Cube 2 Engine: Powerful Level Design.

Hello. Some of you may or may not be familiar with the Cube 2: Sauerbraten Engine. It is an open-source free FPS engine. (or More like a fast-paced FPS game). It is a really nice open source engine but thats not why I am here. This engine is unique because it has a powerful in-game level editing tool allowing you to create complex geometry. You can fly around your world building and then walk around. This allows for extremely fast design and allows you to test how your levels would play out IN GAME. but how does this help with Unity? well there is an extremely Useful feature in Cube 2 known as “/writeobj”. this /writeobj converts all your level geometry from native .ogz format to .obj!!! it also exports an .mtl so you can have all your textures that you applied in Cube packaged with your .obj. I find level geometry quite tedious in programs like blender, and Cube allows me to test, build, and texture my levels all in a user friendly enviroment.

PROS:
-extremely fast to learn (Cube 2 is a game :smile: )

  • really fast level design
    -test your level as you build
  • texture your levels in game with many pre-built textures. (no need to uvmap and texture each face).
    -quite Fun!
    -supports many shaders (bumpmap, spec,e.t.c) as well as great lighting, fog, and other features.
    -nearly flawless export (no normal errors, missing faces) except for the occasional non-manifold mesh (not a big problem though) NOTE: only tested in Blender 2.5;
    -BUILD MAPS WITH OTHERS ONLINE FOR FAST GROUP LEVEL DESIGN

CONS

  • The Cube 2 Game is a 1/2 Gigabyte download.
    -The meshes are NOT optimized in anyway. ( a face of a square may consist of many triangles.)
    -NOT a modeling tool. (see documentation on how “Cube building” works

Sorry if it seems like I am endorsing this Engine or I am a fanboy ;). I have been playing this fun game so it might seem a bit biased ;).

Personally i haven’t tried the engine before but from what you said, i think it is a good engine for building a fast level. However this is only from a level designer/games designer point of view because i think that building a level in game can be quite convenient however some things will have to be modeled out and others need more details and texturing and uvs. Therefore it is only suitable for teams building a fps game and needed a quick level design or prototype or a quick showcase to their client and it will prove useful as it is more visual that.

you are true on many of the things you said. It is mainly my bad because I am making a game very similiar to Cube 2. I didn’t intend for people to think that this is a complete level design tool comple with all models, lighting, e.t.c. but rather the…“level”. It’s hard to show you what I mean, but maybe people will get a better idea if I show some pictures. sorry that I didn’t clarify. I will post some screenshots :wink:

The ones with the gray background are blender, and the skybox is the engine screenshot.

I think level geometry was the word I was looking for…

Wow. Reminds me of UDK but UDK is just too laggy. I see what you meant. Looks really awesome. The levels and such. Is good for rapid prototyping.

The Sanbox engine is based on it!

The Sandbox engine is based on it!

Thanks for the tip - looks like a great way to get my buddies to help make a level or two for my game :slight_smile:

Cube 2 isn’t that good, in features that is. It’s a rather old codebase (and not that much updated either). It falls in the Tech3 (id software) category of engines. Your list is partitially void, since you mention many elements that are from the game made with it, not the engine itself.

Would really depends IMO, i think if one is comfortable with an engine and you can use it to churn out great level design. Why not?

Cube2 is good, but only from level editing standpoint. I tried to make game based on it (and FPS at that for which Cube2 was supposedly made for) and failed miserably. Cubescript’s syntax is ATROCIOUS and fail with likes of COBOL and that language that name sounds like disease (forgot it now, but there were some TDWTF articles about it).

Though I seriously hope Unity will get level editor that works like or similar to Cube’s editor as it is really powerful. More powerful that heighmap-based system Unity uses for terrain and more powerful than voxels (since with voxels you are either limited to blocks like in Minecraft and CubeWorld or blobs that can’t be made sharp no matter what because marching cubes are fail, unless you’ll use some complicated algorithms like one used by Blockscape or Landmark).

Maybe somewhere in 5.x lifecycle (I hope). Unity really could use something like that.

somewhat related… i had used gtkRadiant1.5 (has to be 1.5 cause has a built in .obj exporter), and wolfenstien enemy territory*(free, required to load gtk for some reason)* to build simple houses for some project … its really more fuss than its worth perhaps, but, the snap to grid, the way the grid is setup, and fact that ive made wolfenstien/ cod2/ cod4 maps waay back when saved me some time

i wrote the details here: