Enviromental Modeling Question

_wunderkid_

Hell all I havent done any Level design since q3radiant and I was wondering about how they do it today, In radiant levels were built and compiled out of brushes and primitives, and you could import static meshes, its seems to me now though that a majority of the assest are done in max, can a whole level be done in Maya or 3ds or does it still have to be imported into a level editor that will define the overal demensions of the space? I dont know if any of that made sense, but any info about modern pracitce and application of envirmental design would be kool.

peace

JKMakowka

Doom3 still uses a editor very similar to q3Radiant. Just the lights can be editied in realtime now.

But you are right, the overall use of mapmodels has increased, and lots of the textures need a highpoly model as a base for the normalmaps.

kat

If you're editing the recent idsoft games then use the editor for 'man made' stuff and blocking out the map; model anything organic, rock, stone etc... And yes, you can model a map entirely in a 3D app and bring that into the game.. I've done it several times, although you *should* block out the map first in the editor so you know where you're going! You'll want to export to ASE if you have Max.