Easy To Use Level Builders for Wolfenstein 3D & Duke Nukem 3D?

[NiTROACTiVE]

Hey there guys, I have a question I have to ask that I was willing to ask for some time. Are there any level builders that are easy to use for Wolfenstein 3D & Duke Nukem 3D?

For Wolfenstein 3D, I remember seeing editors called MapEdit and Havoc's Wolf3D Editor, but they were a bit complicated to use. There was also a Wolfenestein 3D map editor called Wolf Edit for the Mac that seemed a bit easier to use, but I'm not sure if there's a map editor like that for the PC.

As for Duke Nukem 3D, I tried out Mapster32, but it's a bit tricky to use. It would be cool if there were a map builder for this game that was like Doom Builder 2, unless if there's a way or an upcoming update to make Duke Nukem 3D maps with Doom Builder 2.

So are there any easy to use level builders for these games? I mean, we have Doom Builder 2 for Doom and Trenchbroom for Quake, and they are said to be easy to use. Let me know if there's any program that will make level building for these games much easier.

[Maes]

Ease to use will always be inversely proportional to the degrees of freedom and complexity allowed by the engine. E.g. Wolf3D editing is always like placing lego bricks, Doom requires some more thought (it's not very different than a CAD program drawing a house's plant, actually), and more capable engines (Build 3D, Quake etc. ) which offer full or partial 3D, are even more complex and require the builder to think about everything in every direction.

If you ever find a Build 3D or Quake editor that's as "easy to use" as Doom or Wolf3D, then that means that it's making some compromises, somewhere, somehow, and that you can only make relatively simplified levels with it.

This had also been covered in a recent thread, so do a search.

[printz]

Wolf3D: FloEdit, ChaosEdit, WDC, HWE. FloEdit also runs on Wine.

[Jayextee]

If I recall, Wolf3D editing is about as simple as filling in pixels in a super zoomed-in MSPaint picture with the pencil tool. There's a separate matter of enemy 'zones' though, which was kinda nice -- I've decades-old memories of this so I could be wrong, but I remember that you had to set separate areas in which enemies could patrol (separate 'things', I think) and they could only 'hear' the player within these zones.

Limited as shit though, because it's all just 64x64 squares in the end.

[CyberPedro]

For Wolfenstein 3D, I'm going to echo printz and suggest ChaosEdit. It's pretty much a full Wolf editing kit (map editing, sound and sprite editing). It also features a handy 3-d map preview, so you can see how your maps look without having to run the game.

Duke3d is more complicated though. Mapster was with Build from the beginning, and the Duke3d editing community seems to be fine with sticking with it. I will agree that Mapster is not very noob-friendly, but it seems to get the job done for most mappers in the community. I guess this is an example of "if it's not broke, don't fix it".

[Dragonsbrethren]

Jayextee said:

If I recall, Wolf3D editing is about as simple as filling in pixels in a super zoomed-in MSPaint picture with the pencil tool. There's a separate matter of enemy 'zones' though, which was kinda nice -- I've decades-old memories of this so I could be wrong, but I remember that you had to set separate areas in which enemies could patrol (separate 'things', I think) and they could only 'hear' the player within these zones.

Limited as shit though, because it's all just 64x64 squares in the end.

Floor codes in Wolfy are about as creative as you can get with level design, since you can wake up enemies in entirely different areas of the map by using the same floor code (not unlike joining two completely sectors in Doom). You could probably do some cool stuff with patrols too, but I was never that creative in my Wolf editing days.

As for Maes's comment, I said it in the other thread but Quake editors are just as easy as Doom editors, and were actually easier in the days before things like 3D previews. I think your average person is going to find working in true 3D much easier to grasp than working with sectors, I know I did.

That said, once you've got them both down, I find Doom editing to be more fun. Then again, I make vanilla-style levels exclusively. I see the maps some people here make and wonder why they'd ever want to subject themselves to making that kind of geometry with lines and sectors.