What is the most current, most wildly used editor?

Post by **Turbine** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 3:15 pm

On the http://www.qeradiant.com/?data=news web site the last post was on the January of 2005. Is it dead?

I made some good maps before, while I still had the time. And the editor of choice then was Q3Radiant and EFRadiant, then eventually GTKRadiant for 'em all. And this was back in 2001.

All so during some time around 2001 I tried the Half-Life and Unreal editors, and they resembled a pathetic peace of crap, when compared to Radiant.

So what is the present state of Level Editors, what's in and what's out? What is the most wildly used?
As you can probably tell, I am looking to get back into the game. But have been out of it for a while.

Post by **obsidian** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 3:37 pm

Welcome back.

Development of GtkRadiant has slowed, but still progresses.

Depending on what game you are mapping for, there's a bit of selection. GtkRadiant 1.4.0 is the most stable release that supports most Q3-engine games. GtkRadiant 1.5.0 supports additional games like Doom 3 and IIRC, Half-Life, Q1, Q2, etc. It's beta, so grab the latest nightly build if using this.

1.4.0 is available off qeradiant.com, current 1.5.0 nightly build can be found here: http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/files/ra ... -02-04.msi You will also need whatever game packs you want to map for, available off the same directory.

Also get the latest version of Q3Map2 available on my signature. Optionally, get the Q3Map2toolz front end, otherwise, write your own batch file.

Post by **pjw** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:45 pm

Comedy smartass reply: "I get pretty wild with radiant sometimes..."

(I think you mean "widely used"?)

Post by **Johnny Law** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:05 pm

I liked his original phrasing myself. It's a good question!

Post by **Turbine** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:14 pm

Ha, I just noticed that. Humor.

And Obsidian, thank you for the information. Now I have got to port some of the maps over to Doom 3 and Quake 4. Bringing them up to date and high-detail will bring back some great memories, and lessons. Not to mention hunting down good old .map files from piles of CD's.

Post by **obsidian** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:46 pm

Got interupted halfway between typing my original post and forgot to mention...

If you're mapping for Doom 3 and Quake 4, both games come with their own derivative version of Radiant. Launch it by typing in the game console, "/editor".

Which editor you decide to use for D3/Q4 mapping depends on your preference.

Post by **Bl1tz** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:10 am

Seems like most of the industry is gravitating towards UnrealEngine and by proxy, UnrealED

Post by **spookmineer** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:16 am

...for Q3/Q4...?

Post by **Hipshot** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 6:01 pm

Bl1tz wrote:Seems like most of the industry is gravitating towards UnrealEngine and by proxy, UnrealED

No they don't. Seems the Industry is going for thier own engines mostly these days.

Post by **dzjepp** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 7:40 pm

I think if he means the overall number of engines licensed, then yes, Unreal 3.x would be on top. Sony, Microsoft, EA, Midway, Ubisoft, have all licensed the engine, and not just for your standard fare of fps titles, they are using it more like midleware, I would suspect from anything to adventure to fighting games (the next-gen mortal kombat from midway is rumored to be UE3 powered).

That's mostly why I've been trying to learn the unreal editor, if the unreal powered gaming extraveganza really does explode I'd like to be ready and hopefully learn something in their latest engine. :>

Post by **Shallow** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:03 am

I think Hipshot's probably right overall, more companies are using their own engines than an off the shelf one, and there's also a lot of decent middleware out there that you don't necessarily hear about because they don't have a high-profile FPS title doing their dickwaving for them.

I think UE is getting a bit more widely adopted though, UE3 seems to be the first genuinely console-friendly version, developing with previous versions on older consoles like PS2 was pretty painful from what I heard... The increasing prevalance of FPS games on consoles could be a factor too. It quite possibly is the 'most licensed' but making a blanket statement that the whole industry is moving to it is silly.

Post by **a13n** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:14 pm

At least radiant(even @ 1.2.13) has the potential to make you scream "Wow! I never thought she could do it!"
as long as you continue to try to make full use of her.
In other words what matters is not what she provides but how you use her.
Just a worthless opinion of one useless n00b.

Post by **obsidian** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:30 pm

a13n wrote:"Wow! I never thought she could do it!"

First time I ever heard anyone refer to Radiant as a 'she'.

Unreal seems to have the most amount of tools and features prebuilt into the engine and editor, which for people who are licensing them can be of great value since it saves them time from implementing everything themselves.

The Radiant and Q3/D3 engines are relatively minimalistic but are far better optimized and gives developers a lot of room for developing their own tools and features. I think Id Software engines are far more moddable, giving better flexability to those companies who want to build a large part of the game from scratch. It would be interesting to see what Splash Damage brings to the table with Quake Wars, since they've heavily tweaked both engine and editor. From what it sounds like, we'll have a bunch of new in-editor tools for everything from terrain editing to megapixel painting. (MEGAPIXEL!!!)

Another engine to keep an eye on is the LithTech engine by Monolith. Currently, they are using a very similar lighting system to the D3 engine, so it's interesting to see what they're doing with it. I just finished playing Riddick recently and it was pretty interesting to see some of the similarities between engines.

While there are more and more companies creating their own engines, I think it's still rare to see a 'good' engine being developed.

Post by **o'dium** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:04 pm

riddick doesn't use the Lithtech engine. It uses the StarBreeze inhouse engine designed from the ground up.

And as for lithtech, i didn't think they had a PPL engine yet. F.E.A.R. isn't PPL.

Post by **a13n** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:09 pm

obsidian wrote: First time I ever heard anyone refer to Radiant as a 'she'.

Sorry for my bad english!
Maybe I'm confusing with something.

Post by **obsidian** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:44 pm

o'dium wrote:riddick doesn't use the Lithtech engine. It uses the StarBreeze inhouse engine designed from the ground up.

And as for lithtech, i didn't think they had a PPL engine yet. F.E.A.R. isn't PPL.

Oh. Pardon me for the mistake. Thanks. Even more impressive if created from scratch. I thought they did a good job on that game.

a13n wrote:Sorry for my bad english!
Maybe I'm confusing with something.

No, I just thought it funny. Most people say "it".

Post by **Hipshot** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:34 pm

o'dium wrote:riddick doesn't use the Lithtech engine. It uses the StarBreeze inhouse engine designed from the ground up.

And as for lithtech, i didn't think they had a PPL engine yet. F.E.A.R. isn't PPL.

Jupiter Extended, the Lithtech-engine, running fear, has PPL.
The entire lighting model is actually described here http://www.touchdownentertainment.com/jupiterEX.htm

Post by **o'dium** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 12:17 pm

Its probably got PPL now of course

Lithtech gets updated like the source engine, every day its got something new :P