I have been mapping for over 20 years and used many sdks for mapping over the years. Of course the sdks came with assets to place but alot of mapping was for creating soo many things.
With HL2 Mapping for example Valve and designers who used their sdk done alot of the work in the map editor for creating… Ground, buildings, walls, fences, doors, texturing, scripting, lighting, sky box, etc etc… So question is…
When you are designing a model… Would you model the building, house, room, walls, fences, doors in the map editor or in Blender modelling programme… AAA creators like valve, EA, Activision and more created all the buildings, houses and more in the editor not modelling. They modelled the detail, assets, props around it. I only ask as I’ve started seeing creaters on here for UE5 and Unity in Blender and then export it… So wondering why they don’t use the editor?
I can confirm they do the Buildings, Doors, Walls, Fences, Houses etc in the map editor not modelling programme. I know this as seen the work in the Map Editor and also created maps in map editors. Medal Of Honour AA, Half Life series, Call Of Duty and more do their buildings, houses, Fences, Walls, Roads, Ground and more all in the map editor and then the props in a modelling programme ie Maya/Zbrush/Blender etc etc.
It may seem it, however I am noticing that there are designers and indi devs creating models of Houses, buildings etc and wondering why and not using the game engine, or what is better…to use the game engine (Unity, UE5 etc) for building the houses, buildings, fences, walls etc or to use the modelling programmes for most the work and export over.
Seeing what the best and norm practices are now as some of the games I mentioned are dated now.
Wondering what best practices are from designers out there are, on what they do and what they use the Game Engine for building and what to leave for the modelling programmes…
Basically where is the line drawn on what engine to use what. I don’t want to waste time creating a Building in Blender if it can be done in the UE5/Unity Engine for example.
If modeling a building is faster for you in whatever game editor you are using, then do it.
I’d bet that the split between doing work in a dedicated Dcc (like blender or maya) or in engine varies widely. It sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time using game engine tools to develop maps, so you are probably pretty proficient at that workflow.
Conversely, if you find certain tasks tedious in your editor of choice, and it could be faster in blender, then do the parts that are easy in blender, and save the rest for your editor.
There is no right answer, it’s really up to you. Being proficient at both will only help you, so feel free to switch between the two.
Thanks Alot. Will give it a go on both then and find the norm on what works best to create in which engine. I know the Map Editor is used for creation of the Map itself, however I do see in AAA games buildings, fences, Walls…Basically Structures made in the Map Editor and of course as AAA games they look great. Then they add the assets from Foliage, characters, Props, Weapons, Furniture, Vehicles and so on like that from Model Engines. I am close to merging into the map editor, so thinking of not wasting time on building something which could or should be done in a Map Editor.