QuArK

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.

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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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

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 :smile:

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.

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

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The best things in life, aren't things.

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

AHEM!

Andrei said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

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

AHEM!

</div></div>

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

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The best things in life, aren't things.

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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Posting And You

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

Orpheus said:
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 :cool: 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.

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

I recommend it.

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Baal-Peor @ http://cpm.freehostia.com/

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ICQ # 44114

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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http://maze5.net

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.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

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).

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 :smile: ), 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.

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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Create-ivity - a game development blog

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.

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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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

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 :smile:

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
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<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">? quoting mazemaster:</div><div class="quotetext">
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.

</div></div>

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

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Addicted to Morphine</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting mazemaster:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>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.

</DIV></DIV>

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

</DIV></DIV>

Gimme a break. Hammers copy/paste system works just fine. The only difference is that it sounds like QuArk has it down to one key instead of 4. Or 2 if you count "shift+left mouse" :rolleyes:

I doubt that there is any serious advantage to switch to QuArk over Hammer. The one key reason for not doing so is the user friendly interface Hammer has.

<DIV></DIV>

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The best things in life, aren't things.

In Hammer its CTRL C to copy, and CTRL V to paste.. pretty damn simple to me.. and CTRL Y to redo, and CTRL Z to undo. I also found Quark to be buggy and confusing.. but then again im kinda stupid when it comes to these editors. =)

Err, its quite different to ctrl-c ctrl-v to be honest. I haven't even
used the feature, but its the sort of thing that modelling packages
have and its very useful. Imagine you have a room with 4 pillars in it.
If you change one of those pillars, then all 4 will be changed at the
same time. Quite a time saver, especially if the pillar was made up of
lots of parts that would require selecting and copy/pasting or cloning
in hammer. If you then factor in that selecting multiple props or
entities and trying to move them at once tends to screw up how things
align to the grid, it could save a significant amount of time.

Editors in general will always have their ups and downs. Hammer is the
standard and I'm sure most people, even those that use Quark have used
hammer too. If thats the case then they have chosen Quark over hammer,
and thats their own personal choice. I don't see any reason why people
should try and convince others to use hammer - almost everybody who
maps for HL1/2 will have tried it.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Over all, it all seems to come down to personal tastes and mapping styles.

That Instance Duplicators feature reminds me of a thing I've seen in
several games: copied architecture. Might be usefull for certain
things, but in the end, I'd rather copy and paste my stuff while being
able to modify them apart, to avoid repetetion.

It's so annoying to see the same guard tower again and again (though I
feel that that happens more with games that heavily rely on modelling
programs for their architecture)...

Anyway, to each his own taste...

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

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

That's a fact -- the same kinda' goes for QuArK. After learning how to use it, the other editors become confusing. I personally think it's best to use lots of tools and editors (in the end I think most do anyways).

The day someone programs a true 'all-in-one' editor (from Wolf 3D and Doom to HL2 and Doom 3), that man will become very rich!

:dorky:

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Baal-Peor @ http://cpm.freehostia.com/

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ICQ # 44114

Err, its quite different to ctrl-c ctrl-v to be honest. I haven't even
used the feature, but its the sort of thing that modelling packages
have and its very useful. Imagine you have a room with 4 pillars in it.
If you change one of those pillars, then all 4 will be changed at the
same time. Quite a time saver, especially if the pillar was made up of
lots of parts that would require selecting and copy/pasting or cloning
in hammer. If you then factor in that selecting multiple props or
entities and trying to move them at once tends to screw up how things
align to the grid, it could save a significant amount of time.

Well put. That's what I was thinking when I voiced my desire for something like that in Hammer.

i tried quark and it felt inefficient, i gotta say ive never had
stability problems with hammer so im not complaining. Something tells
me other gaming companies will start heading towards hammer more
because of it being used to make half life 2.

also, quark has those features, hammer can do everything quark does,
but hammer feels less grotty and hammers simple tools get the job done
easier in many circumstances to when you use quark. if you have great
trouble in hammer doing something, it prolly wont work terribly well in
half life 2. if you want detail as well use models now, not brushes :razz:

my 2c ect...

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