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If We Can Built In It, We Will Come
January 30th 2004, 03:05 CET by Dumdeedum Making stuff in 3D is slow. Even once you've dragged yourself up a painful learning curve. Even once you've mastered a counter-intuitive interface. Even once you've adopted the Approved Way Of Doing Things. Even after all that it's still pretty damn sluggish. Maybe there's no replacement for time and effort, but it doesn't mean things couldn't be simpler. Epic and Valve both have full-time employees dedicated to working on their editors which means they have some of the best tools in the industry, but both are still largely mimicking the design ideas found in commercial 3D renderers. So why not use third party software? Why re-invent the torus when you could use something like Discreet GMax? Not having to learn a whole new editor for each and every game certainly helps, but 3D modeling software tends to suffer from the same problems as game editors so it's no great gain. How about the thought of walking through a huge warehouse, picking out doors, windows, tables, walls and suchlike to slot together a bit like a massive game of The Sims? It sounds nice, and after all, movie directors don't personally build each bit of furniture in their movies so why should game makers? But even without the copyright issues, prefab models have problems of varying levels of quality, clashing visual themes and incompatible filetypes. Of course this doesn't invalidate copy & paste entirely, people are unlikely to care too much if the pot plant they're throwing at NPCs looks uncannily like the one they were throwing at NPCs five minutes ago. But the never-ending-hell-of-yet-another-fucking-square-room that was Halo should stand as a dire warning to all that ctrl-v should be used carefully. Well, apart from RPG makers. There's a rather novel idea from the dirty, open-source hippies behind Cube. Editing levels is done in the game itself, you press E and it toggles to an edit mode where you can fly about pushing and pulling surfaces about (much like the old Duke3D editor) which is nice but not revolutionary, the clever part is they've tied it into the multiplayer code so you can have, for want of a better word, multiediting. Now I don't see public servers turning out works of levelling art, but a small team working simultaneously on different aspects of a map could theoretically boost creation time significantly. So how do we take a sad song and make it better? Can it be made better or is it just hard to model in 3D? Will Valve's tastefully orange placeholder textures solve everything? What's the future of level editing? Is it all Warren's fault? |
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Topic: If We Can Built In It, We Will Come
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The problem with using an established 3D program to edit levels is that they're not equipped to do half of what a level editor does. In UnrealED, I can lay down geometry, texture it, add in sounds, add in lights, add in pathing, and see how it all will look/sound in the game, without having to launch the game. 3D Studio can certainly push the polys, no question, but I don't think it's really equipped to handle the amount of other information contained within those levels. I don't want to have to save and launch the game every time I place a new sound in my map just to check its volume. The multiplayer level-editing thing sounds neat. Especially since we're moving more and more towards systems where worlds are built predominantly out of static meshes (see: UT2K3) rather than BSP blocks. A team of talented guys who were set lose inside an empty shell and told to decorate it could produce something pretty amazing, pretty quickly. You could even do it in waves based on the specialization of those people. One guy does the basic layout, another guy does a lighting pass, another guy does scripting, etc... and then everyone tweaks a bit here and there to get the final thing done. -chris |
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As much as I would love to build my own levels, I have to agree with Bailey. Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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Welcome to the world of prefabs and whatever-else the UnrealED stuff is doing nowadays. It's not the most complicated shit in the world, but I'd rather throw in a whatever (mesh?) because I can actually pull that off. sunny days have funny ways of quieting the roar
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As I recall, Half life 2 is supposed to ship with an online `warehouse` of items map makers can put in their levels from desks to light fittings to vehicles. New models created by the `community` can be uploaded and if they pass whatever guidelines Valve has in place, theyre uploaded for all to use. Do not go gently into that good night.
Old age should burn and rage at the close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
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I swear we've had this conversation before...didn't we? I believe I can fly......urk.
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You know, I seem to remember the old Doom map editors being much harder to use than the current 3D ones. However, Duke3D's was fairly simple and easy to use. I haven't done any map editing with UT2k3, is it really mostly static meshes pieced together? Because I find that pretty impressive. Has this led to an increase in output in/or quality from the community? "Dream of me... and maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will end."
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Doom editing was what the french refer to as "a massive fucking pain in the ass" -chris |
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I find level creation rewarding, but there are many headaches and nights where I cry myself to sleep after losing hours or work to a buggy editor. The tools are not perfect, but it's still fun to make games. If it weren't I'd be stalking full time. He's the worst kind of stupid, the accepting kind.
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To some degree this is the direction we went with the world tools in Horizons. You log in with an appropriately permissioned character, open up the tools window, and can add/move objects, modify their settings, change the terrain and its texturing, etc all you like. Save your changes and they're written to the database, then those changes are propagated out to any other clients nearby within a few seconds. In practice this works well, but has its pitfalls, mostly in that proper versioning and auto-updating took some doing to get reliable. It works particularly well with objects, where other users being in the same area making changes is genuinely transparent (unless they're messing with the same object as you are). Terrain is another story, as two users in the same area changing it could cause seams at sector borders, but that's more just a matter of not messing with it if somebody else is. Aside from allowing a single user to 'lock' access to a specific area's terrain, there's nothing much reasonable that could be done there. Still, I've had three or four people all making changes to the same area at the same time before, and it's held up pretty well in practice. |
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Perhaps I just never looked at 3D map making very closely, but when I tried making Quake maps (using a Worldcraft tutorial), I thought it was infinitely more difficult than making a simple Doom map. |
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Isn't making NWN maps supposedly easy? I couldn't make heads nor tails out of it (aside from making a square room loaded with the best equipment in the game). Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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The scripting is a pain in the ass, but yeah, actual map-making is a breeze... which is why the cream of the crop missions in the mod community are pretty ho-hum. Easy to work with the existing materials, but quite difficult to do something new. Life without shame.
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NWN's mapmaking is, essentially, the prefab workshop to place things. I remember making a nice town square where I'd have a romantic interlude with Aribeth. I couldn't script love, though. |
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Only god can script love. God and my good friend, Mr. Hard Liquor. -chris |
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Lpmiller, yeah we had almost this exact same topic/conversation like a year ago or so and someone came down hard against all the "lego" style map editor ideas and we went into a big arguement for a few hundred posts. Sounds familiar....I wonder who that was? Comment Signature
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Ok, just wanted to make sure I wasn't high or something. I believe I can fly......urk.
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#0 Is it all Warren's fault? Yes. "Cheap Garbage Disposal Can’t Handle Femur"
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#45 Warren Marshall #0 Is it all Warren's fault? Yes. everything is your fault Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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GMax and the like look nice on the surface, but once you start trying to really use them for production levels it all falls apart. Level designers don't want to UV map every poly in their map. They want to throw a texture on the wall (having the editor assign it a nice default mapping), quickly pan/rotate/scale it into place and move on. Anything more than that is a hinderence to productivity. Plus, with something like Max or Maya, how do you place lights? Actors? Static meshes? You can't. So you're going to find yourself inside of a proprietary editor at some point. Might as well just start there and save yourself the trouble. Now, Max type programs excel at creating static meshes, which is what we use them for at Epic. The artists crank out high quality static mesh pieces that the level designers can use from within UnrealEd. This is a major productivity boost (once the static mesh sets are built, of course) and the LDs can focus on how to make the level look good and not on mapping textures to polygons or trying to build 3,000 polygon decoration pieces to go on the walls. "Cheap Garbage Disposal Can’t Handle Femur"
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I just want UT2K4 to have more levels with ledges and high places so I can kill someone and watch their body teeter over the edge. I love physics engines. sunny days have funny ways of quieting the roar
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As a cautionary aside, Nocturne's levels were built in 3ds. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Question regarding level editors that have been included with games: Have any of these editors ever been designed to be a UI-friendly editor first, and a professional tool second? Or are they designed as developer tools first and foremost? All the ones I've ever seen and/or used have had that unpolished you-can-practically-hear-the-tools-coder-talking-over-your-shoulder, "Yeah, okay, it works, and it'll crash if you do this and you gotta go that way through the menus or it reboots the machine and oh yeah for the love of God never hit Ctrl+Alt+D; that'll rewrite the MBR but I don't have time to figure out why, so just don't fuck with it okay thanks any questions drop me an email I gotta code some more content stuff now bye" look and feel to 'em... but with a semi-pretty front end. By this time tomorrow we can be doing BODY SHOTS off HOOKERS in some MEXICAN HELLHOLE
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#50 crash Question regarding level editors that have been included with games: Have any of these editors ever been designed to be a UI-friendly editor first, and a professional tool second? Or are they designed as developer tools first and foremost? I get the impression that they are the latter. Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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Most development tools are meant to work first and be user friendly second, absolutely. It's a rare product that gets enough after-release mileage out of their editor to warrant the time being spent. Heck, from a purely economics standpoint I probably couldn't name one other than Half-Life/Counterstrike. While Quake/UT/NWN/etc have a large community using their tools (and some pretty cool stuff being done within it) I seriously doubt their moddability really made them saleswise. You can make a case that more time spent on interface will speed up production, but most interface evolution (outside of that which enables new features) seems meant to make things easier to use, not necessarily faster to use. It takes a lot of work to set up a functional interface that lets you visualize and tweak everything, but if somebody who's a veteran to the toolset can do the same thing by typing "/ts 50 20" is it worth the trouble? |
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I guess what I really am rambling at is, even time aside, these tools are built for the hardcore, not the casual. |
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Warren: Level designers don't want to UV map every poly in their map. I could swear that you once said you were planning on putting UV mapping into a future version of UnrealEd. Anyway, I think collaborative mapping is a fantastic idea. You could use it to teach newbies, or get a bunch of talented people together and knock out something really impressive. You could even use it as a gameplay type, if you added certain restrictions. 9 years later you're the fat kid with his face pressed against the window of The Industry. - crash
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And just imagine the fun to be had for griefers! Bleh. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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GMax and the like look nice on the surface, but once you start trying to really use them for production levels it all falls apart. Level designers don't want to UV map every poly in their map. They want to throw a texture on the wall (having the editor assign it a nice default mapping), quickly pan/rotate/scale it into place and move on. Anything more than that is a hinderence to productivity. At Rockstar Toronto, we use 3ds Max to create the levels in The Warriors with the Renderware engine. Likewise, back at Sir-tech we used Max to create the maps in Wizardry 8. UV mapping is a pain in the ass but I think using Max as an editor the level artists can create more detail than with a brush-based level editor. I must admit that Unreal's terrain editor is gorgeous... something that can't be achieved with Max. Plus, with something like Max or Maya, how do you place lights? Actors? Static meshes? You can't. So you're going to find yourself inside of a proprietary editor at some point. Might as well just start there and save yourself the trouble. You place light in Max and export them to the engine like with the level geometry, ditto with meshes. Actors (characters, sound, particle effects, etc.) are placed as helpers and also exported.. Back at Sir-tech we had a tools programmer who created Max plug-ins for us. |
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Yeah Neale, a game where your weapon of choice can include rearranging the level itself. It could be pulled off successfully I think. Re: leveleditors I like to think Epic made real progress with their commitment to static meshes. Not the technology itself as much as from a workflow point of view. It just makes sense to have leveldesigners do the more abstract-ish designing, and leverage the power of the artists to do the detailing. That's a trend I'd like to see continue. In my mind an even more abstractified workflow could be established, so the Reactor Room where you have to toggle things to make it go critical is handled by someone inbetween the leveldesigner and the artists. You'd have a sort of "macrodesigner" that handles the overall flow of his level, he utilizes "microdesigners" that handles the flow of a single room or a smallish sequence, and they in turn use the artists to generate the detailed content. Or I'm just thinking myself clever, in reality it's either a stupid stupid plan, or something everyone's known for years? Specifically on the learning curve and how it relates to beginners I think the latest trend towards more companies licensing engines will help improve the tools all by itself. Their development will automatically become a more iterative process as each new generation of engine is pumped out. Hurrah for licensing. It doesn't neccessairly have to become so easy so every Joe Compaq starts pumping out levels, but the more crashresistant and visual an application becomes the better, in my book. Regarding the question of "proper 3D program" vs. own leveleditor, I'd like to mention how Maya or MAX or whatever has rather sophisticated tools in place for precise handling of animation. Which I believe is still lacking in leveleditors today? Worldcraft for Half-Life 2 features a scrubbable timebar, which sounds good to me.. but that's just a tiny part of the goodness one enjoys in one of the proper 3d packages. I don't know the status of UnrealEd though, maybe someone can fill me in? Do we have access to motion paths and bezier curve handles and Ease In and Out and whatnot on the same level that Maya or MAX can accomplish? Does any editor feature such things? I'm not actually advocating the use of Maya as a level editor because frankly, as Warren said, it.. uh, sucks. I just hate the idea of giving up on the precise timing too.. Maybe a two-way communication between the proprietary leveleditor and the 3d app? You make the brushwork in the level editor, export to the 3d app, animate the pieces juuuust right, then back to the level editor to set up when it's triggered and adding sounds and enemies and such. Stupid idea? |
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And when I say using a 3d app sucks as a level editor that's just an opinion of mine, as clearly Eric harbors little or no hatred towards such a workflow. It's the lack of proper feedback that drives me away from the 3d App As Leveleditor idea. In creating a game (caution, armchair gamedeveloper coming through!) I'd like to have the light I just placed in the editor reflect more or less accuractly how it looks ingame. Same goes for textures, and enemies, etc. etc. I think it was Far Cry that had a nice example recently (sorry, can't find the link.. curses) of the game being the editor. You'd place an enemy behind a small hill, hit a button and you'd spawn where you camera was. You could run up the hill and see exactly what happens with the enemy. If he was facing the wrong way just pop back into edit mode, rotate him a bit, and back to testing. It looked like an awesome iterative process. I like Worldcraft (the Half-Life 1 editor) plenty, but it's friggin' annoying to recompile the level again and again to test out the smallest tweaks. An iterative workflow is always good™. Or, at least I can't come up with any drawbacks right now. |
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And yes, I apologize for inflicing my inability to be brief and concise upon us all. |
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In other news, several members of the Nigerian royal family, plus some former presidents and their families, have been arrested in the Netherlands. They're starting an email campaign asking people to bail them out, and are offering 10% of their family fortune in return. I want a horse that ribbits and a frog that neighs... oink oink oink
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addendum: makes sense the Nigerian email scam didn't actually originate from Nigeria, though. I want a horse that ribbits and a frog that neighs... oink oink oink
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Level editors are more like CAD tools, while modellers are.. well, modellers. Of course you can customize the modeller with the SDK, but I don't see myself working on a building with Max or Maya. You need proper snapping and a flexible grid, if you are going to make indoor environments. Both the grid and snapping sucks in all 3d modellers. And its no wonder really, you don't those in modelling. UV mapping is horrible leveldesign-wise in at least Maya. Also Max and Maya tends to slow down A LOT when more stuff is drawn on the screen. Lightwave seems to work better on that regard. It's easy to accept the problems of the 3d modellers, if you haven't experienced anything better. I'm still wondering how they managed to use Maya in the Jak&Dax games. |
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#62 mixuk I'm still wondering how they managed to use Maya in the Jak&Dax games. If you would have been a subscriber to Game Developer magazine, you would already know they only hired animators who were able to control a mouse with their ass sphincter. You Know You Envy the soul of Trolly McTroll
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#55 UncleJeet And just imagine the fun to be had for griefers! Bleh. My god, it's full of dicks! If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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#64 Jibble #55 UncleJeet And just imagine the fun to be had for griefers! Bleh. My god, it's full of dicks! My God, you must be speaking of your ass! You Know You Envy the soul of Trolly McTroll
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I had fun making maps in doom. The barrier to entry was lower of course and resulted in a lot of shit on the net (some of it mine), but it increased the value I got out of the game. I do wish that creating levels were eaiser. I just wish that I had to time and the inclination. Too bad NWN as a game didn't grab me as I would have like to try to make a module. |
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crash Question regarding level editors that have been included with games: Have any of these editors ever been designed to be a UI-friendly editor first, and a professional tool second? Or are they designed as developer tools first and foremost? UnrealEd is designed to be as friendly as possible (or I guess, as is reasonable given the games development schedule) from the start. For each feature that gets added, a lot of thought is put into making it as easy for the LD to use as possible. Having to know arcane command line options or weird key combinations is frowned upon. Neale I could swear that you once said you were planning on putting UV mapping into a future version of UnrealEd. I want to, absolutely. But it would be used as the exception, not the norm. Sometimes simply panning/rotating/scaling isn't enough to get the exact alignment you want. In those cases, I wanted to add a UV mapping dialog ... perhaps some day. gaggle Regarding the question of "proper 3D program" vs. own leveleditor, I'd like to mention how Maya or MAX or whatever has rather sophisticated tools in place for precise handling of animation. Which I believe is still lacking in leveleditors today? I'm confused as to what animation has to do with creating a level... If you're animating characters or weapons or whatever, by all means, use a 3D animation package. It's the lack of proper feedback that drives me away from the 3d App As Leveleditor idea. In creating a game (caution, armchair gamedeveloper coming through!) I'd like to have the light I just placed in the editor reflect more or less accuractly how it looks ingame. Same goes for textures, and enemies, etc. etc. I think it was Far Cry that had a nice example recently (sorry, can't find the link.. curses) of the game being the editor. You'd place an enemy behind a small hill, hit a button and you'd spawn where you camera was. You could run up the hill and see exactly what happens with the enemy. If he was facing the wrong way just pop back into edit mode, rotate him a bit, and back to testing. It looked like an awesome iterative process. I like Worldcraft (the Half-Life 1 editor) plenty, but it's friggin' annoying to recompile the level again and again to test out the smallest tweaks. That's the next stage of level editing tools. I think every next-gen engine is going to support that feature. It's the next logical step in increasing productivity. All Anyone remember that thing that was released a few years ago.... Dungeon something or other. The one that worked with prefabbed rooms/hallways and nobody really gave a rats ass? "Cheap Garbage Disposal Can’t Handle Femur"
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Deathtrap Dungeon? Could also have been Morrowind. "Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
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Trainz has a nice editor. However, That is in part because most the folks playing that game do some sort of normal model railroading. It lays out the same way you would lay out a table. The models (ie trains) for the game are all done through gmax. Having watched my boyfriend go insane doing that, I will say it is NOT a novice friendly software. I refused. I would have had fun making things, but Gmax is beyond me and my time constraints. Right now , Everything is beyond me and what time I have. Oy, someone give me a time machine. Zang! Who is that, running over the desert! It is Ryslin, hands clutching a bladed baseball bat! And with a spectacular grunt, her voice cometh:
"I'm going to spank you beyond mortal comprehension, then bake cookies!" |
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The only experience I had with level editing was with one of those old Wolfenstein editors. I modded it so the machine gunners' heads exploded when you killed them. Problem was, there weren't enough frames to have them fall down. You'd play through a level and end up with a bunch of headless bodies in blue suits. Good times. You hear that, politicians and soccer moms? I'm a TICKING TIME BOMB. If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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Yeah Neale, a game where your weapon of choice can include rearranging the level itself. It could be pulled off successfully I think. Yeah, Prey should be out any day now. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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3D Studio and the other 3D apps have their place - for modelling. They're singularly unsuited to level design, as far as I'm concerned. The sooner all editors are integrated with the engine, the better. And whoever complained about not liking having to compile HL maps, I feel your pain. I'm working on a map that takes upwards of 2 hours to compile fully, so I have to do changes in batches and roll them all back if it goes tits-up. Grr. 9 years later you're the fat kid with his face pressed against the window of The Industry. - crash
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If We Can Built In It? I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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#67 Warren Marshall Anyone remember that thing that was released a few years ago.... Dungeon something or other. The one that worked with prefabbed rooms/hallways and nobody really gave a rats ass? Yeah, it was called Dungeon Tournament 2004 You Know You Envy the soul of Trolly McTroll
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Neale I remember working on my 4 level unit for Quake2. The radiosity compile times were fucking murder. It looked nice in the end, but DAMN did it take a long time. I did the same thing as you. I broke up maps into individual pieces so I could detail them out and get them as complete as possible before splicing them into the main map. It was the only way to get any work done. "Cheap Garbage Disposal Can’t Handle Femur"
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#75 Warren Marshall I broke up maps into individual pieces so I could detail them out and get them as complete as possible before splicing them into the main map./quote] I'm crafty like that too. I break up my victims and eat a new limb each night, keep the rest in the freezer. now go put a powerball in the hoo-haw and win the big Tournament 2010! You Know You Envy the soul of Trolly McTroll
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So Atari closed up Legend? Bleh, the industry is going to hell. Well, to a lower level anyway. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Warren, true that animation is classically the weapons and the characters and whatnot. But in this context I'm refering to sequences in levels where, say, a bridge collapses, or the ground starts breaking off into bits, or the aforementioned theoretical Reactor Room that needs spinning gadgets and mechanical workers lifting Coal into the furnace (or whatnot). Now, agreed, spinning gadgets we can easily do with todays tools, but the more complicated sequences needs, in my opinion, a new kind of solution. Let me use the collapsing-ground sequence as an example: Gearbox, in their Opposing Force mod for Half-Life, made a brilliant sequence where a large platform you're on starts exploding. Huge chunks of ground falls, one by one, into Lava O' Death below. You have nowhere to run to until finally a piece of platform overhead collapses as well and provides a handy escaperoute. It's very well made, especially for its time, but the animation is pretty lacking. Each chunk sort of falls with just one speed, and maybe tumbles a bit. It has an odd mechanical feel to it. And I feel that's because they had to use the limited animation toolset found in Worldcraft. It's all about placing triggers and have the brush move towards it at a certain speed and rotation, then if that chunk has to hit another chunk, or the ground, or just react to anything, you have to come up with new triggers, and time them properly and give new rotational values. Per chunk.. it's just an incredibly tedious process which offers zero feedback until you compile the level. I can't imagine how much time that must've taken to set up. You can probably see where I'm going with this. It's an example (albeit a slightly outdated one perhaps) of "level animation", where I think if those chunks could've been animated in a 3d application, then exported that animation back to the editor would've helped immensly. Using Maya you could easily(-ish) make as many chunks you'd like, all with the tighest timing for maximum exhilaration. You could place an NPC character in there as well, and make a customized animation for him that you could save out seperatly and trigger in-game. That would be horrendously difficult to do using the method Gearbox had to use. I'm quite interested in hearing how you feel such a sequence would be done using the Unreal engine. I think the same basic principle applies as with Worldcraft, with the triggering and the lack of in-editor feedback and tight control over the animationcurves. If we could bring over animation from the 3d app, we could also finally do away with those horrible horrible cameramoves many games seem to feature. I saw Unreal 2 in action at a friends house back when it was new, and I was dissapointed right off the bat when the intro has a camera that swoops down on a tower and comes to rest in front of a character looking out a window I think. The camera just stops, it has no ease out applied to it. It creates an ugly jarring sequence and I don't think modern games can get away with such subpar animation anymore. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm just ranting randomly here, they're thoughts I've had for a while on how I'd like to see gamecontent produced.. but there goes that armchair developer klaxon again. |
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