Tools
A wide variety of tools may be used by someone designing a level. Although it is faster to design models and textures with general purpose multimedia creation tools, games usually require the data to be in a unique format suited for that game's engine. For this, specific compilers and converters of models, textures, and audio data may be required to lay out a level.
Some level editors for Windows games include Bethesda Softworks's Construction Set, Valve's Hammer Editor, Epic's UnrealEd, Leadwerks 3D World Studio, BioWare's Aurora Toolset, id Software's Q3Radiant, Unity 3D and Grome outdoor editor. Multi engine, multi game editors include id Software's GtkRadiant, based on Q3Radiant, and the open source QuArK. Some games may have built-in level editors like Battlezone 2, Cube 2: Sauerbraten and Doom 3. An example of a console game with a level editor is TimeSplitters, developed by Free Radical Design. Sometimes, professional 3D editing software, such as 3D Studio Max, Blender, AutoCAD, Lightwave, Maya, Softimage XSI or Grome is used, usually customized with a special plugin developed for the specific game.
Read more about this topic: Level Design
Famous quotes containing the word tools:
“At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too; by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Man is a tool-using animal.... Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)