Zajoman

I see absolutely no problem with it. I haven't stated anything about CSG errors anywhere. I said that it's becoming obsolete. The same, I see no problem in this. Well, it took time, that's for sure. 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.

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://www.metacritic.com/games/pc/).

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.

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.

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.

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.