3D World Studio available for purchase

#81 Use 3DWS if it makes your game NOW. Use constructor if it will make it in the future. I'm quite happy with 3DwS, but I also want a great editor for the Mac that is TGE compatable without massive tweaking. And, yes, I also have been up on the Constructor news and updates. From what I can tell, it will be an excellent editor. A massive general-purpose editor? Perhaps not (it is oriented to TGE, though portability is an option previously advertised even if in in/export).

Who are your targets? Is your target engine TGE/TSE? Or are you looking elsewhere?

#82 Does anyone know if 3d world studio supports everything that QuArK does, such as portals? This is vitally important to the development of my game, so if it does, I will purchase 3DWS today!!!

#83 It does support portals, and all torque lights.

It doesn't do everything QuArK does however, because QuArK supports some 50 games, and something valid in one engine, isn't in another, i like to call this feature over saturation, its a focus less tool. 3dws is more suited to torque.It doesn't do anything that doesn't work with Torque.

#84 Allyn,

Thanks for the info!! I will definitely be picking up a copy today then.

#85 Three questions, either for Josh or else anyone who has used 3DWS:

1) I've been using it for a while, and I haven't been able to find any clear support for portals (meaning a specific "portal" object or element which can be inserted into the scene). Is there a mechanism for creating portals, or do we simply create a cube and then "name" it as "portal?"

2) Along similar lines, one (lacking) feature that I have found frustrating in 3DWS is some sort of scene organization tree. As shown in Andy's QuArK screenshot, above, QuArK (and pretty much every other map/scene/object/3D editor I've used) has a tree-view which lists the objects and their faces so that you can group things, organize things, and understand your selections more clearly.

Is there some similar kind of feature in 3DWS and I'm just not recognizing it? If not, are there plans to implement one in the near future? I have to say that the program is outstanding so far--rock-solid reliable (especially compared to QuArK). I've created and edited some pretty complicated maps, including importing and editing buildings from Tim Aste's excellent content pack 2, and 3DWS has hardly even hiccupped while managing to export straight to DIF in a one-step MAP2DIF-plus call via the program menu!

3) Speaking of Tim's content packs, this relates to my third question: in importing the MAPs from Tim's content packs, the geometry comes out perfectly and the textures are *mostly* correct. However, although the scale and rotation of the textures is correct, the translation is invariably off, so that I have to manually adjust the textures for the sub-objects (usually by selecting an object or a group and doing a left-top justify function).

Does anyone know of another way to correct for the apparent glitch in bringing in the MAP files from other programs--perhaps by altering the initial placement/coordinates of the interior, so that they will match up properly? I suspect that Tim's MAPs may have been saved at a different "world-coordinate" location (or perhaps using different units or something), so that when they're brought into 3DWS, the textures are shifted by a consistent amount relative to their original location (for instance, I've found that all of my wall textures in one model--regardless of the object or orientation--needed to be shifted up by precisely 179 units).

If there's an easier way to correct for this, I'd really appreciate the guidance. Other than those minor glitches, 3DWS has done wonders for our art pipeline, allowing us to create DIFs quickly and reliably, without the hit-or-miss frustration of QuArK (which, for instance, can't even *import* Tim's MAPs, let alone export them properly!).

Thanks for a great product--for anyone who has been frustrated with QuArK, I highly recommend it!

#86 1) Make your brush, open properties. Type in Portal. Done. (also make sure to apply a null texture) You now have a portal.

2) Visigroups. No Trees. This allows you to toggle on and off Visibility of object in your scene to reduce clutter.

3) no clue. I don't import stuff.

#87 Thanks for the quick info, Mr. Bloodworth! :)

I'll have to get the hang of using the Visigroups. The visibility selection is indeed a nice feature, especially for complex scenes. Still, it would be nice to see the tree organization as well--perhaps they'll add it in a later update...

#88 No offence and Im sure this is a fantastic program but this looks very similar to hammer editor only that is free and this costs 80 dollars. Is there any main features that this has that hammer doesnt?

#89

Quote:Is there any main features that this has that hammer doesnt?

A license which allows art to be used in non-Valve games.

#90 Oh ok I get it. Is it ok to use hammer with non commercial games however?

#91 @Luke: my understanding is that Valve allows Hammer to be used with other engines.

However, 3DWS is basically Hammer with a fixed and expanded user interface. If you like Hammer, I predict you'll love 3DWS, despite the fact that it phones home every time you run it, which I loathe. It slows down start up, if nothing else.

#92 Why not just use "Torque Constructor" it's free!