Best Tool for Making Naps?

Winters

What is the best (AKA The easist) tool for making DoD/Half-Life maps?

DRakE

Valve Hammer Tool.

www.valve-erc.com to download


Tutorials:

www.valve-erc.com
www.vlatitude.com

I could also give you some pointers...pm me if you want

Anima

Mapping is easy enough its the entities that will get you confused especially Dod cause there are quite alot of entites but for cs its straight forward.

Winters

Thnks. Once i have it downloaded I will give it a go. I was using Quark until now (Tis so hard!)

ThrAx

QuArK is easy peasy.

U wanna see hard? Try making your *.map files in notepad like they used to do back in 1996 when quake first came out. That'll learn ya.

RopeDrink

Best Tool for Making Naps?

I thouroughly suggest a soft, spring filled bed, comfortable blankets, pillows and a hot water bottle...

As for making maps, I would blurt out WorldCraft, but that fact that WC is the only tool I use anymore, it would be a rather limited suggestion... I haven't used Quark / GTK / UTEd, or anything else enough to make a valid suggestion.

spooky donkey

What is the easiest game to make maps for, i guessing quake 2 but it may be UT any ideas ?

Lyconix

From what I've heard, UT is difficult to map for in comparison with other games... Quake uses the same editor as Half-Life (Worldcraft - a different version of course) as far as I know, but it also uses QuArK and I'm unfamiliar with that...

I see Worldcraft as being pretty easy to understand once you get the hang of it, the principles are pretty simple... its all composed of brushes and entities, whereas I've heard when you're mapping for UT, sectors come into it or something...

ThrAx

I'd say Age of Empires thats simple, but the easiest FPS to map for would be Quake 1 with either QuArK or worldcraft

DRakE

lol i just saw that the topic says "best tool for making Naps?"

he doesnt care about mapping! he wantrs to sl33p!

ps ignore me

Winters

WELL SORRY! i didnt know i had put in the N insted of M OK!

RopeDrink

Having mapped for UT briefly myself, I gave up after half a map - It is rather complex and would take quite a lot of time to get used to... As for Age Of Empires, gosh I don't know... Starcraft Editor is amazing in a 2D way - Some of the things I made for BroodWar were unreal! - Made a ****ing class Desert RPG (Still under construction) and the variety of maps you can download off other users really keep the interest flowing...

For FPS type games, I never took to GTK Radient. WorldCraft is very effective in a simple kind of way, and with the right ammount of time and effort you'd be suprised at what you can map. I've seen maps made that didn't remotely look anything like HL / CS / TFC etc, and that is what keeps me going on WC - The fact that if I keep up the ammount of mapping that I do, I'll one day make one of those "Oh... My... Flucking... God... Look At That!" type maps...

Got a long way to go, but hey, I map - I love it, and I'll more than likely always do it...

Winters

Humm. I've been trying quark but I'm finding it VERY hard. Its suppose to be the easist one. I'd say im trying to build too complex a map: Open area.

I had some good ideas for doD maps but there just soo ohard to make. Suppose ill have to tell someone else all my plans for would domination....i mean DoD maps

Lyconix

Originally posted by RopeDrink
For FPS type games, I never took to GTK Radient

I'd agree that its not good to start off with (with no prior mapping experience at all), but once you've reached expert level with WorldCraft, you'll likely find GTK Radient relatively easy to slip into - within days I was comfortable with the editor, but I still find WC easier to work with.

Why they had to rename it Valve Hammer Editor is beyond me...

RopeDrink

Agreed (Been using WorldCraft for Almost three Years now), it is most definately the most user friendly (Or easier) tool to use when it comes to creating maps, yet it isn't as strong as GTK Radiant and the Quake 3 engine itself is somewhat better than the Half-Life one when it comes to making something big bright and beautiful (Not that the Half-Life engine isn't capable, you'd just have a hard time making it with HL / WC)

Still, I've tried my hand at the majority of Tools out there, not so much mapping but all out Game Creation type things and all I can say is I find that at the end of a WorldCraft compile and map test, I have a wider smile on my face than I would with any other work from other tools...

banquo

Nah, i've tried a few(HAMMER< Radient, others i never used long enough to remember) and have to say that quark was the most user-friendly. the layout, attaching entities(this is VERY well done for anyone making a dod map), the texture browser beats all others hands down, etc. my only problem is that maps are more restricted in size.

i HATE wc, it's just a thing.

banquo

and if u want i'll do up a short tutorial for quark, to get u started, it's acually really simple and all the other tutorial take the "Dilbert" approach to instructions. i.e "at times elliptical, at times oblique, the mapping tool that is Quark can provide not only qualitycreations services, but also embrace the creative needs of the youth of today." etc, ****e.

ThrAx

I also hate WC mainly because I can't make Q3 maps with it. I remember making some terrible HL maps with WC ages ago but I can make much better maps using QuArK. The texture browser is definitely the best there is although it runs kinda slow on Windows ME compared to Windows 2000. QuArK also has features like model viewing/editing *.bsp viewing and Quake C code editing. It also lets you save *.bsps as editable text and also lets you change the entities within a compiled *.bsp using a text editor.

I wonder is there a way of making Q3 maps with WorldCraft because that would be pretty interesting. Does anybody know a way of doing so?

banquo

well winters? u want the tutorial or not?

ThrAx

Isn't there a tutorial on the QuArK website?

ThrAx

Official QuArK Tutorial

banquo

yeah but it's not great i find. it explains things kinda poorly and its a bit confusing and technical. and it doesn't show people how to do the things they want to do, like INSERT DOORS, or stuff.
i might do one when i'm finished this next map.

ThrAx

I also have a map (or two) to finish. Just so I don't seem too lazy

banquo

yeah but it's mighty crap. like i said, it takees the "Dilbert" approach.