The role of the level-designer

Quote from DD

You can do this in hammer, unreal and many other games. I was doing this with hl1 mapping in the past, but after repeated experience I learned I was just producing lower quality/less optimized models by doing so. I still did/would export bsp from the editor just to get scale correct, but I learned to never use the bsp as a base for a model.

That's why I comment on how nice it is in Doom3. Exporting retains texturing information and you can merge all the tris to the original quad faces with a single key press. And if you're just doing a straight conversion to a model prop, you don't even need to turn it back to quads anyway. With patch meshes exported out, there are no back faces, and if you build with a base texture or caulk before texturing it, you can select and delete all faces with that material, giving you a nice clean model in seconds. And once you save it, it's ready to go in the editor/game - no compiling, exporting, or anything else. You can go back and forth between LW (or any package that supports .lwo or .ase) and the editor, typing 'reloadmodels' in the editor console to have instant tweaks and adjustments.

This isn't something used for general modeling - that's still up to the art team to concept, do the high/low poly, paint job, etc. etc. But if I need a room that's blown to hell, pillars bent out of shape, or whatever else, I can export any geometry I need (entire rooms if need be), models included, and start cutting, bending, twisting, and doing whatever is needed. It's no revolutionary system, but in efficiency and usefulness it's a step ahead of the rest, and definitely bridging the gap between traditional level construction and all model construction. Combined with the strength of patch meshes, this gives a ton of power to a designer with even a slight functional knowledge of LW.

I guess to half re-iterate and half re-explain what I'm trying to say, general gameplay design is no walk in the park - layouts, combat/gameplay, events, etc. all do take time to get right, but with art content taking longer and longer in next-gen engines, levels included, the more a designer can do and the more flexibility is found in the editor, the quicker content can get out the door.

By being able to quickly and efficiently build pipes, wires, railings, curved geometry, torn up panels, and whatever other details are needed quickly and efficiently in an editor, I'm saving an artist time that would have to be spent on a very tedious task that is taking precious time away from other more important tasks.

(edit: and if you're not using any patch meshes to make an in-editor water tower in D3, you are a fool, no ifs ands or buts about it. )

Off topic slightly (I noticed someone mentioning exporting from max and trying to get the scale correct for their map), but: Can anyone tell me the easiest way to get props exported at the correct scale? I've been learning a little 3DSM so I can place simple props in my maps without needing to use pre-made valve pipes (or hassle others) etc. However, I'm wondering if the Max units correspond to the HL2 units somehow. I know HL2 Hammer units are an inch. Does one max unit correspond to the same scale when exporting or am I barking up the wrong tree? If not, is there a quick and easy way to get the models to scale correctly? Thanks.