Quake3World

I'd like to start a thread here that compares the pros and cons of the three main versions of GTKradiant: v1.2.13, v1.4 and v1.5. To help folks better take advantage of possibly new features and to point out possible footfalls when swapping content between these versions. Here a few of my own experiences:

GTKradiant v1.2.13:

• From years of mapping by far the most stable editor version, does not crash IIRC.
• ASE model rotation WYSIWYG only works for Z-axis rotation properly. X-axis and Y-axis cannot be properly previewed (this is a bug).
• Features the largest number of plug-ins, e.g. you can locate duplicate brushes.
• Loading maps created with v1.4 will yield several entity issues:
  • Player spawn angle may no longer point in the right direction, e.g. erroneously point up!
  • Texture alignment on rotated brushes may be offset.

GTKradiant v1.4:

• Relatively stable as long as you do *not* manipulate ASE models (nudge, rotate, scale) much.
• ASE model rotation preview works as expected. Alas real-time rotation via R-key is not possible.
• Some plug-ins were not "ported", e.g. duplicate brush location no longer possible.
• The .map files from v1.5 save file size by removing extraneous digits (e.g. 0.50000 becomes 0.5), and crocked rotation values (texture offset, etc.) actually *gain* precision. Otherwise v1.4 and v1.5 .map files seem to be compatible. E.g. editing models with v1.5 to then continue work with v1.4 does not cause issues.

GTKradiant v1.5:

• Supports real-time lighting, à la DOOM 3 and Quake 4.
• Supports the most extensive (IIRC) list of games out there: Q3A, Q4, D3, etc.
• ASE model rotation preview works, real-time rotation via R-key possible! This is *really* useful when placing many plants. Model manipulations do *not* crash the editor!
• Z-view window no longer present, i.e. you cannot conveniently change the height of brushes or entities.
• Several very basic editing keys have been changed compared to the two older versions. This can be irritating for old-timers. AEon: Not really sure if the new keys are actually better or not?

Please feel free to point out things you like about the version you are using, and if possible compare them with the other versions. It would also be interesting to know why you picked a certain version.

E.g. I changed from v1.2.13 because the rotation preview of models did not work properly. I had previously only rotated models in Z-axis, thus had never noticed the issue.

I don't get your beef with 1.4 and models. I use models extensively and I never have any problems with crashes =) And I have been using it since it came.

Reading the text I asked myself why they deleted that "finding duplicated brushes"-plugin.

I am still using 1.4.0 because 1.5.0 is too fast or has too much flow in the 3dview.
Furthermore I hate that "drag a square in the 3dview and select everything". I can't "paint" the selection anymore like in 1.4.0 and it is really hard to select more brushes without selecting them behind.

Bliccer wrote: Furthermore I hate that "drag a square in the 3dview and select everything". I can't "paint" the selection anymore like in 1.4.0 and it is really hard to select more brushes without selecting them behind.

thats the exact reason i don't use 1.5

I use 1.5 because IMO it made some things easier.

E.g. in 1.4 you can't resize more than 1 brush at the same time or selectmore than 1 brush surface at the same time, afaik. What I also like about 1.5 ist the new texture browser which allows you to apply textures much faster than with the old one. What sucks about it is the missing thicken function and the bug with ati cards..

I use 1.4 and 1.5 depending what task I am doing at the time.

dONKEY wrote:I use 1.4 and 1.5 depending what task I am doing at the time.

Would be interesting to know what exactly these tasks are?

sorry it's late here and I've been working all day ....model manipulation and some texture scaling I use 1.5, for multiple brush edge manipulation I use 1.5; for *most* texturing I use 1.4 and for most brush slapping and clipping I use 1.4. For terrain blending on models I use 1.4 as I can't find the damn 'show entities as wire frame' button in 1.5 so I can't see where the meshes vertices are! TBH I probably *could* move to 1.5 completely but being an 'old school' user I can never remember the short cuts for things like entity select. I now always run maps through 1.5 to clean up bad brushes.

dONKEY wrote:I now always run maps through 1.5 to clean up bad brushes.

Interesting tip... I have the suspicion that I have "dead" light entities in AEcantw2 (they emit light, but do not show in-editor as entities), so it might be worth a try to load and then save the map via v1.5. Though usually using Brush Cleanup should do the job for v1.2.13 or v1.4.

Ah one point I missed is that version 1.5 displays all textures I have in my texture folder and not only until "e" (except the shaderlist.txt only is activated). That's the only reason I've 1.5 installed. To add the texture from folder "f", then save the map and reload it in 1.4.

@cityy: Of course you can. I also had that problem some time ago. Then I had a crash in 1.4 and I had to set the preferences to default. Afterwards everything worked fine again.

I noted that all the decals I use in AEdm7 have preview issues in 3D-view in v1.5 (more or less fine in v1.4 and v1.2.13). I.e. instead of showing transparency in-editor, the "transparent" areas are now white and non-transparent. But it seems all GTKradiant editors have some issue or other with decals. Overall I'd say textures with transparency are best previewed in v1.4.

Update: The _remap key lets you assign a different texture (on-the-fly) to a model - alas the preview does not work for v1.5, annoying e.g. when using the same plant model (ASE file) with several textures.

AEon wrote:the "transparent" areas are now white and non-transparent.

Like in the ingame editors of Q4 and D3.

AEon wrote:

dONKEY wrote:I have the suspicion that I have "dead" light entities in AEcantw2 (they emit light, but do not show in-editor as entities)

make sure u didnt move the lights then undo it, because i know for a fact in 1.4 when you do that the entity wil move back but in the 2d/3d view the light looks like its still in the place u moved it to. ie: http://img213.imageshack.us/i/capturefj.jpg/

Vertex and edge manipulation is easier (IMO) with 1.4 but much more prone to produce bad brushes. 1.5 almost never breaks a brush but can be a little unpredictable when moving vertex and edges around.

(Yeah, I know, clipper clip clip clip.)

IMO vertex editing on brushes in 1.5 only really works if you split brushes into triangles...which is probably good practice anyway I guess. I agree edge manipulation is easier if 1.4 BUT to manipulate multiple brushes at the same time use 1.5 as it doesn't mess up like older versions did.

I find that my entity target shortcut doesn't work(ctrl+k) in 1.4

the only time i used 1.5 was to make a func_ut_train (an urban terror modified version of func_train) which had 50 stops, it was a bird model which hopped around in a continuous circle =p

Still using 1.2.1 for build everything and 1.5.0 only for final compiling, especially since 1.5.0 is able to create a *horrible* crash on my system creating a blue-screen and at nearly the same time completely crashes everything and then starting WinXP again causing Chckdsk to test my HDD which then screwed a whole partition once.
Fortunately I learned how to get around that "problem", which also includes using 1.5.0 not too often.
Other reasons not to use 1.5.0 all the time but instead co-working with another -older- version has been mentioned already by others.