Unreal vs Source.

[R_Yell]

At least Hammer has a few features like fast vrad and cordon compile to check lighting settings without waiting too much time. But nobody could deny that lighting preview would be a real time saver, and the fact is Valve is trying to implement it.

IMO a WYSIWYG is not a big issue for Source level designers, there are much worse problems. Would be good to have more options to work with external 3d packages. You can't import brushwork, well, it can be done in XSI but it isn't useful because all concave shapes are discarded so you'll end making blocks.

[OrnateBaboon]

What editor you choose to use is an easier question to answer than what one is superior. I would say that you should start using the editor that will allow you to produce the maps on games you would like to play. One of the key aspects of mapping is motivation, and nothing can motivate a level designer more than the prospect of making a map for a game s/he loves.

I have used Source a fair bit, but decided to learn the basics of UnrealEd a while ago. The things I really liked about Unreal that I missed in Hammer were the lighting preview, the in-editor model resizer, the multiple blends on terrain, and the extremely quick compile times. The subtraction method of making rooms, while a bit confusing at first, also means that it is very hard to get leaks.

I would also imagine that the overall build time of a map made using UnrealEd would be a lot quicker than a similarly sized and detailed Source map, since Unreal is so mesh based. Maps in Unreal would have the basic shape of the rooms made out of brushes, and the detailing would then consist of meshes. This is a lot speedier than the Hammer way of doing things which usually means a lot more brushwork, followed by meshes.

One thing that Unreal handles a lot better are open environments. With Source, a detailed open environment will lead to poor fps (unless fogged out). Unreal seems to be able to cope with detailed open environments with ease.

From a job perspective, a quick look at any game agency will indicate that UnrealEd knowledge is more sought after.

I want to try and properly learn Unreal, because I saw videos like this, and thought that making maps for it would be so much fun.

At the moment, I prefer using Source, since it is what I am familiar with. However, I can see that once I learn more about UnrealEd, I will really love using it.

[hessi]

Source not being 100 percent (or actually 10 percent) WYSIWYG-thing because it has radiosity and the like is absolute rubbish. Its simply because the tools were badly designed, not because it can handle radiosity.

What does radiosity matter in the end? Once lighting has been baked into lightmaps it doesnt make any difference what kind of lighting it was, for example if it had radiosity or not, because its just baked into an image and projected onto a wall. Unreal does exactly the same, Unreal already uses lightmaps since 1998 and already managed to show lightmaps in the viewport back. Blaming the radiosity is lame.

And you may be able to set up your lighting blindly, I often do my lighting blind in Unreal too, but the average guy cant do this, and the inability to simply quickly check his lighting can be a huge hassle for such person. You do not only design tools for the experienced people.

Regardless if you can or cant light a scene out blindly, a preview is NEVER bad to have.

And the story has totally zero to do with the tools.

And a thing not discussed yet is Kismet, visual scripting of gameplay and other elements in a level. You make pawns do stuff by adding event and action nodes and connecting them.

you cant blame the editor for not supporting lighting preview. the hammer editor is not based on the engine because it is used to place convex objects next to each other. the compilers generate a concave mesh of the level and render the lightmap on this combined and merged mesh while the polygons might get subdivided in multiple parts. so a lightmap generated by the compilers would totally mess up on you brushes because it has a totally different vertex connection and triangle lists.

of course i would not be mad at valve if they included such a previewing feature but if you ask me: i dont need it anyway.

though i dont understand why it should take any longer to tweak a lightsetup. open up the engine, compile the level in fast mode (takes maybe 2 minutes), check it out, maybe recompile after some changes, reload the level in the engine. the only difference i see is that the UED has the engine window directly in the editor but as long as we are talking of speed i dont see a (big) difference.

though why should an engine be made for beginners? making something avaible for beginners usually means making it not that flexible. i wouldnt call photoshop easy for beginners. as i started with 2d i always loved working in a single layer like paint does because i was confused by layers and groups and stuff. after a while i noticed the benefits i got with this complexity of the software. its the same with game engines: they can be complex but offer you a lot of features. there might be some complex ones that do not offer a lot of features (but thats neither source or unreal).

any developer has put different features into their pipeline and engine but they had always to accept some disadvantages.

[Defrag]

I would murder several children for a lighting preview in Hammer. It's easy enough to get some nice-ish lighting, but to truly get what you want, it takes a lot of toing & froing from editor to engine. Having it right there in the viewport would be the one major improvement that would increase my productivity twofold.

[Hourences]

I expected that there were deeper technical problems or valve would have added the feature a long time ago already.

Never the less, if they can make two great games and an engine then really, it really shouldnt be impossible for them to add features like this for them. Theyd sell more licenses if theyd had some better tools prolly because the engine itself is great.

There are two types of beginners, you got the complete utter noob and you got those people who switch over to another engine or have some other type of basic understanding. I hate tools that have 10 milion wizards and a retard paperclip asking me if I really want to do this or that but theres a difference between that and a program that is simply easy yet still really powerful.

It doesnt have to become like those RTS editors where you can only click and place soldiers and paint some terrain textures but cant do anything else.

Efficiency/=stupid unpowerful crap

If you open Photoshop for the first time anyone can figure out how to paint something or do other basic things, without reading a single tutorial. Its that basic logical design that you need in a program. Of course Photoshop is a 2d program and very different to an editor but you get the idea. Having to make materials by typing words in notepad is not logical or very self explaining.

[hessi]

maybe somehting where we could meet each other would be a pipeline where both ways are implemented. the hard code on the one hand and GUI for those who have short/quick tasks to do. you could access basic stuff via the GUI and get more complex with an advanced text editor (having a slider bar instead of a line in a textfile doesnt make a big difference in my eyes).

i disagree with photoshop as an example for "easy to learn even there is much complexity". my dad got his own computer and he always asks me things he could possibly figure out on his own. he calls me on the telephone or i should show him via VNC or so.

and of course complexity is not including unefficiency. neither does efficiency include complexity. BUT with a lot of software (and that includes several editors) those pseudo-rules actually can be applied. RTS games for example. or maybe some weirdo-engines that dont have its own editor at all.

[Sa74n]

my thoughts are: hammer is rubbish because..

- no custom hotkeys are supported

- it has bad multimonitor support

- it uses ancient texturing techniques

- no lighting preview

- 3d viewport editing is not advanced enough

- grouping could be made more straight forward

there's plenty of other stuff but these are the main points why hammer sux.

additionally the workflow of getting assets ingame is pretty horrible and a huge waste of time (even with all the community tools available by now)

BUT as there is no other way around i'd still use it just because of the pretty results the source engine is able to put out.

[JamesL]

my thoughts are: hammer is rubbish because..

- no custom hotkeys are supported

- it has bad multimonitor support

- it uses ancient texturing techniques

- no lighting preview

- 3d viewport editing is not advanced enough

- grouping could be made more straight forward

there's plenty of other stuff but these are the main points why hammer sux.

additionally the workflow of getting assets ingame is pretty horrible and a huge waste of time (even with all the community tools available by now)

BUT as there is no other way around i'd still use it just because of the pretty results the source engine is able to put out.

Totally agree with everything you say. Hammer pisses me off in countless ways, but my fav games are Source based and when it all comes together (after what seems like an eternity) Hammer produces fabulous results.

[e-freak]

uhm don't know what you (74) are about the dual screens - i do use hammer on dual screen the very same way as i do use photoshop for example - the "creativity" on the mainscreen (does mean the canvas in photoshop or the views in hammer) and the tool bars on the second screen (in photoshop it is history, color adjustments, pixel information, filter setups etc. / in hammer it is material window, brush settings etc.). Works good for me

As hessi and Hourences posted some nice points i wonder why this is discussed in a more or less public forum and why not discussed while doing e.g. UE3.

By the way: Afaik the people who do Source Professional (in terms of licensing it) get a Hammer version with quick preview render (maybe Reno could tell something on this?) and they of course have access to the tool source so they can easily build up a gui that is perfectly customized to the internal team pipeline...

[Hourences]

hessi -> your dad is not exactly the average computeruser. My mom doesnt even know how to turn on a pc, even though there are only two buttons on a pc...Your average 16-28 year old should easily be able to figure out the basics of a program like photoshop.

e-freak what do you mean with

i wonder why this is discussed in a more or less public forum and why not discussed while doing e.g. UE3.

?

[hessi]

i would call my dad an average user. we (those who work with computer all day) are power users. we already know where to look if something does not work correctly.

the average 14 or 15 year old boy has never used a computer for more than writing a text in MS word or playing new games.

My dad already made some scans of photos and corrected some scratches and colors. so i'd call him not that dump.

maybe "average" is a bit of an unclean defined word.

average = working with Word and basic office applications

or

average = users with basic knowledge of computer graphics and at least 5 years of experience

to come to an end:

3d software is complex and is always hard to learn. there are ways to make it easier for new people that have already a background knowledge of 3d and graphics and so on. but as i would say there is no way to satisfy everybody (absolute newbies, average people, power users).

If i only look at pure levelediting (no model or texture creation) i think the hammer editor is pretty simple and rough. not that much buttons. only a hand full of menus. UED owns you with a big bunch of menus and submenus and secret key commands and so on. I'd probably guess an absolute beginner would deal easier with hammer in the first few weeks. then should jump over to some ued kind of editor to easily work with light and get quick results and then might jump back to source/hammer to apply his knowledge on this editor and engine.

i dont know if that came out clear enough, but always looking at all kind of implementations is a big plus for a personal skill level. just knowing that there are things that are not as good as implementations in other packages is something people need to get along with.

thats why we are still waiting for the perfect engine that is easy to learn, has a simple and fast production pipeline, has high quality results that can be applied to different artistical styles. and thats neither ued nor hammer/source.

resume: all engines and editors are crap and i stop modding right now

:wink:

[Defrag]

As Harry Hill would say: "There's only one way to find out which is best. FIGGGGGGGGGGGGHT!"

[Lee3dee]

i've only ever used Unreal, i did once open Hammer and discovered that it was took clunky and i couldn't see my lighting and meshes in realtime, so that experience lasted 10 mins.

Having now used Ue3 for 9 months, I prefer unreal tech over all the other engines.

[Schmung]

I think it's a very personal thing TBH. The technology/workflow is quite different, so depends what you like.

I've never touched either, they're both way too much work for a hobbyist like me. I could never get used to any of the the older UEds because I started with Quake and the CSG cutting shit just seems backwards to me. Source just seems to inneficient for me - I'm a a diabolical texture artist and I like to build things room at a time rather than running through 30 detail passes and making tons of props.

Hammer for HL1 was kinda nice because editor complexity was on a par with engine complexity - you only had to dive into a text editor or Max for the real extras. It seems more necessary with Source and UEds total approach is overwhelming if you've only got a few hours to learn it.

[MrBaracuda]

What's "WYSIWYG"? D:

I used both the UEd and Worldcraft back then. I liked UEd better for all the features and what you can do w/ the editor/engine (in-editor preview, open maps, 3d skybox, rescaling models) but ended up using Worldcraft/Hammer more because I played more HL1 than Unreal games.

Another thing is that (Gold)Source is better for realistic games in my opinion and I like those better atm. Unreal has this "spongy" movement, if you know what I mean.

Then again, Red Orchestra is a great game but has some of this "spongy" movement.