Gmax, Editing Tool for 3D Games

Michael 'Buccaneer' Koch writes: "Earlier this week, Discreet, the makers of 3D Studio Max, released a new tool for making content for games like levels and models. Its name is gmax and can be downloaded freely. Developers can build support for their games by writing plugins for gmax and paying a fee to Discreet. It really sounds like a good idea for the mod-community."

Comments

Re:WooHoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or have the first post trolls become more and more self-ironic?

gmax is heavy, too heavy

[MGKoch]

Honestely, I was rather disappointed when I tried out gmax. I had high expectations but was shocked when I saw that the interface of gmax is very similar to 3D Studio Max's - too many menus, too heavy, hard handling. I know many level editors for Quake (WorldCraft, Q3Radiant, GtkRadiant, Tread, Qoole, QuArK, etc.) and find Q3Radiant is the best. It's small, has intuitive controls and doesn't have such a strange colour settings as gmax (which has only one pre-defined colour setting).

Of course, you have to take into consideration that you can do also models with gmax (you have to download a special package to make content for Quake 3) but still the application is not suitable for the works I normally do - basic and straight-forward mapping.

Re:gmax is heavy, too heavy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah. It's "baby MAX". Of course it's similar to 3DS MAX, it's the same codebase.

(g)MAX is certainly overkill for your current level formats. But it's poised for future games, not current games. Future games will be more polygons and less planarity, so you'll find your simple level editors not so effective.

Not really useful, unless games support it

[Pvt_Waldo]

Can edit quake 3 maps. Can't do much else. Kind of "chicken and egg" - won't use it until it support Half-Life maps/models/etc.

Open Source Applications

[TeachingMachines]

I can't tell if this was posted or not, but I've downloaded and checked it out. It seems like a great way to build communities around a project while giving experience and allowing interaction with up and coming programmers. In other words, it sounds a lot like open source development in general. The folks at Autodesk seem a bit hyper about the registration process, but it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Windows Only

[Tony]

It's MS-Windows only. Didn't see any multi-platform support mentioned-- and it had minimum requirements of IE5.5 for the web browser.

Considering that Blender is free, *and* multiplatform, and lighter-weight, I'm not sure what advantage Gmax would give me.

But, then again, I'm a platform-bigot. So maybe that's coloring my opinion.

Re:Windows Only

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a definite disadvantage, I agree. But there are many reasons why a developer would choose gmax over blender - namely that it integrates well with their existing stuff and they can put out an "expansion pack" supporting their game. From the user's POV, some games will be gmax-or-nothing out of the box, and also it will give people an opportunity to learn much of MAX without forking out all that money ... handy if you want to enter the games industry in a few years.

Re:WooHoo

[Error27]

I don't know why oog would make it on your list.

Oog the caveman is not a troll and has many valuable things to say.

And what would that "fee" bee?

[Junks Jerzey]

The fee developers have to pay is very substantial. It's not just a few thousand dollars. It's well into the five figures. Who is going to support this?

Ree:And what would that "fee" bee, three?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your source of info?