Massassi Forums Logo

This is the static archive of the Massassi Forums. The forums are closed indefinitely. Thanks for all the memories!

You can also download Super Old Archived Message Boards from when Massassi first started.

"View" counts are as of the day the forums were archived, and will no longer increase.

ForumsDiscussion Forum → Trenchbroom
Trenchbroom
2018-03-23, 11:37 AM #1
I figured I'd post this here, since it's related to 90s shooter modding and it's cool. A guy recently released Trenchbroom 2.0, effectively a brand-new mapping program for Quake II. It's apparently really easy to use, and there's already a map pack created with it.



Now we just gotta get one for JK. :hist101:

More info/interview here
2018-03-23, 11:50 AM #2
2018-03-23, 12:13 PM #3
Whoops, thanks!
2018-03-23, 12:27 PM #4
I wish there was a cross platform C++ GUI framework as convenient as Winforms.
2018-03-23, 1:05 PM #5
About a decade ago I was working on a C# Jed/Jkedit mashup. It was never meant to be a JK level editor, but it took the single view + 3d grid bulk geometry workflow from Jed and combined it with the surface detail workflow from Jkedit. I thought it was a pretty huge improvement. Jed was always pretty janky for surface detail and texturing stuff.

Anyway, I got it prototyped enough that you could make a real deal level out of it, load it into a C++ 3d engine and everything. Like I said, it wasn’t ever supposed to be a JK editor, it was intended for a different audience. I ran it by some people with more general level editing experience and what I discovered is that nobody else wanted that workflow. Being able to dynamically manipulate your basis vectors is mathematically elegant, but rarely useful in practice. What people really want is to be able to snap to surfaces, or axis align with other objects, and that’s something a well designed level editor can do automatically based on context. Making people manually manipulate a grid only adds an extra step to this process. I might have been able to get deeper insights, but I wasn’t experienced enough back then to do a proper study. This is what seemed immediately obvious to me, though.

So if you want to make a new editor for JK, what I’d suggest is to go all of the way back and ask what tasks JK editors want to do. The Jed workflow definitely munges together the ideas of geometry, portal/anti-portal placement, texture detail. This must be true for the final product, but not necessary in the editor. There might be some faster and easier workflow that we’ve all overlooked for decades.

Just don’t be surprised if nobody uses it.
2018-03-25, 5:12 PM #6
I've been dabbling in Valve's Hammer for the past year but I would still prefer, after all these years, if I could use Quake3 engines's GtkRadiant. I just worked faster in GtkRadiant and could apply textures much easier. Maybe it's just "old habits die hard" but I actually can't make a 90 degree round pipe in Hammer and any interesting mesh structure anymore (e.g. round doorway) without using models, unlike in Gtk. Play around with brush vertexes in Hammer too much and things just break.

Problem comes when I want to make decent terrain that works around general brushwork in Gtk. So I think this editor helps.

Quote:
What people really want is to be able to snap to surfaces, or axis align with other objects, and that’s something a well designed level editor can do automatically based on context.


For me at least and my limited experience with brush-based map editors, playing around with vertexes too much leads to gaps and "leaks" that are hard to keep track of and halt the BSP process. I've seen time-elapse videos of maps being made, including ones from Valve, and a lot of time is spent just making brushes off brushes aligned with brushes to "set the stage" for later detailing work. It's easier, for me, to base/snap things off brush surfaces instead of using a divorced 2D grid operating somewhere in 3D space when the map brushwork gets more complex.

Although I haven't touched JED over a decade so I'm not sure if we are talking about the same things...
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2018-03-25, 5:49 PM #7
I just watched the intro Trenchbroom video where the guy uses the program, and I think I probably wouldn't enjoy using the editor other than finer detailing or smaller modelling work. There's something about projecting things into space sans a grid coplaner to the screen that becomes uncomfortable or annoying when "building" the environment. X and Y is fine but when the grid IS the surface of a brush in space (with a Z), it becomes a lot harder to keep track of things relative to each other. I think this may be why construction documents deal with plans and elevations/sections and rarely use isometric or linear perspective (expect for marketing).

edit: it does seem to have a traditional 2d view mode
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2018-03-25, 7:50 PM #8
(Emphasis added)

Quote:
The third aspect is rooted in the technical development overall: Today’s games require a lot more assets, and they require a lot more polygons to look good. Due to the technical restrictions of the time, Quake has a more abstract design which lends itself to filling in the blanks by imagination as opposed to spelling out every detail of a world, thus making the experience more personal and interesting. So a level designer for an older, more abstract game like Quake has to work very differently to create an interesting experience. The emphasis has to be on atmosphere, lighting, and the combat situations.


This is very interesting to me. I always knew that my childhood fixation on JK-era maps was more than just nostalgia, but reflecting on this comment now, it becomes ever more apparent to me that my current preoccupations (like mathematics) really do occupy the very same cognitive niche. In fact, the interview (and video) make it feel just as fresh to me as any abstract mathematics. It would be amusing to ponder how much JED made my brain into something that likes geometry....
2018-03-26, 5:22 PM #9
Originally posted by Jon`C:
So if you want to make a new editor for JK, what I’d suggest is to go all of the way back and ask what tasks JK editors want to do. The Jed workflow definitely munges together the ideas of geometry, portal/anti-portal placement, texture detail. This must be true for the final product, but not necessary in the editor. There might be some faster and easier workflow that we’ve all overlooked for decades.

Just don’t be surprised if nobody uses it.


My only real issue with JED/ZED is that it doesn't have a good UV editor for texturing. Yeah, the stitching is nice, but it would save so much more time to be able to multi-select surfaces and UV align them in a separate window. Basically, if someone could make Force Remap a plugin for JED/ZED, it would be a dramatic improvement. The add/subtract feature seen in brush editors is nice too, I guess. I just don't really see me using it enough to really matter.

↑ Up to the top!