Maya as a level editor (1)
Before we delve to much into the nuts and bolts of transforming Maya into a full blown level editor lets go over some important goals. I have seen quite a few companies get this wrong and I feel that these “Commandments” are very important for making a productive and non-frustrating tool experience…
1. Simplicity: This can not be overstated. Your pipeline needs to be as simple as possible. Everything from directory structure to export pipeline needs to be as simple as possible. Now of course this can not always be accommodated as we would like but its a good rule to always keep in mind when designing the pipeline.
2. Automatic: Everything that can be automated should be automated. The artists and level designers that are using your pipeline should never have to worry about mundane issues. They should be focused on making great art and great levels. If your content people are spending time doing lots of setup and content management then your pipeline is failing you.
3. Foolproof: A good system will tell the user exactly what must be done to achieve their current goal and do so while also allowing for allot of flexibility. Meaning that it should handle everything in a graceful and easy to understand way but also allow people to get into the nuts and bolts of whats going on behind the scenes if they wish.
4. Data Driven: Make as many features data driven as possible. This allows for allot of flexibility and adjustment after the tool has been rolled out. For example: Many of the buttons in the UI should be driven by something other than hard-coded .mel. That way things can be added and tweaked without having to roll-out and new version of the .mel.
5. Fast: Make everything run as fast as possible. If your content people are waiting for the tools then they are non-productive during that time as well as distracted. Most people will get more done if they are never broken out of their work-groove.
(* I will be adding more commandments later.)
hello Ryan we I’m interested about game editors, we are a game company in china, we like to have warcraft 3 like feature where I could paint in tiled textures on the ground. Is this possible to setup inside of Maya or Max. If is there other good editors outthere with this funtion, then export out the 3d model?
thanks.
Well it is possible to do things like this inside of Maya. Tho Maya is not optimized for it. Some legwork will have to be done by a tools guy to get the proper things running in Maya. You will need a special material that can interface with the Maya paint tools. Maybe I will write a full list down. If you have an email I can go into more details with you.