Idea for creating a map making program

[Mean_Mr_Mustard]

You have access to a working tank and working truck in goldrush - copy and paste. You’ll still have to add the spline paths and do the scripting. Believe me, it is not easy…there are 8-10 separate entities involved in a escortable vehicle - but SD released goldrush.map because it has an example of everything needed in ET: tank, truck, barriers, CP, cap/grab items, etc

As far as clipping models, add a spawnflag 2 as a key. They are clipped during compile then - not sure of the performance hit

AFAIK, SD used the same tools they released to make the standard maps. Should be good enough for us then…

Next, people will want the big ‘MAP’ button you push and it automatically generates a map for you…

[Ifurita]

My ‘MAP’ button is called Mean Mr. Mustard – bwhahahahahahaha

[shazmax]

I had some ideas along this line…but thought what would be great for a 3d editor IMO would be an interface like Photoshop/Illustrator where you can edit vectors along a path and adjust your lines and such…and with a preview window that you can toggle on and off with a shortcut key like alt + m. You could draw a complete square and then adjust its height parameters and such…rotate along a degree so it stays on the grid, cut-paste, texture, all in one program. Along with that you’d have your basic circle, square, and layers - and maybe even a character editor. Just combining the technology of photoshop, illustrator, maya/3dsmax/lightwave, and flash - along the lines with a 3d view so you could do everything you need to and it will compile it to a .bsp or some compatible format to import/export out to a map. Then you’d also have a poly adjust to adjust your poly’s so you don’t have too much information for the processor/gfx card to process. I think if after they did that…then they could charge people at least $50 for the program for a general license so you can go forth and make your own game without all the licensing issues.

[Genesis]

i agree that if mapping got exactly like the sims there would b 2 many maps released and ur computer will explode the 50000th map uve just downloaded…
i dont think there has 2 b a new mapping program radiant does just fine… what would b usefull is some sort of wizard were u click so it gives ya everything u have 2 do… example:
the wizard asks me what i want 2 do… i click objective --> command post or truck --> u get some sort of tutorial

and if u know what u r doing and what has 2 b done u dont use the wizard…

[SCDS_reyalP]

Radiant is ugly, quirky, buggy and hard to learn. Creating decent q3 engine maps requries far more detailed technical knowledge than it really should. However, neither wishing nor whining nor imagining better editors will change this.

If you have the skills to make a better editor, or improve the existing one, there is nothing stopping you. The Radiant team gladly accepts patches, and the code is available to everyone. If you can’t do either of those things, then your choices are to not make maps for these games, or deal with the tools at hand. Anyone can come up with ideas of how it could be better. That is the easy part, especially if you will never have to make them work in the real world.

[neotic]

Why shouldnt it take detailed technical knowledge to make a Quake 3 map? It keeps the quality out and easily allows players to decide good from the bad.

[G0-Gerbil]

It keeps the quality out and easily allows players to decide good from the bad.
Problem is, it doesn’t…

The thing is, from my point of view the hardest things are stuff like dual team composts and tanks - the rest is pretty straight forward.
But neither are a ‘must have’ for a map, so if they are tricky just leave them out, or even better - don’t plan them into the map in the first place.

If you are having problems actually building stuff, then do like you should have done initially - start on a TINY map project that you never plan on releasing just to learn the tools. It may be hard, but if you expect creating a full-on 3D environment of a proffesional level to be easy, then you are unlikely to produce a decent map however simple the actual the tools, because it’s not the tools that make or break a good map, it’s planning, new ideas, quality, attention to detail etc. etc. The more effort you put in the more you get out. This is true regardless of the perceived complexity of the tools.

Cookie-cutter maps would teach would-be mappers nothing, but more importantly it would negate any reward to go beyond cookie-cutter maps.

If you really MUST do that sort of thing, just do a map full of prefabs - it’s the easy way out. Just don’t expect anyone to want to play it.

[blushing_bride]

radiant is fairly easy to learn (well the basics of making a simple QuakeIII deathmatch map anyway). The problem is lots of beginners now are starting out wanting to make ET maps with tanks and terrian. These are both tricky things to do for anyone (just look at all the threads relating to terrian and tanks). i have to admit the thought of being able to make maps by just dropping in objects fills me with horror. However i guess all game editors will be like that eventually. you wont need to make anything yourself just merely select different bits from here and there and decide where to put them. its a bit like the difference between being a dancefloor record mixing DJ and being a full on classical music composer. Both call themselves musicians but thats about the only similarity between them. anyway i’m all for making things easier but not so easy that just about anyone can do it.

[thore]

i think you last sentence shows what this thread really is about: advanced mappers are afraid of losing
their mapping-1337ness. huh. i don’t think making things easier will lose quality of maps. just think of
a pyramid bounding box für tree models. by moving the peak in any 2d / 3d window you could give
the tree any direction other than just ‘straight up’, rotating the base would rotate the model as the
angles key does now. by stretching the pyramid you could resize the model as you would do now by
using the modelscale or modelscalevec key.
would such a feature waste map’s quality / originality? would this cut off mapper’s flexibility? definitely
not, but it could make some things easier. peeps out there want to make kewl maps, not to learn a
program for years although it could be done with less effort. dropping a whole tank at once wouldn’t
lose originality, it would save you time. commandposts… afaik they all look the same… so why don’t
have a single button which drops a cp and then have spawnflags to make it allied, axis or neutral?
most CPs look the same, behave the same… but every single mapper has to rebuild the wheel from
the scratch.
i thought of this thread as a place to compile ideas which might be useful to introduce in future versions
of radiant. i might come around some thoughts where ppl say ‘whoho, you can do that already’. well, that
would be fine to know…

[MadJack]

I don’t know why I’m still reading this thread. It’s ludicrous.

Maybe you guys asking for easiness should send an email to Discreet telling them you want a better interface that will make what you want in one click. You’ll get the same welcome you got here.

The qualities of a tool is based on the abilities it gives a user to do whatever he wants with it. It’s called polyvalence. You can drop a tank as a model but it’s yours to decide what that tank will be. Is it gonna be a decoration or will it be used? Does it need to move? Ad nauseam. Radiant enables you to do all those fairly easily. Scripting is not that easy for newbies. It has a learning curve that isn’t too steep. Almost anyone can drop a brush in radiant or a house or whatever you can think of. But to make those correctly for a game engine is totally different.

And what about entities? You want to make the editor drop stuff easily? Get the radiant SDK and, as reyalP rightly said, the devel team will happily include code/plugin/etc with the next release. You people just like to complain for the fun of it and I’m frankly starting to think you’re only trolling.

Want to make a damn cool plugin? Take the scan of my lastest sketch and make the map. Yeah, that’d be cool but I wouldn’t use it except for fun once or twice. Why? Simply because I don’t follow my sketch 100% of the time, I would still have to edit it thus, I would still need to know how the software works to be efficient.

thore, your arguments are senseless. Why is it too hard for you to click a button and enter those coordinates/numbers yourself? Want the model to be twice as tall? modelscale/2, rotate it? angle/72, upside down AND rotated on X and on Y? angles/56 23 90 ALL that can be done in radiant. All you have to do is know how to use it. Get some time to get acquainted with it. Stop thinking you’ll release that first map.

Anyway I’ve got to go. Hopefully that thread will be gone or I’ll wake up in the meantime

[thore]

my arguments are senseless and you simply don’t get the point of what i’m talking about.
whoohoo, this discussion is damn straight forward. you really think blaming each other
will help anyone?

as i said it’s cool you can do everything and get crazy with your tank, but having a look
at released custom maps will show you, tanks and commandposts will fairly look the same.
all you want to customize about it is the model of the tank and the route it’s following.

one basic rule of efficiency is to simplify returning operating cycles. i didn’t say it can’t be
done within radiant, i did say it could be done easier. so what’s easier? selecting the model,
pressing N to bring up entity window, typing MODELSCALE, changing line, entering the value
2, pressing ENTER to apply changes. adding this you will get a total of 14 keystrokes / mouse
clicks. for ONE model (tree).
now let’s assume we’ve got my pyramid bounding box: selecting the model, resizing the bounding
box as you are used to do with ordinary brushwork (clicking outside and moving the mouse) and
finally pressing ESC to deselect. this will give you a similar result with a total of 3 keystrokes. again
for ONE model (tree).

you don’t have to be a mathematics genius to tell what this means for building a whole forest.

[MadJack]

thore, come on! You’re not serious are you? :eek: You’re basing your argument on 14 keystrokes!? :eek3:

If doing those things was a 14 steps thing taking 10-15 mins, I would totally agree with you. I’m not saying I wouldn’t use that but I think you’re complaining for the fun of it. Yes, it would be a great functionality but saying radiant is crap because of 14 keystrokes is… yeah no comments

Yeah, building a whole forest wouldn’t be that hard. Make the first model with all keys, clone, modify the modelscale, angles. You’re done. . Once the first entity is there with all its keys, it’s just a matter of tweaking. Same goes with what you propose. You would still have to tweak those. Unless you come up with a way to randomize placement (X/Y/Rotation/etc).

[chavo_one]

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Can you or can’t you contribute something? Personally, I don’t have the coding chops to implement realtime rotation like in 3dsmax. Therefore, I will never complain about GTKRadiant not having this feature.

BTW, this thread has diverged into two separate concepts.

1. drag and drop mapping
2. enhancing the feature list and workflow of GTKRadiant

The first I’m in opposition of because of the sea of mediocracy it would without doubt create. The second I’m in favor of, but we need doers, not wishers.

[thore]

@ madjack

hmmm. did i really say raidant is crap? i just thought of some features which would
make the small tasks of mapping ‘faster’ or less complicated. that doesn’t mean
radiant in it’s current state would be useless or even crap. it just has some flaws
which prevent mapping faster with less effort. and what are you mapping for? to
get a cool map, yeah. learning the tools IS necessary, nothing to argue about
that, but i don’t think that should prevent someone from making proposals on
what could be done better.

@ chavo
you don’t get me right. i DO contribute somehting. that is IDEAS. that is FEEDBACK.
i lack the skills of programming, does that mean i shouldn’t say which features i would
like to say? it’s like general motors gives you a laugh at your complaints and saying
‘before arguing about our cars, go ahead and build your own!’. maybe my ideas will
be found useful by someone who has the ability to code plugins.
just clapping with hands and singing ‘hooray, radiant is for free’ won’t make it a
better program. but compiling ideas within a community which then could expressed
to radiant coders could help radiant getting better and better…

what is a doer good for, if he doesn’t know what he is wished to do?

sincerly.

[chavo_one]

Fine. You contribute ideas. But to continue your car analogy, what good does complaining to other GM car owners do when they already know that their car has the problems you are telling them about?

If you are serious about “contributing”, you need to move your thoughts to the GTKRadiant forum at map-center.
http://www.map-center.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=8

But before you get too excited, you may want to be aware that some of your ideas are already being implemented for version 1.5.
http://www.level-designer.de/index.php?option=com_ldnews&news_id=1770&Itemid=52
You’ll notice screenshots of Maya/3dsmax style movement and rotation controls.

[MadJack]

@ thore, I might have been mistaken about who said what so I’m sorry about that but, I do think a Sim Editor-like is a very very very bad idea. Improving the current tool is a must and it will happen at its own pace.

Jotting down ideas is a good thing and should be encouraged though not at the expense of current features. Whining just to whine == trolling and we’ve all got enough to think about without adding those people (I’m not saying you’re doing it, just saying that).

So to resume, yes radiant needs improving, yes radiant is certainly unstable at times (mostly around vertex editing though, as I said somewhere else, 1.4.0 is better at it). There are tons of things that could be implemented but on the overall I think we’ve got a pretty damn good tool. Compare it to what Duke Numkem 3D used to have or a lot of editor during that time it’s a galaxy of improvement.

[MadJack]

Just checked the new release version feature posted by Chavo… That’s just great. SPoG and the Radiant’s team outdid themselves.

[thore]

sounds promising.

just a short note to the GM car thingy@ chavo: you say that they already know
about the probs. do they? if it’s only me who has some weird ideas, well, i won’t
run into a forum yelling around just for the fun of it. since this thread here is only
a thread and not a whole forum dedicated to gtkradiant development (well thanks
for the link anyway) i thought it could be a nice place for some speculation. that’s
all :drink:

[chavo_one]

No,I meant that those of us here would be the equivalent car owners. We are just users of radiant for the most part. The GTKRadiant team doesn’t visit these forums to my knowledge (at least they don’t post). So you’ll have to go to them with any ideas you have. However, the things you have voiced are pretty run-of-the-mill complaints, so I presume they are familiar with the issues. It’s probably just a matter of priority. Can’t hurt to remind them though I suppose.

[SCDS_reyalP]

AFAIK, spog is the only one actively working on radiant these days. Going by all the changes for 1.5, he’s doing a lot, starting with a much needed rework of much of the basic stuff. TTimo, who coordinated the previous releases, indicated he wouldn’t be as involoved with 1.5. He is no doubt busy with id stuff…

Anyone can put feature requests in the radiant bug tracker:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/bugzilla/

This is the place they are least likely to get lost. However, be aware that gtkradiant is developed by a very small team, mostly in their spare time. Unless your feature request includes code, it is very likely to be set to version 6.6.6, meaning sure, that’s a nice idea, but no one plans to implement it.

Also, please make sure you query open bugs first. Submitting duplicates will not make anyone happy, nor will it increase the chances of your feature getting implemented.