Hello,
This is a pretty simple question, but I just wanted to get an impression as to what the community in general is doing.
So, I’ve come from an SDK/UDK background when it comes to level design. I find that the level editor (or rather the lack of one) for unity is rather disappointing. I do model in 3DS Max, and I was wondering if the Unity community uses software such as this to make maps instead of using a BSP-style editor.
Thank’s for your help,
~TacoShank
UDK is a primarily an FPS game framework with strong origins in that area, so the level editor is geared to creating those types of games straight out of the box. Unity3D has a level editor, it is called the scene editor, though it is not geared to any particular type of game aiming for a more generic framework. Generally in Unity3D you will build your levels in the scene editor, just as you would in UDK, and then create any specifically custom editors you would need for a particular game.
I think the disconnect you are seeing is that out of the box, UDK provides a bunch of prefabricated bits that let you build one specific thing very quickly, whereas Unity3D provides more of a blank canvas. It can be disconcerting because I come from the other side where there is never an editor of any kind and I am expected to provide everything. Once you get over the hurdle of “doing it the Unity way” it is actually very easy to get in to, just as once you get over the hurdle of “doing it the UDK way” it is very easy to get in to as well.
If you are familiar with 3DS Max, imagine I asked you to start creating some models in Maya, you’d know the general concepts and what you wanted to do but would flounder around until you built a mental road map of where all the tools are and the quirky little differences between how 3DS works and how Maya works.
Well I understand that Unity is going to be a different tool that will take some time to learn, but I can’t even seem to find any basic functionality in this “scene editor”. Maybe it’s deceptively simple, but I can’t find any ways to modify edges, vertices, or really do anything besides change the size of an object and skew it a little bit.
For instance, lets say I wanted to make a bowl shape in part of my map. I can’t find any way to cut a sphere in half, and then hollow it out. Certainly all of these showcased maps for unity weren’t made by simply putting planes, spheres, and blocks together?
Models aren’t created in Unity. While you can make some primitives, most art is going to come from a program dedicated to it, like Blender.
I believe it’s quite possible to make a Hammer-like editor for use in Unity’s scene editor, but to my knowledge, nobody has done so. That could actually be interesting. Hmm…
Okay thanks, that was the answer I was looking for!
Ah, yeah, you’re referring to the BSP-style editor that UDK has built-in, which shows its FPS roots, which is both a blessing and a hindrance. Unity’s environment does not directly offer a BSP level editor. The workflow is to create your content in various DCC tools, e.g. Maya, Photoshop, and so on, then import them in to Unity and place them as needed.
Unity doesn’t offer a BSP style level editor cause it has no support of BSP and bsp style maps at all.
Its no longer 2006 and earlier where cpus were slow and required it …
Unity Pro offers what modern engines like Cry and others use nowadays, PVS based occlusion with any kind of geometry (Umbra sPVS) instead of artificially limiting you like the ID and HL technology or the ‘inverse style BSP maps’ of the Unreal root. Creating a level editor for that basically is the same as saying ‘writting a modeller’ as there are no artifical limits.
If you want though you can still use BSP editors. There are different tools like Ultimate Unwrap 3D that can convert the BSP to normal meshes.
Or you use something like 3D World Studio right from the start