4 views wastes 2 views worth of space. 1 big 'grid view' is all you need to work in, with assistance from the z-checker view and the 3d view. And when you do need a side view , ctrl-tab quickly switches between them once you get used to it.

is pretty much the layout I use in Blender and Wings3d, and it works great. I'm more reluctant to do so in Radiant because the view point is not so easy to manipulate the entire scene as it is in a proper 3d ap. 

whenever I use Max or Maya, it's always just a single 3d window, sometimes switched to side views for measurement. 

there are a few disadvantages of course, but here is a shortlist of the reasons I still use Worldcraft over other editors:

*the ability to modify the properties of many entities at once. This also works with faces in texturing mode and you needn't change all the properties to be the same. You can just alter, angle, name, brightness, scale or whatever you like and it will only change those things.
*visgroups. Far more useful than some seem to think. Shits all over regions in radiant but requires a little overhead to set them up. Especially useful if you still use 1.6a :)
*fairly decent texture browser and multiwad support. Find/replace also works nicely and the search is great.
*native Quake support (up to 1.6a, you need simple conversion tools for the valve versions I think, but maybe bengt's latest compilers handle the maps natively - not sure).
*vertex edit mulitple brushes at once and select any number of vertices or edges to manipulate at once.
*rmf files store camera settings (you can create lots of cameras around your level and switch between them whilst editing instead of having to fly around) visgroups and brush groups (like func_groups, but you can group anything, including entities and it's stored in a hierachy).

The valve versions of wc from 3.3 onwards benefit from accelerated 3d, improved mouse controls and near perfect texture locking that works with rotations as well as moves. Not sure if it works on flipped brushes. The texture editing window also has a few new features like fit to face etc.

The only features I miss in WC that radiant has are the 3 point clipper (WC has only a 2 point clipper) and the filters. You can show/hide visgroups in worldcraft, but it's really nice having the ability to hide clips, triggers, lights etc. at the click of a button without needing to set up groups. Oh, and the single window view in radiant is quite nice - I can't look at four views at the same time :) 

ToeTag does most of that stuff as well. It does, I tell you! 

working?

That is the best feature of Worldcraft. In 1.6a it was buggy, but in the 3.3 version it never fails! I almost feel as though I am cheating by using it.

One thing though, supposedly if you set a faces angle to -1 the texture will be a mirror of the original. I could never get this working in WC, but instead would create a brush then spin it round 180 degrees, and the face on the other side would be a mirror.

I cant get my head round the idea of a three-point clipper. How the hell does that work?!?! 

No, my texture locking is somewhat lame. It works well enough but it's not fantastic or anything.

A 3 point clipper is, IMO, something that you rarely need. Imagine a triangle in the 3D viewport that will do what your 2D clipper is doing. 

One thing though, supposedly if you set a faces angle to -1 the texture will be a mirror of the original. I could never get this working in WC, but instead would create a brush then spin it round 180 degrees, and the face on the other side would be a mirror.

To mirror a texture on a face, give it a negative scale. Most of the time this will just mean -1 scale, you can flip it vertically or horizontally, or both...

If you're using a scale other than 1, same deal, just make it negative (e.g. -0.5, -2, whatever). 

I'd love to try it (ToeTag) to be honest. When is the windows port coming? ;) 

 

Ok, so I haven't used the editor, but I still have some feedback, Willem.

I started looking at the docs and I noticed that the camera controls for the 3D view in ToeTag are limited to mouse wheel and mouse drag shenanigans. This is functional of course, but I have to say it's a hell of a lot nicer to just fly around the map like you can in Radiant (and even Hammmer now!)

If you're not aware, this is implemented just like spectator mode in most of the FPS games that you can map for in these editors. That is, keys to move forward/back and strafe, while the mouse just looks around freely. This is simple and intuitive, and just plain makes sense.

Radiant: arrow keys = move, mouse = look around, RMB in 3D viewport to toggle free fly mode on/off.

Hammer: WASD = move, mouse = look around, Z button toggles free fly mode. 

"When is the windows port coming? ;)"

Flying pork and all that. :) 

Fribbles

A spectator cam might be a useful thing to add.

ToeTag's camera controls might sound weird but they mirror every other 3D application available on the Mac so they aren't really all that strange to Mac people. 

ToeTag's controls don't sound that weird at all (well, I don't know where the option button and all that are, but I assume you've chosen sensible keys! :)

They do sound like common controls for 3D apps or world-building tools... that's the problem really. Of course, if you're happy with it, that's the main thing.

I tell you what though, I get really fucked off with Maya at work because of its shitty camera controls. So often I've wished for (proper, sensible, obvious) camera controls like GtkRadiant's in Maya...

Using the mouse and keys to look around is kind of OK if you're working on one object or a limited area, but it's so much better using freefly/spec camera when you want to get around fast or just get a better sense of the space you're creating by looking at it from many angles. 

Of course, this is all irrelevant since I'm not using the editor and I have no means of doing so. Although buying a whole new system just to edit Quake maps doesn't sound nearly as ridiculous as it should... hmmm... :)

In all seriousness though, consider the spec/freefly mode. Try it in Hammer and GtkRadiant if you are able to. It's just so natural and obvious that once you've used it, you wish every 3D app worked that way.

Both Radiant and Hammer still allow you to select brushes and faces while in that free fly mode as well, so it can be used while editing some things and not just for navigating. For instance, the free fly mode combined with the texturing shortcuts in Radiant make it easy to fly around a room and texture heaps of different surfaces quickly. 

Is it possible to have it spawn in at a certain point, so it doesn't block the player before it's supposed to appear? 

or, er, spawn delay?

(I've never used a Vermis, but doesnt Quoth allow you spawn enemies in?)

Or failing that can you teleport the Vermis in the old fashioned way?

(I'd imagine this isnt helpfull as you would surely know what you are doing, and ive missed something...?) 

Fribbles

I've become spoiled by UnrealEd which has, hands down, the greatest level design camera system ever built. It's so incredibly productive to use.

I try to replicate it whenever I write an editor and ToeTag is designed sort of along those lines but making Mac concessions along the way. 

I've never spent enough time with UnrealED to actually get a feel for it. I tried an early release version, but I had trouble getting it to run at all at the time (it was a very low-end machine, it couldn't handle it).

I've become spoiled by UnrealEd which has, hands down, the greatest level design camera system ever built. It's so incredibly productive to use.

That's a pretty big call though... I really should give it a go. I've always wanted to do some UT maps. Does the editor ship with both UT3 and Gears of War? 

Yep, it's included in both. 

Won't work because it's static.
My plan was to have an upside-down Vermis battle the player from above. The bbox stays on the ground though, plus the grab attack loses its effect as the tentacle is too high up. In the end, the battle I planned would have been annoying anyway, the area is way too tight. 

Make all the other monsters attack you from upside-down and the Vermis battle will be easy to implement. 

Did you put the UE3 camera in ToeTag? If so, WINDOWS CONVERSION NOW!

Oh, rewrite Quake's map format and compilers so we can have subtractive geometry too. I can barely stand working on my Quake map now... "what do you mean I have to create 4+ brushes just to make an indent in a wall!?" 

Scampie

No, sorry. Just saying I like that camera system. ToeTag is using the standard Mac 3D camera set up.

Doesn't Quark do subtractive brushes? Or maybe it's BSP. One of them does... 

but it almost always turns the brushes to shit - like most boolean operations. 

He's talking about a system like Unreal has. You place a brush that acts as a negative space in the map. When the BSP compiles, it cuts that brush into the world rather than adding it to the world. It's hella awesome and makes BSP work much easier/quicker than in Quake.

Moving a window, for example, means moving your subtractive brush over a little. You don't have to resize all of the surrounding brushes to surround the new hole you want instead.