I need to get back to other work, but I wanted to post a quick follow-up about the whole 3D architecture/building content creation tool "problem" I'm having. I noted that Garage Games' Torque Constructor was getting nearer to reality -- as it's gone into beta -- which pushed me ever so slightly further into researching other tools available to create interiors for 3D games (notably for Torque since I'm playing with that these days.)

I've used the aforementioned QuArK most recently, but I honestly didn't get too far into it. At the time I was furthest into this stuff, I was lacking a project to keep me focussed. Right now, I'm in "research mode" so I will be trying to find as many tools as I can... in this case, for creating "levels" and/or buildings and interiors for levels. I won't go into the distinction of terms right now, sorry. :P

So... I'm wanting to point out another tool that I hadn't pointed out in my post: Cartography Shop appears to do much (all?) of what is needed for creating architecture for 3D game levels. It's pretty inexpensive, but I'm not personally going to commit until I find out more about Constructor's pricing/availability.

It also appears (from posts by Garage Games employees) that these guys aren't working directly with GG on specific Torque integration or whatever. That doesn't make it less of a worthy product (I haven't tried it yet, but there is a demo,) but it does affect my decisions if I end up going with Torque for future development. In fact, just to give you more to read if you're looking in the same direction, I'm seeing the Torque Pipeline for Cartography Shop as a possible resource for using CS for TGE. Again, this isn't an endorsement, nor have I found all the options in this space... this is just where my research landed so far. Fun, isn't it? Please add comments about other options if you know of them... please? :)

If you're doing non-TGE stuff, or if you need a something besides the other free tools now, you might find this sucker to be what you need/want. Heck, you might find this program to be excellent... in which case, you should be posting comments here so the rest of us know how it is!! :)

Here's a blurb from the Torque Pipeline page that sums up basically why I'm on this journey to discover alternatives:

If you tried to use QuArK and found it to be difficult to setup much less use for mapping on a daily basis, the Cartography Shop + Torque Pipeline combo is what you need. Yes QuArK is free and we can't beat that price, but is your time really free? Can you afford to battle the tools while you try to build that next complex building for you game? Torque Pipeline fully supports all the major capabilities of the DIF format in a simple to use package that won't frustrate you or hamper your creativity.