Your favorite Editor/SDK/Engine to mod? UE3, CryEngine 2, Source?

[geodav]

being biased i had to vote for UE3, i think the main thing i want is machinima, i know i can do it in UE3 so i'll stick with it

[Masakari]

I'm going with UE3, although D3 and Cry2 are also nice, particularly the Cry2 toolset. But i'm kinda suspicious, since i use UE3 at work - real easy to import model, textures, do maps, and the material editor is just peaches!

[Mr. Happy]

Originally Posted by doylle

Well, I don't think anybody should pick an engine because it has the best editor. At least have a peek at what engine it supports, since all of it's features that will be in the editor. imho you can't just separate those two.

The camera controls point is a weird thing to say. I don't think i've found two applications with the same controls. hammer vs unrealEd, vs max vs DirectX sdk samples. They all have different camera setttings/controls, so i'm not sure how you can tell that one is better than the other. I can navigate in unreal ed as wel as in max, even though they are completely different. And it hasn't realy bothered me at all tbh. It's just a matter of getting used to imo.

Someone told me that the latest version hammer now has realtime lighting in it's editor, though i haven't been able to check that, however, lighting in Unreal was/is alot easier. not having to compile everythime you change you lighting wins alot of time...


In the end, this is one of those threads where people will defend the editor they like most.

Well the topic was "what's your favorite editor/engine to mod"! 90% of my work is level design, so I weight the editor more. It's not that I don't like UEd/UE4, or WorldEdit/Jupiter FX (the only other two I've used), it's that I've been using Worldcraft/Hammer for seven years and I find that the common tasks that are shared by all are accomplished most efficiently in Hammer. I don't see how you can compare two editors based on things on doesn't have. So Unreal has some amazing amazing stuff, and I give it credit, I just don't like working in it as much!

As for the camera controls, I wasn't trying to say I have trouble with one or the other. I can seamlessly switch between XSI/Hammer/UEd/Photoshop with only a moment's confusion. But free look in my opinion is an inherently better method of moving around space than "movie" camera controls. It's the difference between being in the space, and looking at the space. I think it feels more natural and quickly jumping between far off areas with percision is more streamlined.

So don't get me wrong, I really like Unreal, but it's just not the answer to the question posed!

[NB-DanTE]

I've worked on id's engines for a long time, I like them especially "Id Tech 3" ,I find them very easy to use and effective in moding.