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:
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Machinery is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If you do not use the tools, they use you. All tools are in one sense edge-tools, and dangerous.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The study of tools as well as of books should have a place in the public schools. Tools, machinery, and the implements of the farm should be made familiar to every boy, and suitable industrial education should be furnished for every girl.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)