Anyone else come into map editing from a CAD background?

[TheDarkSide]

I'm finding it very frustrating....as an aerospace design engineer, I've spent the last 10 yrs of my school/career using just about every professional 3D solid modeling/CAD program out there....Pro-E, Ideas, CATIA, AutoCAD....and Radiant is just kicking my ass. The movement and manipulation commands are completely counter to most CAD programs, and brush creation and manipulation (equivalent to solid creation in 3D CAD) is just so.....unfriendly.

A couple of questions: does anybody with a similar background have any suggestions or tips on making the transition? And does anyone know of anyway to convert maps built (not textured or anything) in a CAD program to a format compatible for Radiant to compile?

 

Thanks,

[UniKorn]

Download gmax and tempest.

Tempest will allow you to create your maps in a 3DSMax like environment. Open these mapfiles afterwards with jk2radiant to modify them and apply textures and add entities.

 

But I strongly suggest that you try radiant until you get how it works. It is actually a very powerful tool.

 

Links :

 

http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/

http://www.gmaxsupport.com

[TheDarkSide]

Thanks Uni -

 

I haven't given up on Radiant just yet...but it is extremely frustrating, for me at least, since I consider myself a top notch 3D modeler. I've always picked up CAD stuff pretty quickly until I tried Radiant. I've been wading thru tuts and will keep on trogging thru them until the light bulb clicks on for me. If I could convert a CATIA model to radiant bsp, I'm pretty sure I could crank out some elegant maps.

 

Thanks again for your help, and I can't wait to see what you Wired Lamp guys have in store for us!

 

TDS

[UGG]

Your first level editor is always the hardest. They are in a class of their own, unlike any other CAD program I've seen.

 

My first month of using JED (Jedi Knight editor) was confusing and frustrating, even though I could do 3D modelling with AutoCAD. But once you learn one editor the rest are easy. It only took me a day to become as good with Radiant as I am with JED.

[Conrad]

Because you want those brushes to be made of polygons, but there not. The poly's come later. The brushes you are working with are a set of planes. Where the planes intersect is the volume of your brush.