Registered: Jul 2000
Location: I am everywhere, and I am nowhere.
Posts: 1184

Posted by WildWolf:

Matt Boynton, Lead Designer on RF, was kind enough to answer a hefty portion of questions on the VBB regarding the Red Faction Editor, RED:

- IMO, Red will be easier to learn than WC and UnrealEd (I have used them both over the years) but you will have to judge for yourself of course. Our interface is text driven (not wacky icons like some other editors) and uses a lot of hot keys. While it may take a little time to memorize hot keys they are infinitely faster then clicking on buttons or pull down menus. Red is based on every editor and 3D program any of the designers has used. We have all had input on it so while shares some similarities with other editors, it is much better than any of them. But that's just my opinion and I'm biased. You will have to judge for yourself.

- Red is more like UnrealEd in the fact that you start with a solid world and carve out of it. To me, this is inherently faster and more intuitive than additive CSG editors. You also don't have to worry about those nasty leaks that you can get in Quake based engines. But you can still do additive CSG (make solid brushes) just as easily. The editor/engine doesn't care. Once the level is compiled, it's basically one big brush.

- Geo-mods do not make building levels any more difficult than any other editor. Where you can geo-mod is determined by what we call a "geo-region". It has nothing to do with textures or materials. A geo-region is just an arbitrarily sized bounding box or sphere that has certain properties. If you want to geo-mod in an area, you just slap a geo-region in, set the properties and that's it. The rest is handled by the engine. There are special brushes (detail brushes) that are not affected by geo-mods. You can use detail brushes for things like door frames and metal supports so they won't be affected by geo-mods.

Sweetness. I'll be updating our Level Editor page with a bunch of new info today, since I've been slacking off on it lately.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 362

Small correction, Mr. Matt is in fact the Lead Level Designer and not the Lead Designer. I'm a hippy.

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