TrenchBroom: A cross platform level editor for Quake-engine based games | Hacker News Reader

TrenchBroom: A cross platform level editor for Quake-engine based games

trenchbroom.github.io

123 pointsraytopia29 comments

This editor can be used with the Godot engine for environment, level, and asset creation via the Qodot plugin:

https://qodotplugin.github.io/

It would be really cool if Godot had an in-editor 3D modeling tool similar to Trenchbroom, such as UX improvements to the CSGMesh3D workflow :-)

It's many years since I dabbled with quake based game level design (rtcw, sof2) and back then I used Worldcraft (now Hammer). From the video, it looks like Trenchbroom is a fair bit more simplistic, what is the benefit of this over Hammer?

I've been using Hammer since the Worldcraft 3 days, it took less than an hour of using TrenchBroom to know I'll never go back to Hammer or JACK.

It just works. The overall modelling workflow is much more efficient, it's well designed, linked groups is a killer feature, it doesn't crash for no reason and when it does crash you can submit an issue and get it fixed in a day (or fix it yourself, it's FOSS), CSG (e.g. the carve tool) produces sane geometry in a few milliseconds instead of crashing after a 20s freeze.

It also runs smooth and fast whereas hammer stutters all the time and feels like it renders its viewports and UI at 20 fps.

The apparent simplicity is a feature in itself, not a lack of functionality.

> it doesn't crash for no reason

From my doom level editing days, this was always the biggest issue; the level editors were so very touchy, and would crash all the time.

It's way more powerful than Hammer. I don't have much experience in mapping but you will understamd whence you watch tutorial videos on Youtube.

It makes making complex shapes so easy that the standard of a good map is way higher now.

TrenchBroom was built from the ground-up for 3D editing. You don't need to use the 2D grid view unless you want to. It looks more "simplistic" because many actions are now performed directly via the mouse in 3D.

Older editors rely more on the axial views. Trenchbroom has much better tools for modeling right in the main 3D window. I think what happened here is that over time, people figured out better ways to handle the UI for modeling right in a 3D view, and it became so good that we ditched the axial views most of the time. Trenchboom got rid of the axial views because users didn’t want the axial views any more—and it got more UI improvements for working directly in the camera view.

Simpler doesn’t always mean less powerful.

I saw this tool mentioned recently along with the release of https://github.com/ExOK/Celeste64 . It's mentioned as a tool that was used during Celeste64's development so it's clearly not just for Quake engine based games.

Celeste64 uses https://github.com/LogicAndTrick/sledge-formats which include loaders for Quake formatted maps. It could be using the Quake format for a different engine.

It seemed at first glance like it was pretty specific to Quake engine games, knowing how to load .wad files, etc. I was wondering how it might be adapted for a custom game. The answer is here, in case anyone else is curious:

https://trenchbroom.github.io/manual/latest/#game_configurat...

Trenchbroom is magic. A niche tool that became a golden standard of open source, free and quality tool. I played with Trenchbroom during the recent Quake 1 renaissance. Superpleasant, even for somebody who never ever made a single level or even a 3d model before!

The editor, tools surrounding it, and, most importantly, the community are amazing.

Since everyone and their grandma seems to be posting this today, I made an account here just to showcase my Morrowind plugin for Trenchbroom: https://github.com/magicaldave/Morrobroom

Brings back memories using Worldcraft as a teenager.

I stopped doing much editing once we got to Quake 3 (around 2000) but Worldcraft eventually became Hammer used for Half-Life 2 and, I assume, any games under Source Engine.

Back to Quake engine, QtRadiant (I believe it was called) has been mentioned from time-to-time. Now this one.

Looks good. Not sure if its better than Worldcraft but maybe my nostalgia is getting in the way, here.

I shoud look into it as it might help my game I am creating.

QeRadiant was id's original public release derived from their internal QuakeEd. Q3's version of that became the open-source GtkRadiant (so there was a gui framework in the name somewhere at some point ; ), maintained by former id *nix build saviour TTimo (now contracting with Valve). A number of community forks have come out of GtkRadiant.

Yes -- GtkRadiant is what I was thinking of.

I was likely reading about TrenchBroom and, being Qt, made the confusion.

Thanks for the explanation and history.

Fun fact - I just found out Netradiant Custom, a fork of a fork of GtkRadiant, moved from GTK to Qt. So, all in all... :)

The mid 90s - early 2000s era is the golden era of community modding. Nowadays it is almost impossible to make mods for Unity or Unreal engine games. I'm glad there are boomer shooters.

It is very much possible to mod unity games through the use of c# reflection. This, of course, is very hard, so libraries like harmony have been written, and are now packaged in launchers like Unity Mod Manager that you just point to a class to patch the loader in and off it goes. Also take a look a ilSpy for viewing decompiled c# from IL.

Unreal games are a tad harder but loaders do exist, the main problem is that they are generally compiled to machine code instead of Il, so you need to generate the symbols for that version of unreal engine yourself and thats not really fun.

Overall the recent trend of all games being either unity or unreal means that only 2 loaders need to be invented, and that's exactly what happened.

I was thinking about mapping mostly. Even if, which is a huge if, that the game is able to provide a map editor of some sort, the amount of assets is going to crash any mod team that is not essentially a professional game dev team.

Yes - in my teenage era, we had lots of configuration towards games lile Doom and Quake.

For me, a lot of my interest comes from Quake, from understanding the .pak files and QuakeC, etc.

I now have kids of my own, and I am not sure exactly what compares today. I think of things like Garrys Mod, or Minecraft, but it is mostly because I am out-of-touch with modern gaming.

In my spare time.. likely a hour a week, I play some Rocket League. :-)

On the same, I do enjoy making games. I dont use Unity or off-the-shelf products. I guess if any of my kids express more than modding (making a game) then it is an excuse to learn things like Unreal, Unity, Godot together.

(I knew a bit of Unreal back in the Unreal version 1 days... the late 90s) -- Sure things have changed since.

Pity the QuakeLive support isn't there.

For the moment I'm struggling with Radiant from Icculus.

For tech3 based stuff, maybe try Netradiant (forked from GtkRadiant), or more specifically its fork (!) NetRadiant Custom (https://github.com/Garux/netradiant-custom). That one introduces some, er, Trenchbroomisms to its workflow, mostly to do with editing straight from the 3d viewport and the texturing tools.

As far as I can tell from using it with tech4, it also appears to have developed quirks with some basic functionality that I don't remember from other GtkRadiant derivatives (although in tech3). This might be from the incomplete tech4 support inherited from both its parents, or just from NetRadiant, or just new altogether, I have no idea or urge to find out... but still, friendly warning : maybe keep GtkRadiant around and go back and forth just in case.

I tried Netradiant but

1. the ui is basically the same as Radiant which is poor.

2. Documentation not as as good as Radiant

3. (Gtk)Radiant is still getting updates, and it's not clear whether NetRadiant is getting those fixes and unclear whether it could very easily, considering the different language.

Is it named after Thompson smg?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun

Having met the creator of trenchbroom years ago, yes it is indeed named after this weapon, he confirmed it.

I prefer Radiant over TrenchBroom personally.

https://github.com/Garux/netradiant-custom

Back in the day (~1998) when I was doing Q1 map development I used a tool called QuArk.

For laughs/nostalgia from this post I decided to Google the editor, figuring that it would have been mostly lost to history.

NOPE! I was very wrong. There was a new release today.

The community around these games is really amazing.

Yeah! Modern games are mostly unmoddable. We have to rely on the good old games.

I still play Blood mods everyday. If you like the game I would recommend the Eviction mod.

> Modern games are mostly unmoddable.

Its a sad state of affairs. There are moderns games with vibrant modding communities (Factorio, Rimworld, Minecraft, Starsector, Battletech, Bethesda games, to name a few) so clearly the demand and the skill is there, and things like the <Game> Nexus and Steam Workshop help discovery and distribution but so many games ship totally locked down with no real avenue for the community to expand or add on to them. Its very disappointing.

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