Doom3 Level Editor

I hear its quite the process to make new textures.

Gorbachev said:
Am I the only one who doesn't like the way D3 looks? It looks like a pile of rubbermade bins piled together and then covered in saran wrap. I'm sure the editor is fine, but those aren't visuals I want to be working with.

That is absolutely true. I don't think the engine was designed with realism in mind, which I guess is okay for a horror game, but it does kind of limit the engines flexibility.

i think they went for harsher shadows because it IS spookier like TB hinted towards. Easier to hide an enemy and as a light goes into that corner revealing that leaping freakazoid it'll scare you out of you rminds. Thisis all guessing because I havn't played it yet.

Oh by far HL2 is better but 1- we dont have to learn code to script sequences (DERadiant; D3 editor) 2 - we know hammer like it was are child 3 - its an amazing game.

And im quite sure everyone over the Quake map community.. thats all reverting to D3 are saying.. yeah this is better than HL2..

Once you love a game.... you always love a game. Its almost like that saying once you go black you never go back... so HL2 is the black ? Its 2:19 AM.. someone shoot me :biggrin:

HL2 is better.....little bold to say.....lets wait till the game is finally out before we make those assumptions there you go I shoot you.

I don't thin they're redily comparable. It'd be the same as comparing Wolfentien to Call of Duty or Medal Of Honor, in fact those would be better comparisons.

They're completly different games, if you don't like one, thats fine. But there's really no point in saying either one is better because they're so different from each other. Personally, I like D3 a lot, I don't love it. And I know I'll like HL2 just as much if not more. Is there really any point? No.

ok well, A I could not read that up there and I htink im ? dislexic or how ever you spell it. Second lightwave is that a modeling program? Ill check into it lol.

Yes, Lightwave is modeling software. It's a bit weird at first, since it was developed on the amiga and therefore shares basically no common windows shortcut keys, but many functions are similar to Radiant, and you don't have to import/export anything (unless you are modifying world geometry - creating a destroyed section, for example). The demo limits you to 200 verts per object, but for most simple prop work that'll be enough.

The editor also exports straight to .obj, and with the right exporters you could also optimize/modify world geometry with maya (or max or whatever else). Nice thing about exporting stuff is that it retains UVs, so when you start gutting it, it aligns textures. :smile: Also allows some optimization not possible with patch meshes and gives no visual quality drop from the original world geometry - just have to adjust your brushes and portals to keep VIS flowing, and by setting the model to inline you can get face culling anyway. Very powerful system.

I'd be glad to give anyone here a quick crash course in Lightwave for what you need to know to do terrain or simple map objects - shortcuts keys, basic process, UVs, etc.

I'd suggest learning Maya KFS, a few people on my current maya course have commented on how much faster & easier Maya is compared to Lightwave. And to all the mappers here, I'd suggest learning a modelling package of some sort because custom static meshes are pretty much going to be your prefabs in HL2, you'll be stuck with prefabbed rooms unless you learn to make your own :smile: Check out www.3dbuzz.com for some excellent video tutorials on the major modelling packages. Sign up for the UT2k4 Static Mesh tutorials at masteringunreal.com for an in-depth guide to using Maya.

As for the dyslexified comment - i was just telling Atrocity how to create rocks in a language that he might understand :razz:

EDIT:: Are you browsing this at work KFS?? Tut tut, naughty naughty :razz:

I don't get paid to use Maya. :biggrin:

The engine has natural .lwo support, so anything I save out of lightwave can be in-game with two clicks, or updated with a reloadmodels console command. :smile: Radiant has minor similarities with LW, and the simple key shortcuts make flying through both very easy.

I do know the Maya basics and am still learning it in my spare time, but Lightwave is far more functional for my work, believe it or not. :smile: id actually developed all of their content in Lightwave. They love it there, heh. But yes, I do greatly appreciate Maya as a piece of software, and don't hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking to do modeling, but in my position it's just not that useful right now and I do believe it's the best option for simple designer modeling in this engine.

And no, I haven't gone to work yet. Don't have to be in until as late as 10:30am central (it's 7:45 now), provided I stay for 8 hours (9 counting lunch). But I do browse some forums in slow periods and to round off my lunch break and such, as do all of us.

Well I mighthave to learn Lightwave, I will be taught Maya and 3DSM in my game art anddesign classes, I'm having alot of problems with the dom level editor I guess I just can't get used to it. Who knows what I'll have to do.

I personally would say HL2 all the way, why because I have played D3 and watched some of my friends play D3 and We all personally think HL2 will be better. D3 is good for scaring but when it got to the last parts of hell I think it looked... kind of cheesy i dunno thats me. I dont think I liked the boss setup either but I dunno.

O btw HL2's suprise ending is........ G-Man is your dad!

I hope thats not actually it........ =\

So its lightwave a super jump to learn or is it something all of us will become familiar with? Personaly I have experience with Radiant, so you said something about that helping us or what not? i'm not really excited about learning yet another modeling program, but if its that much better to export files, than why not.

I think it rocks for what Andrew is doing, so no doubt if you are looking forward to doing Quake 4 editing, its a good tool to learn. I think if HL2 is going to be your speciality, then you'd be best of learning a program Valve have announced they will release exporters for, so Maya, 3dsmax or Softimage.

Modelling is quite different to mapping, mainly because there's no brushes :smile: It's hard to explain, but it's basically vertex manipulation a lot. The best way to learn is to dive right into a tutorial. You'll pick it up fairly quickly if you're a mapper, it took me about a week to get completely comfortable mapping with Milkshape 3D.

You really are a mapper at heart when you say you are "mapping" with Milkshape as opposed to modelling :wink:

Lol, I think I will be learning 3DSM becuase I will be learning how to make levels with it.

LOL, good catch ReNo :smile:

And you can't really make levels with Max, or any other modelling
package and call it modelling. You do NOT have brushes, you have faces.
You don't have textures applied to surfaces, you have surfaces applied
to textures.

So its lightwave a super jump to learn or is it something all of us will become familiar with? Personaly I have experience with Radiant, so you said something about that helping us or what not? i'm not really excited about learning yet another modeling program, but if its that much better to export files, than why not.

It's going to be weird if you're even slightly familiar with Max or Maya (I had basic familiarity in both before I learned LW), but once you pick up the basics it's pretty easy. It's not like you need to know 8000 different things to do just level prop work, either, and if you're just exporting/modifying existing stuff you don't even need to learn to UV. I think it's really easy now that I know it, though, just gotta get used to the completely non-windows interface and weird shortcuts first.

I think it rocks for what Andrew is doing, so no doubt if you are looking forward to doing Quake 4 editing, its a good tool to learn. I think if HL2 is going to be your speciality, then you'd be best of learning a program Valve have announced they will release exporters for, so Maya, 3dsmax or Softimage.

Well, it'll work for any Doom3 engine stuff. It has nothing to do with Quake 4 as far as I'm concerned in this discussion :smile: There'll be plenty of games on this engine or the future tweaked iterations of it, so if you want to go this direction it's a good direction to have. I would definitely say Lightwave and Maya are the two best pieces of software to know for D3 engine work, though.

Well things I don't like

1: The holding of shift to select thing

2: the hitting of escape to deselect things

3: the layout of how the program works

4: how you have to go into console of the game and type in editor, instead of just opening a program

Things I do like

1: previewable lighting.......

That's how about 90% of level editors work... in strange ways. Get over it.

edit: Also... LONG LIVE QUARK!

Seems that the moral of the story here kids is:

Find a modelling program you like. And learn it. If your not comfortable with one your working with... Change it! Also, learn how to use photoshop because what the hell is the point of unskinned models?! Unless you have the coolest most greatest friend who will skin all your models... Story end.

Doom3 Editor Video Tutorials In case anyone wants them (and didn't know where to look)

Hey I heard there is a team or something remaking all the original Doom Levels with the Doom3 editor for its new engine...is this true? Is there a thread on this somewhere? Does anyone else know anything about this?

Personally, i think UnrealED is a good candidate for the most chaotic/poorly constructed editor in the world. :sad:

Dark Tree said:
Hey I heard there is a team or something remaking all the original Doom Levels with the Doom3 editor for its new engine...is this true? Is there a thread on this somewhere? Does anyone else know anything about this?

There's also a guy out there making a remake for half-life :rolleyes:

http://www.snarkpit.com/maps.php?map=1077

Andrei said:
Personally, i think UnrealED is a good candidate for the most chaotic/poorly constructed editor in the world. :sad:

i think unrealED is not user friendly, but it is still a fine editor.. its just so un-worldcraft is all..

i can make things with it, but where a room would take me moments in hammer, it may take me minutes to hours to do the same things.

i think, if we had used it first, hammer would look like s**t..

i have seen the results of exactly what can come out of unrealED, and you cannot get those results from a substandard editor..

you want s**t, look toward QuArk, it makes HL maps from chaos :/

I read somewhere that the premise of Quark was to make something (map) out of something... like how Michaelgelo made statues out of marble. When I tried it, I didn't see anything like that -- though sounded kinda neat. :\