to berzerk on a mass of zombies right about now...
[Disclaimer: This is not a post dissing any editor, not even the Doom 3 Editor. I am simply stating how difficult it is to LEARN for the first time, compared with other far sleeker editors.]
Comments
You talk of selecting objects - how often have you selected a group of objects one by one only to click void and lose the entire selection? The purpose of having a keyboard modifier is to prevent any unwanted selections from occurring. Same with deselecting. I can't count the number of times I wanted to pull my hair out by hitting just that little sliver of non-object and losing the whole selection.
Of course, selection in D3 is much easier, too. You select by dragging out a brush, and can then with a single right click and submenu, select brushes around your base brush in a number of ways. Gives much greater precision than any drag-select operations in HL.
Oh, and did I mention patch meshes? Started in Q3, these give you basic modeling abilities within the editor itself. Remember that curved pipe that took you ages in HL? And supposedly will in HL2, it doesn't seem to have any sort of patch support, unless you build a model for it? Brush. Cylinder. Drag vertices and control points. Oh, and the textures didn't even misalign. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"Oh, you know how to use VHE"
Pretty much describes you...
Um... KFS, take it from here <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
:edit: he allready posted <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->What it lacks in 'polish' it makes up for in raw power.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good description...
:2nd edit:
BTW, GtkRadiant 1.5.0 beta has minimalistic D3 support, you'd be better off using the integrated editor though.
Lots of power is nifty, but what's the use if you can't channel it properly?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The interface is far quicker<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Show me and i'll belive it then.
Much more complex. There's patches, the lighting system is... unique, the GUI system is there too.
Just read a Radiant tutorial, for Quake 3 it should encompas most of the things tou need to know.
I don't, It'd be nice, but I don't... It's a powerfull editor that I rant about frequently. Anyone fron #nsmapping can contest to that <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I despise Hammer with a firey passion...
Copying a brush is quick and easy: press space, and it appears right next to the new one.
Resizing a brush is quick: drag outside the box, tahdah!
Moving a brush is quick: drag inside the box, tahdah!
Making walls is quick: Make a single wall, copy, hit the rotate 90 degrees. Tahdah!
Making curves is super easy. Make a box around the size, hit bevel. Tahdah!(and otherwise, you can get some whicked curves with another tool I forget the name of)
Applying textures is easy- click, its on.
Changing textures is easier, and feels better.
Lighting is easier to do, being its done IN THE EDITOR. And compiling is faster too!
Dropping any entity doesn't require 9 gajillion steps anymore. Now, rightlcick, select it, tahdah!
...Man, I tried using VHE. It was okay, I enjoyed it more for the possibilities then what was actually accessible. But Radiant- once I went through a easy tutorial, I loved it, and won't ever touch VHE ever again.
...also, Caboose, where did you get Radiant for HL engine? I wanna do NS in Radiant <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
anyway, how does the UT2004 compare to hammer and doom3 in complexity and power
Copying a brush is quick and easy: press space, and it appears right next to the new one.
Resizing a brush is quick: drag outside the box, tahdah!
Moving a brush is quick: drag inside the box, tahdah!
Making walls is quick: Make a single wall, copy, hit the rotate 90 degrees. Tahdah!
Making curves is super easy. Make a box around the size, hit bevel. Tahdah!(and otherwise, you can get some whicked curves with another tool I forget the name of)
Applying textures is easy- click, its on.
Changing textures is easier, and feels better.
Lighting is easier to do, being its done IN THE EDITOR. And compiling is faster too!
Dropping any entity doesn't require 9 gajillion steps anymore. Now, rightlcick, select it, tahdah! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And WHERE was i supposed to [find] this?! <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But I'll reserve judgement on the D3 editor until I get to play around with it a bit.
One more thing, halflife 2 had better allow concave brushes . . .
I'll see how D3Ed goes for me in the future, but with HL2 coming out soon, and me still having plans for HL1 stuff, I don't know if it'll even happen.
Of course, I am looking for a job as a level designer, and if the company that hires me is going to be using the D3 engine, that's another story entirely.
Vertex manipulation for ordinary brushes is restrictive (like Quark) and buggy (unlike Quark). But I guess you are supposed to find other ways (besides CSG) to make complex geometry nowadays.
Texture alignment is inflexible and a pain in the arse compared to VHE. IMO the texturing options in the later versions of VHE are pretty much spot-on once you know the ins and outs.
Texturing on patches - see above point x 1000.
The editor generally likes to crash, freeze and occasionally corrupts your maps (luckily you can open the map in text format and delete the offending pices of geometry). But I'm probably making it sound worse than it is.
All in all though i do like this editor. If they just improved the texturing dialogues (a lot) I would be in love with it.
True. But you rarely will need vertex dragging. Edge dragging (which works much better) and 3-point clipping (twitchy, but useful) remove this necessity.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But I guess you are supposed to find other ways (besides CSG) to make complex geometry nowadays.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Patch meshes. Not only can you fit them to about any shape you can imagine, but it also removes the pain of texturing the face even if you did get it set up right with vertex dragging. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Texture alignment is inflexible and a pain in the arse compared to VHE. IMO the texturing options in the later versions of VHE are pretty much spot-on once you know the ins and outs.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can't agree with this, with the possible exception of the align to edge options in Hammer. However, you can
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Texturing on patches - see above point x 1000.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
a simple shift+5 usually does the trick, along with a quick rotate or flip. I'd also be willing to edit patch mesh texture alignment with Daikatana if it meant it'd still maintain alignment to whatever it was at originally (the "natural" alignment option is also your friend - and yes, I know the Daikatana bit made no sense, but I needed some god-awful program for an example <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The editor generally likes to crash, freeze and occasionally corrupts your maps (luckily you can open the map in text format and delete the offending pices of geometry). But I'm probably making it sound worse than it is.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, all editors do this in some form or another. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> I've had some crazy stuff happen to my HL maps in the past...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->All in all though i do like this editor. If they just improved the texturing dialogues (a lot) I would be in love with it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, you can do almost any texture alignment you need without opening the texture dialog at all. Shift+5 fits to face, shift+arrow keys shifts the texture (set "snap T to grid" on so you can use your grid settings for this), and shift+pgup/pgdown to rotate at whatever interval you selected in your preferences. Also remember that this editor (and UnrealEd, unlike VHE) actually treat textures like what they are - UV maps. The scaling and such seems unnatural at first coming from Hammer, but if you start thinking of them more as model UVs (especially on patch meshes), I think you'll find it'll make a lot more sense. Maybe.
No bsp-based game allows concave geometry. Not HL2, not Doom 3, not UT2004. You want a concave structure, you'll have to model it and get it imported into the game.
I can't stand the D3 editor, but that's only because of the utter rubbish camera control. GTK Radiant is perfectly awesome, pretty much the same as Hammer but with unique (although small) pros and cons. Once GTK support for Doom 3 is more realised, that will be the sensible choice for new mappers to it.
I'm just waiting for HL2 and its Hammer though.
HL2 FTW!
No bsp-based game allows concave geometry. Not HL2, not Doom 3, not UT2004. You want a concave structure, you'll have to model it and get it imported into the game.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The original unreal did. I haven't mapped for any of the newer versions, but I don't think they've changed that.
UnrealEd was pretty nice (never could/tried to get those texture lights to work, but <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> )...the only problem was that it was really hard to get brushes to touch at small scales, and was hard to create small scale details...plus it was pretty buggy - especially with texture applications. Skyboxes were nice though, I wish hammer had those skyboxes (well, the HL engine).
System Shock's editor is terrible...that thing is near impossible to use it's so tedious. Plus the lack of any tutorials floating around hampers it.
I'm not too good with the newer editors. I tried to edit with Max Payne 2 but I'm not sure what's up with meshes and how to use it...but I suppose if there was just a big site with tutorials for every editor they could find - then it'd be a lot easier to edit.