TSE DIF options

#1 You can build world objects in Max and use them ... just have to have some creativity and some techinical reworking of the current Torque Engine standard way of doing things to make them work right. Im watching one group get it to work for them. No hints right now though.

Also, isnt there a Max2Dif converter somewhere out there in Torque land ?

#2 Plain and simple dif is going to be your best route, you can create some awesome looking scenery in quark you just have to know what you are doing. Have you seen Tim Astes stuff? All that was done in .dif format. In fact most games made now and back in the day have used csg architecture. I suggest you let your team know there is no other alternative, or find some people who are already skilled in quark, because you will loose precious dev time trying to get a work pipeline working with max and you will find most likely the results are not worth the effort.

Also I want to remind you that if you use the .map2dif exporter for max you still have to use csg compatible shapes which means you will basically be doing the same work in max that you would have done in quark and would have taken you twice as long. Trust me, I've been through it before on three different teams...

#3 Some good alternatives to Quark but are not free is Cartography Shop or the sometime to be released Constructor which both do the same as Quark but much easier to master.

#4 Only issue i've encontered thus far using DTS object is the collision mesh. you must make it as simple as possible. I think there needs to be more people looking into using more DTS. I can't figure that silly little quark program out, take me like 1 minute to make something in LightWave that would take 20 minutes in Quark. Also there are issues with the fact you can't use portals with DTS... but I'm working on figuruing out how to use invisible DIFs with portals to solve this.

#5 I'd recommend a middle route. There are several Max2MAP programs out there. Really all you need to do is get the MAX file to MAP format and map2dif does the rest.

Try this link and see if that doesn't fit the bill for you.

#6 I still say CShop myself, if you go to the pipelines webpage there is a video of the exporter author making a extremly quick room with different lighting options. Shows you what the average user can do as for speed. Quark is just too messy for me, like blender.

#7 Oh we are using various 3d modelling programs, and the best option is the Obj2DTS convertor. Its a very simple program, but it dosent support internal archeticture. Our solution is to very simply build our interiors in Quark, and in the game you press space bar while aiming at the door, which loads the interior map, ala morrowind.