Standard Editors for Doom 3 and Quake 4 are broken

[Guest MIND]

Can you even make stuff with the basic editors that are included with the game? I have original copies and it won't let me select any of the brushes. It could be just me not knowing how to use it.

I need a bit of help with this.

Editing for Doom 1 and 2 seemed much easier than this.

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

Are you saying the editor is broken because it's bugged or broken because it's not intuitive to use?

The skill and patience required to make maps for Doom 3 is miles beyond what it takes to make them for Doom 1 and 2, and necessary skillset is incredibly different. You can't just draw a square on the screen and magically have a room.

[Guest MIND]

Stapler said:

Are you saying the editor is broken because it's bugged or broken because it's not intuitive to use?

The skill and patience required to make maps for Doom 3 is miles beyond what it takes to make them for Doom 1 and 2, and necessary skillset is incredibly different. You can't just draw a square on the screen and magically have a room.

Oh, I reckoned that the editor for Doom 3 and Quake 4 was as easy to use as all the editors for the Original Doom's and Quakes.

Nevermind then.

When I make maps I don't want to have to have a degree in level design. I just want to make something without a huge learning curve. The editors (Edmap, Wintex, BSP, etc) for Doom 1 and 2 along with the first Quakes, to my knowledge, were very easy to use.

[MrSkeltal]

Doom 1 and 2 mapping (and modding in general) is much easier than 3. Making something that looks good in the former requires only a square room with a handful of details because of the graphics. With Doom 3, and almost any modern game, you need to focus on plenty of minor things to make the area look good and not just make a room, place some wall/ceiling/floor textures, place a desk prop and call it a day. Expect a single level to take you a couple of months to make unless you're working on it full time.

If you want something straight-forward I'd recommend modding Doom 1/2, though. You have Linguica's tutorials here and Cubz over at Youtube.
With Doom 3 documentation for the editor is all over the place and a lot of it has been lost over the years due to sites shutting down and no one backing them up because the modding community for it was dead by then.

If you really want to map for it you're better off asking in the idtech forums which are the successor to Doom3World - an old site founded around Doom 3's release that was the main tutorial resource for mapping and modding, once that shut down some years ago a lot of tutorials were lost for good, some were backed up in that site however. I'll tell you right now that the Doom 3 modding community barely exists these days so don't expect much activity.

Quake 4's was barely alive even on release to begin with, but mapping and modding for it isn't much different than Doom 3.

[Guest MIND]

MrSkeltal said:

Doom 1 and 2 mapping (and modding in general) is much easier than 3. Making something that looks good in the former requires only a square room with a handful of details because of the graphics. With Doom 3, and almost any modern game, you need to focus on plenty of minor things to make the area look good and not just make a room, place some wall/ceiling/floor textures, place a desk prop and call it a day. Expect a single level to take you a couple of months to make unless you're working on it full time.

If you want something straight-forward I'd recommend modding Doom 1/2, though. You have Linguica's tutorials here and Cubz over at Youtube.
With Doom 3 documentation for the editor is all over the place and a lot of it has been lost over the years due to sites shutting down and no one backing them up because the modding community for it was dead by then.

If you really want to map for it you're better off asking in the idtech forums which are the successor to Doom3World - an old site founded around Doom 3's release that was the main tutorial resource for mapping and modding, once that shut down some years ago a lot of tutorials were lost for good, some were backed up in that site however. I'll tell you right now that the Doom 3 modding community barely exists these days so don't expect much activity.

Quake 4's was barely alive even on release to begin with, but mapping and modding for it isn't much different than Doom 3.

It's fine. I'd much rather make maps and mods for a game that's more user friendly like the first 2 Dooms and Quakes. I'll skip modding Doom 3.

I don't want it to be rocket science like I said before and it sounds like Doom 3 is rocket science. Much like mapping for Unreal Tournament 4.

Edit: Looking at the website there aren't many good threads for how to start making a map in Doom 3 or Quake 4.

I'd rather make a map in a couple of hours. Not a couple of months.

When I heard that you can mod sounds, gore levels, graphics, and sprites for the Original Doom's I was overjoyed. It seems like doing that for this for modern games is either impossible or much harder.

[MrSkeltal]

Learning Doom 3's editor isn't hard as long as you want to make more techbase maps like in the main campaign. The detailing process to make the level look good is what takes the longest and that's more tedious than it is complicated.

And designing for modern games is significantly harder, yes. That's part of why modding tools died out in the last decade - the demand isn't there since if someone knows how to use modern video game development tools they might as well download Unity/UE4 and develop their own independent game to sell rather than spending months or years making free content for a small group of people.

[Guest MIND]

MrSkeltal said:

Learning Doom 3's editor isn't hard as long as you want to make more techbase maps like in the main campaign. The detailing process to make the level look good is what takes the longest and that's more tedious than it is complicated.

And designing for modern games is significantly harder, yes. That's part of why modding tools died out in the last decade - the demand isn't there since if someone knows how to use modern video game development tools they might as well download Unity/UE4 and develop their own independent game to sell rather than spending months or years making free content for a small group of people.

I'd rather make my own maps and put my own custom things in them. Such as sound, graphics, gore levels, etc.

The editor looked really hard to me compared to the ones for Doom 1 and 2.

I don't really want to have 1 level take a month or more to make so I think I'll avoid D3.

"Learning Doom 3's editor isn't hard as long as you want to make more techbase maps like in the main campaign. The detailing process to make the level look good is what takes the longest and that's more tedious than it is complicated."

That's a bit of a contradiction. You said it was very hard compared to Doom 1 and 2.

[MrSkeltal]

That's why I specified techbases in Doom 3. If you want to make caves or anything else you better be ready to start learning 3D modelling as well since the Doom 3 editor isn't really made for making that kind of architecture.
If you also want to make moving machinery, raising platforms, and so on like in the campaign you also need to be willing to learn scripting.

Now, if you wanted to make a techbase level where you go through a few rooms shooting enemies then it's not too hard as long as you know the basics of the editor.

[Guest MIND]

MrSkeltal said:

That's why I specified techbases in Doom 3. If you want to make caves or anything else you better be ready to start learning 3D modelling as well since the Doom 3 editor isn't really made for making that kind of architecture.
If you also want to make moving machinery, raising platforms, and so on like in the campaign you also need to be willing to learn scripting.

Now, if you wanted to make a techbase level where you go through a few rooms shooting enemies then it's not too hard as long as you know the basics of the editor.

That doesn't sound fun.

I want to make open environments like you can in Doom 1 and 2 with different sounds, sprites, and everything like that.

I don't want to be restricted to just one thing, shooting enemies, and then quitting the game.

I don't want it to be an arduous process. Just something I can finish in a matter of hours instead of months. Maybe 5-6 hours or 3-4 hours.

I bet learning the editor for Doom 3 is very hard. It sure looked hard to me.

[Tetzlaff]

MINDustry said:

I want to make open environments like you can in Doom 1 and 2 with different sounds, sprites, and everything like that.

You can do all that in Doom 3. But with models instead of sprites.

Really, the Doom 3 editor isn't that hard to use. But it all became more complex in comparison to 2.5D Doom.