Favourite level editing software?

[brunothepig]

A lot of games come with ways to create more content, maps etc. Farcry 2, Crysis, Fallout 3, Morrowind... Oblivion? Anyway, me and a friend recently started playing with the farcry 2 one, and although it is intuitive and easy to use, it's very limited. Only 15 explosive things, can't put weapon spawns, can't spawn enemies (AI), and the tools do have limitations. However, it's the only one we really have experience with, so I guess I'm saying that one. At least it's easy. We did find the Crysis one, which seems much better, but didn't get an opportunity to try it much. What's your favourite editing software for a game, free, and why?

 

[Omikron009]

One thing about myself that I hate is that I never have the patience to bother with editing tools. It's a damn shame too, because I have a lot of ideas.

 

[RatRace123]

LittleBigPlanet, it's insanely intuitive (for a console game) and it has a really active community.

 

[NuclearPenguin]

I doubt any of you will know what im talking about
But the Tibia map editor.
Let me elaborate because im in a lesson and have nothing better to do because im, you know, awesome. (And jamaica really doesnt have much to write about..)

Tibia is a sprite based MMORPG with players mainly from sweden and germany. Anyway, playing on private servers, or OT (Off Tibia) servers as they are called for Tibia. Most people choose to make their own maps, and the map editing software is just.. Wonderfull, there are so many possibilities.

And just so you guys dont kill me with your hypocricy I dont play OT servers I just make maps for them when im feeling kinky creative.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I'm most familiar with the Construction set in TES: III/IV. I've used it most of my modding career.

Though I'm looking into the Dragon Age tool set soon.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Forge from the Marathon Series, NOT HALO, and Hammer of the source engine.
I have enough time on my hands to figure them out well enough.
That, and we've had Marathon for 15 years.

 

[xHipaboo420x]

Spelunky!!!


It's nice and easy, and requires little-to-no actual programming skills.

 

[selce]

the GECK from fallout 3 is the only one ive gotten very familiar with, so i guess id have to go with that

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I've used some editors.

DukeEdit and Build for Duke Nukem 3D weren't to hard.
Forge from MARATHON I found not so very awesome to use due to it's limitations.
StarEdit from Starcraft , i made some maps with it but it's outdated and most 3rd party editors are Windows only (run Starcraft on my Mac)
Fear and Loathing from Myth II:Soulblighter I found horrible to use. Need photoshop skills to make a map, very hard scripting system, very not my thing.
Source SDK is currently my favourite. Many options, you can make it as hard as you want etc.

I rarely finish a map though. I once spent a full year on what is probably my best Duke Nukem map, but it rests unreleased in my folder. It only needs some enemies, but I just can't bring myself to finish it. The same happens to about all of my Source SDK maps. It's fun to create stuff, I don't necessarily feel the need to release it.

 

[junkmanuk]

A text editor and my bare wits - keepin' it old skool!

Actually, I've enjoyed both mentioned above - LBP and Hammer (mainly for L4D editing). LBP is SO intuitive my six year old is able to produce some pretty cool stuff in it!

The Arma II campaign editor is good, although the frustration comes from the playing the mission when the game doesn't do what the mission editor tells it to!

 

[DoctorNick]

Valve Hammer Editor is what I have the most experience with, what with the oodles of Half-Life maps I use to make back in the day.

Using it has kind of warped my perception of other editors because according to everyone else it's supposedly a near impossible to use bear of a program, but it's what I learned and indeed did most of my 3D game mapping on.

 

[Volafortis]

Warcraft 3's World Editor still ranks as my favorite. Hoping Starcraft 2 can live up to the same standard.

 

[wordsmith]

The TES Construction Set is the only one I've used, but I got pretty decent at it back in the day. I knew how to script and everything. Too bad TESCS scripting has little to no baring on any other scripting...

 

[Alberio]

I've used a few over the last year or so, the first being the Hammer Editor. I started using it so that I could make a Tf2 level for a LAn party. It wasn't actually that bad considering it was my first map although I did get some bother from the lifts.
More recently I've been using UnrealEd, reason being that one of my uni modules is centered around it. TBH I think it's better than hammer in terms of speed and how quickly a map can be thrown together as you can simply use static meshes although thats also the advantage of Hammer, it gives you more freedom to build what you want.

 

[The Madman]

Pretty fond of the Neverwinter Nights 2 editor, you can do all sorts of neat tricks with the lighting and item placement if you know how and create some genuinely great looking locations that I'd say even look better, sometimes much better, than what's in the original campaign.

The original NWN editor was good for scripting but didn't really have much variety as far as what you could do with the level design and mapping. The Dark Engine editor; DromEd, was buggy and flawed as hell but could do some fun things as well in Thief 1 and 2.

Other than that I keep meaning to give the editor for Dragon Age a shot. Seems like the sort of engine I wouldn't mind giving a try.

 

[David Bray]

In my experience, TES CS was by far the greatest, i just couldn't use it. You can make a whole seperate game if you want to.
I never really got the hang of coding and stuff though

 

[Nmil-ek]

Oblivions CS is pretty much as ideal as it gets for me maybe because I have been using it for so long, maybe because I dont need to be faffing around with bloody scripting every two seconds yeah I'm lookin at you Dragon Age.

 

[Zacharine]

Marathon series. The editing tools (the Forge and the Anvil, one for map editing the other for physics, sounds etc) are masterfully made, I've yet to meet any software as diverse and yet fairly intuitive and easy to learn for even more complex levels and features.

One of the few reasons I miss my Macintosh. Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon 3: Infinity are possibly one of the greatest FPS series ever, lacking only in the graphics department in relation to many modern FPSs.

 

[jowo96]

I find that source sdk is pretty good and flexible, I want to learn how to use the unreal editor because I do also like real time editors (eg farcry sandbox)

Also I liked the timesplitters map maker

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

I used to make Quake 2 maps a few years back in Quark.

But the Timesplitters map editors have always been fun to play with.