QuArK vs. Cstr :: Which is better to make levels?

[Buster Bunny]

I'm thinking of making a few custom levels for MBP and I want to know if I should use QuArK or Constructor and IsraeliRD already explained which is better in certain situations. Which one converts interiors better with no glitches or errors? QuArK already does that, but Constructor has the exact same result.

I'll be counting votes and whichever software has the most votes by the end of the week I will be using.
Voting ends midnight of Sunday next week in Canada.

QuArK: 0
Constructor: 2 Voting already over.

Constructor is my choice. Can somebody lock this thread?

[Blasted Marble]

Use constructor, it has easy options.

[Buster Bunny]

Jul 2, 2013 13:28:30 GMT Blasted Marble said:

Use constructor, it has easy options.

Your vote has been added.

[IsraeliRD]

If you've never done level design for Marble Blast before, then Constructor is the only way to go. It's the only one we recommend for amateur/beginner level designers. It is a lot easier to use, its options are good and it converts stuff *generally* without problems.

However, it must be noted it has some crazy glitches and bugs, likes to crash often (save frequently is an understatement) and depending on what you add to your level, may not even convert your map, lose polys for no reason and generally is a nuisance.

So why do we recommend it? because you can do lots of cool things pretty quickly, its 3D is very good and allows you to do certain things (especially with textures) much more easily that QuArK cannot do or is just slow at it.

Constructor-made levels won LotM/Year competitions, and is the #1 tool of choice for forum members.



What about QuArK? QuArK is strictly for Advanced or Professionals. Its learning curve is very very high and you're gonna have to learn it yourself, whereas with Constructor you have lots of tutorials and premade stuff, as well as on the forums. Once you do manage to learn it, you can pretty do what Constructor does and much more. Unless flexicubes are something you cannot live without or some of Seizure22's rotation/shapes tools, QuArK is the ultimate choice.

You can debug maps, find errors super easily, you rarely get crashes and it's very solid. It also supports dozens of other games, meaning it comes with more options than anything else. Making convertible curves, pipes and loops is trivial. You never have problems with triangles, so MBP scenery is easy. Floating point errors are non-existent (unless you use maps made in constructor) and it's generally awesome all around. The downside is that you're gonna have to do manual texturing and tex-wrapping.

Lastly, you can create packages that include textures, maps and others all in one file (think of Constructor's albums going advanced). If you've got plenty of experience of level design and want to go to the next stage, QuArK is yours.

QuArK has been used by professionals across many games, universities, even GarageGames when they created Marble Blast (Gold, Gold Xbox, Ultra). It's the #1 tool used by the top level designers, including Oaky, Pablo, Phil and myself. I suspect PF is a QuArK-convert



Therefore:

Which one converts interiors better with no glitches or errors?

Is the wrong thinking. Constructor should be your choice no matter what. It will do what you want, but QuArK is heaps better at having less glitches/errors, but you will get the exact same result in Constructor.

[Buster Bunny]

IsraeliRD, you seem to know how to explain well. In fact, it was so well explained, the voting is already over. I know I said it would be over at midnight on Sunday, but this was too great of an explanation.

And this post felt very awkward when typing it.

[Pablo]

Stickying this thread for future reference.

[[DWARF] RDs.empire]

Main problem with learning quark is that you have to get used to 4 view system and cant do everything in 3D view like most people do in blender 3D or constructor. For me it feels strange that you can't see properly what you want to select if there is ton of brushes already. Of course I use side views too if I need to select some tricky vertices but that is minimal thing.

Basically the way you learn constructor is by learning all its bugs... things map2dif can't handle and trying to find ways to get around them or make other things instead of buggy ones. There is no built-in tools for debugging so you'll have to develop way to find bad brushes quickly by yourself and even debug them.
My methods are:
1. exporting map as often as you can or after some complicated parts. Doing so saves time when you know you have small area to look for bad brush or brush placement.
2. In case you're far in making map and you can't find brush that crash everything you can try one by one copying some parts of map to other map until main map exports. In this way you can narrow down to smaller area were to look bad brush.
3. If you want to use CSG subtract there is 70% chance it could make microbrushes or weird brushes that will crash exporter so if its complicated thing you're subtracting then do it on some test map and see if it exports before moving it to main map. Otherwise this tool is very useful and worth trying for some crazy things.
4. Things that wont export on map2dif (map2dif+ may export it but there is chance there will be broken faces): Rotated cylinders, spheres some cones and tubes. Brushes that are too big (exporter drops this lightning map error. Biggest brush that you can make without errors is about 70 units big in any axis), Weird triangular or pyramid shapes, Lots of rotated brushes that are colliding with each other in 1 place (sort of of luck game if it will export or not)... could be more that i can't remember atm.
5. Some brushes that can't export can be exported when sliced.
Moving platforms in constructor are PAIN and i can only praise quark for its system.
Its matter of experimenting when you want to make weird and complicated interiors.

[IsraeliRD]

Jul 6, 2013 9:19:13 GMT [DWARF] RDs.empire said:

Main problem with learning quark is that you have to get used to 4 view system and cant do everything in 3D view like most people do in blender 3D or constructor.

I use the wireframe 2D, I can't get my head around anything else. Phil and Pablo have no problems with 3 or 4 views. 3D view isn't that bad though in QuArK.

[ProMarbler]

I looked and found I had Constructor 1.0.3 on my computer. (If I recall.) I additionally recall something of an update, would you have to update Constructor or can I leave it as is, if I ever managed to get a good level idea?

[IsraeliRD]

It's recommended to get 1.0.4 for Mac and 1.0.6 for Windows. I don't know the links off-hand, but I know MarbleDuck posted them somewhere.

[Pablo]

I like the two-view layout in QuArK. I use 3D view to understand the geometry of an area, and once you understand what you're looking at the two-view layout lets you edit very fast.