As far as editors for “modern” games go (or relatively modern), I really like the level editor bundled with Cube Engine games (Sauerbraten, Marble Arena/MA2, Platinum Arts Sandbox). It’s really fun and easy to use and is very powerful. For old games, I like Doom editors very much (currently I work in SLADE3 and have a great time).
As for my current game, I’ve created my own level editor which borrows few things from the way Doom editors works regarding triggers and so on, while adding its own stuff. It’s very powerful for its task but kinda cumbersome to use and building a level takes kinda long time with it. I’m using it to build all the campaign levels and it will be bundled with the game to give the modders the same power I had while making the game so they won’t have to install Unity or do other weird stuff to mod it. Nice and easy. Nice and easy.
Oddly, my favorite level editor was the one built into Red Faction (back in the day, I know). It operated on the premise that the world was a solid, so instead of just adding things, you “cut away” the open parts of the world (of course then you could always add back). It was also super easy to add custom triggers, sounds and textures. I created some funky levels, one with a giant barn, a tractor and a space ship and I also completely recreated the Temple map from Goldeneye, complete with triggers and sliding rock doors.
Haven’t used any level editors for games in a long time and actually I don’t think I ever used a level editor for a 3D game.
For Unity I spent a good bit of time (I dunno maybe 4 to 6 weeks) just testing different ways of building levels. I settled on a combo of ProTile 2 and Unity scene editor. ProTile 2 I use to build the main stuff… floors, ceilings, walls basically the level layout. Then I have to go in Scene editor and manually add doors, decor and stuff. Kind of a pain in the ass but the best way I have found.
I don’t think there is some kind of full-featured real level editor available for Unity is there? If so let me know and I’ll check it out.
For 2D… SpriteTile for Unity is very good and in general I like Tiled.
The one and only thing that comes close to a level editor in Unity I’ve ever used is the ProBuilder suite (ProTools for Unity).
That can do more than a simple level editor and it’s pretty universal. Otherwise “level editors” per definition for me make more sense to a certain project than an all purpose engine.
In that regard I would say one of my favorite level editors is probably the one for the Build engine (Duke3D).
This.
2d builders can be pretty universal due to shared needs, but they are so simple to build, it’s often better to make one that fits the project. And 3D has so many variables that it is difficult make a general one.
And, yea protools is a pretty phenomenal product. I picked it during thier first beta, and it was comes so far since then. I don’t actually have a use for it, but I like playing with it and can see how it could be very useful for some developers.
I agree with the game specific level editor approach. Tiled is a great general purpose 2D editor and SpriteTile is a great Unity 2D editor. Still nothing compares to reinventing the wheel for each game and rolling your own. I used to build tools often but have never done that in Unity yet. Need to get back into the habit one of these days. After the up front cost it would make the game dev so much easier and quicker.
My choices are less about functionality and more about intuitiveness. MegaZeux for 2D (pic below) and Unity for 3D. Both took very little effort on my part to learn. I was able to dive straight in and start working.
Source hammer editor was the best I used… at least for quick level design/ brush editing… did I say the best? Even going back QeRadient for quake series. Even Maya is kinda crap for doing that and I consider that the best for just about 3d anything-but not everything
This guy gets it…
he covers it for UE4 which at least provides level editing tools and not just a bunch of lame primitives, I don’t think spending 100$+ atleast that’s what it would be for some currency’s to add level editing tools that are not even the best nor built in… is kind of a joke especially if you want to make a game whereby players can use your game engine (Ie Unity, to add content, what you gonna do, tell them to go buy a bunch of assets to get the level editing tools… or learn bleergh blender?
I know right! The horrors of telling them they have to approach Unity in the same manner a professional would approach it since it’s a professional tool. Joking aside though I would love to see something along the lines of ProCore or SabreCSG integrated into Unity.
If you’re using MegaZeux, you may be familiar with tool called SMZXDraw! that allows for easy making graphics for megazeux’s highcolor mode. Take a look who coded it.
Yeah, after I start selling my current game on Steam and other platforms, I plan (while still working on the game as it will be early access title) to learn procedural geometry just to one-up procore and release probuilder-grade tool for free on the asset store.
Neat, but I wasn’t aware of it. I had already moved on from MegaZeux by that point. I had joined DigitalMZX back in 2001 after the older site hosting the community, which I don’t recall the name of at all now, died out.
3D is too diverse, there is no way there could be one tool that is perfect for every situation. I think the asset store works well for this because you can just install plug-ins that make sense for your particular game or level.
I also think it is a bad time to judge Unity because based on what they said in the terrain thread, there appears to be a lot of drastic changes coming relatively soon.
Really I thought everything 3D was just meshes, once you can efficiently render / LOD / occlude them then it’s just placing, rotating and scaling them… well maybe extruding, BSP, twisting/warping, bezier curve path extrusion, arraying and edit them?
