Making of Killzone 3

[-HP-]

Extremly interesting presentation!

I was baffled to see they have NO level editor whatsoever, everything is made in maya, wut! (Which is, to the best of my knowledge the same workflow Naughty Dog uses)

[PogoP]

That's interesting.

We don't have a level editor at work either, we make our levels entirely in 3ds Max. But then again, we do make kinect games so it's a lot easier and more streamlined.

[Vilham]

We do have a level editor liam...

[-HP-]

We do have a level editor liam...

Technically so do Guerrila, but they only named it that way to make the LD's shut up... god damn that made me facepalm.

[Vilham]

We use Unity editor as our level editor, we have an actual level editor, whereas gorilla use maya only from the look of it. Which as you pointed out is how naughty dog works too.

[PogoP]

I mean from an asset placement point of view Will. I know we use Unity but it's kind of a weird middle ground, and just for doing gameplay stuff, as far as I'm aware.

It's not a proper level editor, in my eyes anyway.

[Skjalg]

How exactly isnt Unity3D a level editor?

[PogoP]

The environment team doesn't have access to it, we do the entire environment in 3ds max and the designers place gameplay objects etc using Unity. But they use our exported fbx file as geometry, as far as I know.

I'm not saying it isn't a level editor, but as an environment artist, I don't use a level editor. I just use Max.

[Skjalg]

as you should you said it yourself. the (level) designers use unity while you as an artist use max.

Edit;

The thing is, unity3d can be whatever you want it to be as its basically just a shell where you can whatever you like. Theres editor extensions that allows you to model, animate, draw textures, code, set up game logic etc so it can basically be used to fit whatever work flow your company or team needs it to be. This is probably one of the best things about unity, and I think the fact that you don't think of it as a level editor is because your team has just chosen not to use it as such.

[PogoP]

You nailed it with that last sentence dude! I didn't know Unity could do so much

[Warby]

having your renderer show in the maya viewport is pretty dope but as far as graphics features go there was nothing in their talk/engine thats not possible in every other engine too

[2d-chris]

maya strikes again! for all those level designers out there, get going with it, time well invested it makes my life 100x easier, even with cryengines awesome toolset

[Sentura]

any recommendations for level editor plugins/toolboxes?