Interesting tool you could use for level design

http://www.delgine.com/index.php?filename=product_deled

It says it's 3D modeller and level editor combined. It's 100% free for commercial and free use and Open Source to boot. From what I've seen it works like something in between of 3DSMax and UnrealEd and is cool.

It also exports to OBJ and Collada so it should be easy to use it with Unity. No FBX support tho (but I've asked on their forums for it).

I'll stay with Blender for actual 3D models, but I think I'll use DeleD for the levels after Computer Virus Simulator.

 

Found tutorial series on this for anyone interested:

 

I used Deled a few years ago, or maybe like more than a decade ago with Blitz3d. I was drawn to it mostly because it reminded me of the level editors of old, used in Quake and Wolfenstein. And it's very easy to use. Because of its simplicity it was pretty fast to model and texture simple levels with, but the modelling tools are crude. Do people still actually use it?

 

I don't know, learned about it like today. But from what I've seen forums are alive, last posts (not including my ones) are from april/june.

Anyway, it's a pretty solid tool. And yeah, modeling tools are crude, but enough to make levels with - as I said, for models I'll use something like Blender and DeleD would be for level geometry/texturing (texturing levels in Blender is a nightmare, I've tried to).

 

???

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

 

Why do you think texturing in Blender is a nightmare? I think it's pretty smooth, actually.

 

Then you probably never tried to model, then texture map that is say, the size (and complexity) of de_dust2.

Sure, you could use multiple materials, but it would amount to more drawcalls in Unity. Not good. And last time I've checked, Unity doesn't honor texture tiling settings in Blender.

Of course you could use UV mapping, but unless you're making non-level size model (and even then if it is midpoly) UV mapping in Blender is terrible too. Automatic unwrapping sucks greatly, and setting seams manually is time-consuming. On top of that, you never know what UV layout will be, even with manual unwrapping, before you unwrap it so you can't prepare texture before hand (well, you can, but good luck moving UVs around while making sure texture doesn't bleed).

Not to mention Blender's modeling tools aren't really fit for modeling whole level. Heh, if I had choice, I'd model and texture levels in UDK, then export to model format, but unfortunately license doesn't allow that.

Right tool for the right job, man. Blender is great tool, don't get me wrong, but it isn't suited to level making. DeleD is (while not being suited to make "regular" models).

 

People often go way too far with this. For something the size of a level it's perfectly fine to have multiple draws.

 

I've had no problem using blenders uv editor, I prefer it to maya, but that is probably because I have used more often than maya.

 

Could you elaborate on terms of what is expected from level modeling tools?
I'm actually curious just to know what am I missing.

 

You certainly can model levels with tools like Max, Maya or Blender. That said, brush-based / CSG- / BSP-style level editing tools such as Source's Hammer, Unreal's editor or stuff like QuARK (sp?) for Quake provide a really different workflow and different strengths and weaknesses. Those tools are pretty painful for fine detail work, but for the broad strokes of a level's layout and architectural stuff they're great. I assume that DeleD is a bit more like those tools.

I guess one way to describe it is that brush-based workflows are more about the overall shapes than verts and triangles, and texturing is more about assigning materials to surfaces than mapping within a specific texture.

 

While I don’t know the level you are talking about, I’ve done quite some level modelling at about the size of Zelda OOT’s Kakariko village and not experienced any sort of limitation whatsoever. I could have easily kept going until my machine collapsed due to massive polycount.
How would you be texturing differently anyway? I know about UV mapping and of course you can do the vertex painting for texturing reasons and you might even not unwrap objects at all and use Unity’s generated version, if that’s what you’re after. And all of that can very well be done in Blender.
You are not talking about Ptex or something like that, are you? (If that’s even supported by Unity)
Also, are you actually trying to get the texture space of a whole scene into one material? Because I highly doubt that’s efficient. While you might do some atlas working, it’s probably not a good idea to overload the GPU if it’s not necessary. When you go for an atlas of let’s say 16k (is that even supported?), it may be better to use 4 smaller atlases of 4k so that when you are in an area which doesn’t include 3/4 of the textures, the textures can actually be unloaded, which makes the space available for more textures for detail objects again.

I don't know how unwrapping manually can be that time-consuming, unless, of course, if you are dealing only with extremely complex architectural objects? Texture splatting for terrain works very well when using custom shaders, too.

If you are talking about this: Blender can also be used for sculpting (Sculpt Mode), not only can you do that with keeping the polycount, but also with dynamic topology, if you need more detail in certain areas.

On PC or Mac, you might as well have a few thousands.
Even on mobile, you should be fine with adding plenty of different materials on a decently scaled level. I mean, you don't even have the opportunity to set different shader properties if you are going to squeeze the whole level into one material.