QuArK
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Re: QuArK
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed May 18th at 7:06am 2005


I just read this at PHL:
Quake Army Knife (QuArK) has just opened some new Resource Forums for anybody looking for help or materials for the level editor. Here's the news report with all the relevant info:

New QuArK Resource Forums have now opened for support, tutorials and general discussion's regarding the 'QuArK Army Knife' Level Editor.
QuArK supports a full range of top games dating back to Quake1, but also new top titles such as Half-Life2 & Doom3.
A new integrated terrain editor is also currently under development to support HL2 displacement maps & alpha texturing; though most, if not all main game features area already support within QuArK; leaving it as a sound alternative to Hammer.
For further information please visit the QuArK Resource Forums, or the Official QuArK website.


Link: http://www.forumplanet.com/planethalflife/topic.asp?fid=2348&tid=1656424

I was just wondering if anyone has used QuArK and if it really is "a sound alternative to Hammer." I'm going to go ahead and guess no, but just thought I'd ask some people who probably know for a fact.




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Re: QuArK
Posted by wil5on on Wed May 18th at 7:18am 2005


I'm sure quark is quite acceptable if you can get used to it. I couldnt, the interface is quite bizarre.


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Re: QuArK
Posted by SpiKeRs on Wed May 18th at 8:43am 2005


I made all my TFC maps, 2 Medal Of Honor maps (1 of which won a EA sponsored comp, my proudest moment mapping wise) and a JK2 map in QuArK. Its much nicer than Hammer imo. If QuArK had included HL2 support at the time the game was released I probably wouldnt have bothered learning Hammer. You can rotate the map viewpoint, there is a tree structure displaying all the brushes, entities etc which can all be grouped/organised etc etc. Basically I'm a big fan




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Re: QuArK
Posted by Andrei on Wed May 18th at 8:53am 2005


Ahhh, good ol' quark, the very first editor i've ever used! Brings back fond memories. It has a much smarter interface (smarter, not easier) than hammer does, but given the fact that quarks HL2 support is crap, I had to switch to VHE.



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Re: QuArK
Posted by Orpheus on Wed May 18th at 11:46am 2005


I wouldn't wish QuArk on my worse enemy. It stinks.

I only know of one Author who has released anything playable with the damned thing. There could be more of course, but no one advertises "Hey I made this with QuArk".. the stigma involved could be devastating I think.

Try this and you'll see. Load a map into it, one you yourself have built. Pick a map you know intimately so there will be no doubt as to what it is. Then see if you can even recognize your own creation in this horrible editor.

Anyways... I have heard rumors that they gave QuArk a few perks to attempt to draw people its way. So far none of them has been useful enough perks to entice anyone I know to switch. :/

/ rant





The best things in life, aren't things.



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Re: QuArK
Posted by Andrei on Wed May 18th at 4:40pm 2005


? quote:

I only know of one Author who has released anything playable with the damned thing.



*AHEM!*





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Re: QuArK
Posted by Orpheus on Wed May 18th at 4:48pm 2005


? quoting Andrei

? quote:

I only know of one Author who has released anything playable with the damned thing.



*AHEM!*

Sorry Andy, but you're just not in Cash's league.. yet :P





The best things in life, aren't things.



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Re: QuArK
Posted by omegaslayer on Wed May 18th at 5:46pm 2005


Quark is more in tuned with the level editors out there already (quake1-4, doom3), so it might not be a bad idea to try one's hand at the program (especially if you plan to be a level designer as a profession)





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Re: QuArK
Posted by Andrei on Wed May 18th at 5:51pm 2005


Now HOW is VHE superior to Quark exactly? Quark's compass thing, for instance, is brilliant IMHO.




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Re: QuArK
Posted by Cash Car Star on Wed May 18th at 7:01pm 2005


? quoting Orpheus
Try this and you'll see. Load a map into it, one you yourself have built. Pick a map you know intimately so there will be no doubt as to what it is. Then see if you can even recognize your own creation in this horrible editor.
Looks the same to me

Anyway, I think QuArK was a terrific HL1 editor that had so much power under the hood that could be tapped into by an experienced user (the duplicators were fantastic). Some of the other features just seemed to be more comfortably presented, especially without a mondo-sized monitor (texture browser and wrapping, brush tree, two grids). I haven't been mapping for over a year now, and haven't purchased HL2 so I'm not sure how things stand, but I seriously doubt they have anywhere near the level of support that the more complex HL2 engine requires. Unfortunately, VHE seems the only option and this brilliant third party work has fallen by the wayside.





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Re: QuArK
Posted by baalpeor on Tue May 31st at 3:05am 2005


<---has made all my maps to date with QuArK.

I recommend it.




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Re: QuArK
Posted by mazemaster on Tue May 31st at 5:32am 2005


Wolv and RD use QuArK exclusively, and they have each released damn good maps.

The thing about QuArK is that it has loads of awesome stuff in there for the "experts", but the user interface (especially the 3D view) sucks. A partial list of awesome QuArK things includes:

Path Duplicators: draw a curve in 3D, and then choose an object to be extruded along the path. You can make complicated knots and such in minutes.

Diggers: like carving, but "safe". You could make entire maps UT style with these if you wanted. Also, you can specify that the digger cuts into some objects, but not others.

Tree view: coolest thing in QuArK. Everything in the map is automatically organized into a hirearchy, and you can further group things if you wish. Sort of like visgroups on crack.

Instance Duplicators: Takes a single object, and "copies" it, except whenever you modify the origional object, the copy is automatically changed in the same way.

Coumpass: You can "turn" the views so that you are no longer stuck working on only the default coordinate axes.

Suppose you want a smoothly curving 3D tunnel system (something that is extremely difficult to make in Hammre). In QuArK its easy:
1: Draw a path in 3D that you want the tunnel to follow.
2: Make a cylinder.
3: Use the path_duplicator to extrude the cylinder along the whole length of the path.
4: Make a box surrounding the "tunnel system".
5: In the Tree View, add the path_duplicator to a new Digger, and move the box to the correct hirearchy so that only it will get "dug".
Done!






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Re: QuArK
Posted by Orpheus on Tue May 31st at 6:10am 2005


The only advice I can give that makes sense is. If you are gonna use this crappy thing, do so before you try any other editor.

QuArk isn't evil, it is just so different that you would have better luck using UnrealEd than using it after learning hammer.

I refuse to say anything good about it but can admit it can be used effectively.





The best things in life, aren't things.



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Re: QuArK
Posted by Cassius on Tue May 31st at 6:37am 2005


It's handy for ripping textures and otherwise the work of the devil himself.

I can't think of a Quark mapper who doesn't advertise his maps saying they're "made with Quark," Orph. They're kind of like the assholes who put a button on their website that says "built with a Macintosh" to prove that they made something decent despite the immense handicap.

Certainly my hat goes flying off to any independent team that makes its own level editor that works with a score of games and functions in ways that traditional editors don't, but there's simply no reason to stop using Worldcraft except for the neat extra features Quark sports. Maze had a nice description in there for the "tree view" feature that could be applied to Quark as a whole: it's Worldcraft on crack.

RD is a sack of s**t, by the way. I met him in the Mapcore IRC channel way back when he made no effort to be quirky or controversial. Of course, he wasn't getting enough attention, so he decided to pump out FY maps where you play as a suicide bomber or destroy crucifixes and make the claim that he is the author of Iceworld (one which all too many people believe).





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Re: QuArK
Posted by Andrei on Tue May 31st at 9:05am 2005


? quote:

I can't think of a Quark mapper who doesn't advertise his maps saying they're "made with Quark," Orph.



Well i've made many maps with it (maps that you REALLY don't want to see ), especially when I was new to mapping, and I never ever wrote anything like "made with Quark" in the map description or on the walls using the decal helper (for HL1, it allows you to easily write texts on walls without having to arrange the decals yourself). Well, ok, I did write that in the read-me once because I was forced to state the editor used and other technical data.

And, as nice as freedom of speech can be, I must urge those who haven't used the editor extensively or haven't used it at all (and know what they know from FAQs and other mappers) to shut up and leave the editor be. Maybe some are sick of hammer and are looking for something else and you're pushing them away from the best alternative editor out there because you simply can't, or even better don't want to, understand it.






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Re: QuArK
Posted by Captain P on Tue May 31st at 9:21am 2005


Some people don't like Hammer indeed.

As for me, I've always used Hammer (Worldcraft), only ever touched UnrealEd (when did it not crash on my system?) and CoCRadiant a few times. So I can't say a lot about those editors. I found UnrealEd quite confusing at first, CoDRadiant was much easier to learn the basics. That doesn't say anything about the true power they possess, but the learning curve of an editor is something important as well, I believe.

How's that with Quark then?







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Re: QuArK
Posted by Andrei on Tue May 31st at 10:08am 2005


Quark is an editor that is very easy to learn even though it doesn't have as much documentation as hammer does. When I took-up mapping for HL1, i had both Worldcraft and Quark on my comp. I played a while with both and later I decided that Quark was the best of the two. I had never used a map editor before then and I found Quark's interface less confusing than Hammer's. Strangely, now that I know how to use both editors fairly well, I still find hammer's interface somewhat inefficient.




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Re: QuArK
Posted by pepper on Tue May 31st at 10:12am 2005


Its a great editor, i hoep to learn it this summer.

And Blazeer uses it, and he created a few fine maps.



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Re: QuArK
Posted by Madedog on Tue May 31st at 11:32am 2005


me tried Quark few times, but since I didn't give a damn about the interface (feels messy to me), I'll still stick to hammer <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">



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Re: QuArK
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Tue May 31st at 1:28pm 2005


? quoting mazemaster:

Instance Duplicators: Takes a single object, and "copies" it, except whenever you modify the origional object, the copy is automatically changed in the same way.



That sounds really really cool. I wish Hammer had that feature.





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