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> left my maps with a host of problems usually related to planes not lining up correctly Note that this was most likely an issue with the editors people were c

> left my maps with a host of problems usually related to planes not lining up correctly Note that this was most likely an issue with the editors people were creating at the time. AFAIK nobody has managed to build the original QuakeEd's source code and that one didn't had those issues (mainly because it didn't allow much manipulation in the first place - most brushes are axis aligned and neatly arranged on the grid). > UnrealEd on the other hand inverted that paradigm, instead of building your level a void you carved your map out of a solid mass Which is funny because this is also what Doom did: like Unreal, Doom had you carve up negative space in a huge solid world. This approach was also used by other engines at the time, like the Sith Engine by LucasArts which was used in Jedi Knight (in that engine all world geometry is made by sectors creating negative space pretty much the same way like in Doom). Although personally as a programmer i tend to favor positive brushes for their simplicity. I have written a 3D world editor that has both negative and positive brushes and the code to handle the geometry generation for negative brushes is like 10 times more than the positive brushes (i don't use BSP) due to all the edge cases from floating point precision.

mercer 9y ago
Jedi Knight was one of my favorite games, but the (community-built?) editor was a nightmare. I did a lot of UT level editing, which was a lot more comfortable. I remember the next version (UT2003?) put more emphasis on imported models to populate a sparse UT-style carved-out map, which I imagine made things a lot easier for most people, but sadly was the end of my level editing days. I never got into 3D Studio Max (or Maya?) enough to be able to create maps as nice as those of others. Still, good times.
- kodt 9y ago
  I recall there being two competing community built editors. JKEdit and JED. I believe I used JED to make a few not so good maps. Good times indeed.
  - mercer 9y ago
    Indeed. I think it was JED that I worked with! UnrealED was a definite improvement.
- badsectoracula 9y ago
  > the (community-built?) editor was a nightmare. I did a lot of UT level editing, which was a lot more comfortable. Yeah, there are two editors, JED and JKEdit. AFAIK the latter was much easier but also it was shareware whereas JED is (or became) open source but harder to use but on the other hand it has more features. Also it is extensible and i think it uses some sort of text-based API to communicate with external programs since i've seen extensions being made in different languages. As the end result the entire community focused on JED (although there are still a few people using JKEdit). But both editors work with the negative sectors directly while i think LucasArts' editor (Leia) had a more high level interface that was more similar to UnrealEd's subtractive BSP. The engine uses per-vertex lighting and i've seen some "artifacts" in the geometry that give me the impression that the geometry was generated through BSP subtraction instead of the more "hand-made" approach that JED has (i don't know about JKEdit). (Also FWIW this was a similar case with the original DoomEd for Doom - unlike most editors made at the time and even later, in DoomEd the sectors were implicit and assigned through some sort of "floodfill" algorithm that found the connections between them, but in most Doom editors you had to manually create vertices, linedefs, sectors, etc) > I remember the next version (UT2003?) put more emphasis on imported models to populate a sparse UT-style carved-out map, which I imagine made things a lot easier for most people, but sadly was the end of my level editing days. I never got into 3D Studio Max (or Maya?) enough to be able to create maps as nice as those of others. Actually it made things harder for people since it added the requirement to use an external tool to create the assets - this was always (even today) was seen as a major drawback when it comes to modding. It isn't a big problem for big game studios because they have dedicated artists for making environment props and the level designers simply have a ton of premade props at their disposal so they don't need to actually make them themselves, but it is harder for solo and small team modders. This is probably the reason why you see a lot of maps for games that come with in-editor tools (like Valve's games, despite having a clunky interface in Hammer, the brush tools are top notch and a ton of maps are made with that) or with a ton of premade modular assets (like Bethesda's tools which also encourage people to create reusable assets for others as mods as opposed to special single purpose assets).
  - mercer 9y ago
    Thanks for the long response! Brings back memories. I now know for sure I was using JED precisely because I was a teenager who wouldn't consider paying for JKEdit. I also remember fiddling with surfaces to get nicer lighting, and being happy that I didn't have to do that for UT editing. > Actually it made things harder for people since it added the requirement to use an external tool to create the assets - this was always (even today) was seen as a major drawback when it comes to modding. Yeah, it was exactly why I stopped modding. I was more interested in level design than fiddling in a 'proper' 3D editor and I never got around to understanding 'skins'. Was a bit saddened by that and didn't like the idea of relying on other people to provide models for my levels.

mercer 9y ago

Jedi Knight was one of my favorite games, but the (community-built?) editor was a nightmare. I did a lot of UT level editing, which was a lot more comfortable. I remember the next version (UT2003?) put more emphasis on imported models to populate a sparse UT-style carved-out map, which I imagine made things a lot easier for most people, but sadly was the end of my level editing days. I never got into 3D Studio Max (or Maya?) enough to be able to create maps as nice as those of others. Still, good times.

kodt 9y ago
I recall there being two competing community built editors. JKEdit and JED. I believe I used JED to make a few not so good maps. Good times indeed.
- mercer 9y ago
  Indeed. I think it was JED that I worked with! UnrealED was a definite improvement.
badsectoracula 9y ago
> the (community-built?) editor was a nightmare. I did a lot of UT level editing, which was a lot more comfortable. Yeah, there are two editors, JED and JKEdit. AFAIK the latter was much easier but also it was shareware whereas JED is (or became) open source but harder to use but on the other hand it has more features. Also it is extensible and i think it uses some sort of text-based API to communicate with external programs since i've seen extensions being made in different languages. As the end result the entire community focused on JED (although there are still a few people using JKEdit). But both editors work with the negative sectors directly while i think LucasArts' editor (Leia) had a more high level interface that was more similar to UnrealEd's subtractive BSP. The engine uses per-vertex lighting and i've seen some "artifacts" in the geometry that give me the impression that the geometry was generated through BSP subtraction instead of the more "hand-made" approach that JED has (i don't know about JKEdit). (Also FWIW this was a similar case with the original DoomEd for Doom - unlike most editors made at the time and even later, in DoomEd the sectors were implicit and assigned through some sort of "floodfill" algorithm that found the connections between them, but in most Doom editors you had to manually create vertices, linedefs, sectors, etc) > I remember the next version (UT2003?) put more emphasis on imported models to populate a sparse UT-style carved-out map, which I imagine made things a lot easier for most people, but sadly was the end of my level editing days. I never got into 3D Studio Max (or Maya?) enough to be able to create maps as nice as those of others. Actually it made things harder for people since it added the requirement to use an external tool to create the assets - this was always (even today) was seen as a major drawback when it comes to modding. It isn't a big problem for big game studios because they have dedicated artists for making environment props and the level designers simply have a ton of premade props at their disposal so they don't need to actually make them themselves, but it is harder for solo and small team modders. This is probably the reason why you see a lot of maps for games that come with in-editor tools (like Valve's games, despite having a clunky interface in Hammer, the brush tools are top notch and a ton of maps are made with that) or with a ton of premade modular assets (like Bethesda's tools which also encourage people to create reusable assets for others as mods as opposed to special single purpose assets).
- mercer 9y ago
  Thanks for the long response! Brings back memories. I now know for sure I was using JED precisely because I was a teenager who wouldn't consider paying for JKEdit. I also remember fiddling with surfaces to get nicer lighting, and being happy that I didn't have to do that for UT editing. > Actually it made things harder for people since it added the requirement to use an external tool to create the assets - this was always (even today) was seen as a major drawback when it comes to modding. Yeah, it was exactly why I stopped modding. I was more interested in level design than fiddling in a 'proper' 3D editor and I never got around to understanding 'skins'. Was a bit saddened by that and didn't like the idea of relying on other people to provide models for my levels.