Posts by Zajoman

Quote from Hourences

The 6 brushes argument: See what I just replied to hessi. Regardless of how many clicks it takes, having to end up with 6 different brushes for just a room is kind of stupid. Why not just 2 brushes?

I see absolutely no problem with it.

Quote from Hourences

Leaking: I can use the exact same argument for UT and therefore counter yours. If you make stuff correctly in UT there are no BSP errors either, yet you are complaing about those.Moreover, stuff cant leak in UT, even if youd create messy BSP. Sure other stuff can go wrong, but it cant leak like in HL.

I haven't stated anything about CSG errors anywhere. I said that it's becoming obsolete.

Quote from Hourences

Additive: I am pointing to the HL approach of requiring multiple brushes for something simple. I know the naming is not entirely correct but from an historic pov it is easiest for me to classify both approaches like this.

The same, I see no problem in this.

Quote from Hourences

7 Years of HL: So tell me this, the first three years of your HL experience, were those enough to fully, 100 percent, understand how BSP in HL works, how to work around problems and the dos and dont dos?

Well, it took time, that's for sure.

Quote from Hourences

UDN: There is nothing wrong with BSP and epic does not discourage it. The situation is a tiny little bit more complex than just "dont use it". Also, there are plenty of things that are stated incorrectly on UDN. It is not because UDN says so that it is true. Simple example, open some GOW maps and see if there happens to be BSP around.I have been working with Unreal looong before there ever was such thing like UDN. I know BSP and I know what it can do and what it cant.

Me too.

After all, I'm tired of this neverending debate. It is very likely that none of us both will change his opinions based on this debate. I understand your point of view. I don't say: "Never use UE3, it's crap!" I just say: "I personally like Srouce much better." I really don't want to flame. I won't reply to this anymore. You know, I'm just know designing a level for a game, so I don't like spending so much uncreative time around here. Nonetheless, thank you for your comments.

Good bye and have a nice day.

So youre saying that having to construct a single room of 6 seperate brushes is "much smarter and faster" ?

> What are you talking about? Be more specific, please.

If you ask me, itd be far simple to just add a cube, and substract a smaller cube out of it. Done.

> Or just draw a box and press Ctrl+H.

I also heard of leaks in Quake/HL? BSP stuff not closing in well. Doesn't sound very user friendly to me...

> This is a human error, not CSG itself. You should make your maps right, not leaky.

The actual tools aside, the entire additive system is just slow if you ask me and overly complex for simple actions.

> UE3 have both approaches, subtractive and additive. Take a guess which one is preferred nowadays... Additive, you got it.

How long have you worked with Source/HL BSP ?

> 7 years.

And mind you, I have only encountered a BSP error just once in Unreal Engine 3, and that was because some other guy found it funny to substract 60 sided cylinders of bigger clinders and all off the grid.

> Working with UE3, I suppose you have the access to the UDN. So log in and look for CSG topics. You'll find that Epic discourages from using it at all.

Quote from Hourences

As simple as it gets? Typing stuff in notepad to make materials is regard "simple" and "modern" ?We've discussed that before anyhow. As far as the numbers, sure, but of all those players only a few actually mod. Do you have any exact numbers on how many? Or on how many HL1 and HL2 maps there have ever been released?

Source may have a huge community, it may very well be larger than Unreal, but the Unreal community is generally at a different level. For us it is not the community tutorial efforts that makes or breaks the modding. For source I believe it is.

-Unreal has huge contests with a milion dollar in prices, that attracts people.

-Unreal is used by a huge amount of schools now, that also expands the community.

-Unreal has had a number of thick books written for it, again expands the community and speeds up peoples progress.

-Unreal has over 4000 professionals who are working with the engine every single day. Those 4000 are suppose to have a high level understanding of the engine. That group of people who fully understand everything that happens (or hopefully they do) is far larger than Source, which only has a handful of professionals working with the engine. Their skills flows on to the community, one way or another and in a way they in turn attract people.

Source relies on its community, Unreal primarily relies on other things and only then the community. Kind of.

Display More

Typing Stuff In Notepad

This has nothing to do with being modern or not. This is just one of many approaches. UE3 approach is more visual and more accessible to beginner/casual people.

4000

Where did you get that number? I don't believe it a bit. It takes one's life to fully understand the engine. Most of the engine developers surely do, but only very few lincensees do.

Source Relies On Community

How do you mean this? I believe Source relies on itself and its child games that are rated as the all time best for PC (http://%7boption%7d).

Quote from Hourences

Your correct on most things but:-BSP: If used to the BSP system in UE it is by far faster than anything else. This is purely subjective and you are clearly not used to it. Others are.

-Accessibility: People can get Roboblitz. UT3 and GOW will be released in just months time. This is an unfair comparison. The public didnt had access to HL2 and source when it was still in development either right? Oh wait, it got leaked:P

-Source support and community: Again, you cant compare. Source' community is years old. UE3 community doesnt even exist yet because the games havent been released yet. If you want to compare these two at all, you should compare them in 3 years time.

And UE had a system similar to Source' entities at first, but was later replaced with Kismet because entities are nice, but you will seriously lose the overview, just as much as Kismet. Both approaches can result in an utter mess, only Kismet handles it a little better.

CSG (BSP)

I worked with UnrealEd for 3 years, 1 and a half profesionally. I definitely am used to it. I stand my opinion - Hammer is much faster, much smarter, much simpler and much more stable.

Accessibility/Support

You say that the Source community is years old. Very true. But I'm talking about now. People need to know the comparison as it is now, not what it will be in years to come. And of course my opinions ARE subjective. I don't represent a community or a company of people that share the same thoughts.

Scripting

Scripting is not ideal in both engines. I said that I prefer classical code-scripting to visual coding, not that Source scripting is better than Kismet. Level-object based scripting (HL1, HL2, U1, U2) is there just because these games don't rely so heavily on scripting.

Quote from Sindwiller

GtkRadiant is free (both as in freedom and freebeer ) and exports to Wavefront obj.http://www.qeradiant.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi

It's the standard Q3 editor. Its handling is mostly the same as Hammer, although there may be some differences.

Yeah, but it's game-specific-dependent. Or am I able to build the goemetry alone?

Thanks for quick replies.

I need a standalone editor with no need to configure it for a specific game. I need to set measures (1 grid unit = ?). And I need to be able to export it to general formats.

Quote from FMPONE

Yeah, I don't know if you meant something other than hammer or simpler than hammer, but honestly there isn't an editor of any kind that I know of that actually is any simpler than hammer. I can't imagine how you could simplify things anymore

Surely not! I don't want an even simpler editor than Hammer. I need just an editor like that.

Thanks. I know of this feature. I should have said that I'm looking for a freeware editor like that. I know just a few - 3D World Studio, Quark, Blender. I really don't know what's the best.

Quote from FMPONE

fascinating post, where are you working with UE3?

Sorry, I won't say.

Hi guys.

I've been working with WC/Hammer, UnrealEd, Build and varios classical Doom editors for many years now.

I'd like to know if there is a general (not game specific) level editor similar to Hammer, ideally with exporting to general formats (3DS, etc.). I just need to build a few sketches of a level and export it.

May you, please, point me in the right direction?

I've worked with both, Source and UE3 for a few years now. Here are my thoughts about one and the other, in short.

+ Positive.

| Neutral.

- Negative.

UE3

+ Material editor. You can easily achieve stunning material effects, just after a few days playing with it.

+ UnrealScript. A Java/C# like programming language, easy to learn, good IDE, safe sand-box compiling. You can create/change almost every aspect of the game/mod. It's here where you create or modify entities, their behavior/communication, etc. The code itself is not documented well, so it's up to you to go down to the roots to learn what does what.

+ Fast and reliable engine. Good actor architecture. Good support for AI (very solid base to build upon).

+ Instancing, archetyping, prefabs. This is a very useful thing, but currently quite unstable. We all believe it will work some day.

+ Package system.

+ On-the-fly playtesting. You can run your map directly from the editor. No need for compiling.

| Kismet. Kismet is a scripting system for high-level level-object based scripting. While in HL2 all your logic making objects like triggers lie directly in the map, in UE3 you control the objects via Kismet, which is a big canvas where you place references to the objects. You have many boxes with inputs/outputs/variables that you connect with cables. This is very simple and useful for beginners or games with very light scripting. The problem is that the canvas gets utterly littered when heavy scripting comes in, and the 'code' is unreadable. I personally prefer clasiccal coding style before this visualization style.

| Epic support. Sometimes, you get a fast and useful response, sometimes, you get nothing of a use.

- Editor. Interface is really terrible in some aspects. Weird key shortcuts.

- Engine undone. Many of the engine's features are undone or currently in reworking progress. The frequent changes in the engine source code can cause many troubles to your project.

- CSG/BSP. If you are familiar with Quake/Half like static-world building/editing, you will get annoyed in a minute using this. Even freeware editors have better user interface for building primitive blocks of your geometry. CSG in UE3 is becoming more and more obsolete and unsupported, thus unstable and generally not usable. So you have to build your worlds in tools like 3DS Max, which we pretty good understand is a suffering.

- Physics. Forget the ease of creating physical puzzles in HL2. If you are familiar with HL2, this is a nightmare. Even though, with a hard work, you can achieve some results, but it really needs a full-time focus/learning.

- Accessibility. As far as I know, you have no chance to get a glimpse of what UE3 is and how it works for free.

Source

+ Support. The best support of all the engines out there, best community, best tutorials, etc.

+ Hammer. Do I need to say more?

+ Direct in-tools support for creating mods.

+ Clean code base.

+ Graphics. Many people say UE3 is an engine capable of rendering the best looking scenes. I don't quite agree. Look for yourselves.

- Need for compiling maps before run, slower tweaking, etc.

- No scripting language built in. You cannot change behaviors or create entities with ease.

I hope this will be useful at least a bit.