Okay, there's the deal. I have aquired a copy of WorldCraft, the program used for making levels in the Torque Game Engine. I know how to use most of the basic functions, and I'm getting pretty good with making building and stuff, but does anyone have any good tips for making good game levels? Also, does anyone know if you can insert AI paths on the maps? Thanks

The best way i do level design is fill in anything that feels empty. Add the SLIGHTEST detail from small graits in the ground to little cracks and holes, it all makes everyting look so much better. Plenty of trees and grass can make a huge difference.

Depending what engine your using you need to make sure you use some of single surface system for your grass/tress etc to keep ther framerates up.

Thanks guys, but that doesn't really help me. WorldCraft is primarily for making buildings for the Torque Game Engine. If there is anyone who uses Torque and are very good with WorldCraft please post tips to making good level addons!

Thanks guys, but that doesn't really help me. WorldCraft is primarily for making buildings for the Torque Game Engine. If there is anyone who uses Torque and are very good with WorldCraft please post tips to making good level addons!

Hey there, nice to see another Irish roaming around here :)
The problem is that there isn't really a recipe to make a great level. I know, it's lame, but it's true.
For a start, it all depends on the style of game you are playing. A Deathmatch level has nothing to do with a Capture the Flag level, because the constraints you want to impose on the players are very different.
I suggest you look for stuff about "level design", for instance I found this on RUST (the Telefragged website for level design in general)
I was trying to find some of my old favourites, but they seem to have been absorbed :-/
Check out the Editing section of PLanethalflife, for instance.

The main problem with Torque is that the engine uses a lot of open landscape. For that, I must admit, I haven't read any useful tutorials. Most tutorials will talk about how to make levels for BSP engines (Quake, Unreal, etc) for such and such types of level (most of the time, Deathmatch).
I suggest you look up the kind of game that would be closest to what you want, so you can check out if they have tutorials.
Maybe there are map making tutorials for RTS games that could give you good ideas on how to think about maps in Torque ?
Look up Tribes, Tribes 2 and Starsiege, for instance (since they use the original V12 engine upon which Torque is based).

Be a bit more specific about what style of gameplay / maps you are looking for, maybe somebody can help you better, then.

Also for the AI question, I am pretty sure that you can't actually insert AI paths, because last time I checked, there was no AI whatsoever in Torque. But there are a few tutorials in the articles on GarageGames, so I suggest you go and look it up. AFAIK, if you want AI you gonna have to implement it yourself.

Ultimately, if you are using the Torque engine, you should really be asking on their forums, since the community there is quite helpful, and numerous.

Good luck !

To be honest, the torque engine isn't the best place to learn about level design. Why not go for a more mainstream game/engine that has a large mapping community such as Quake3?

Halflife uses worldcraft, been mapping for it sometime but now its called Hammer
I wonder if we are talking about the same editor but if so, there is alot of resources out there for mapping in worldcraft\hammer.
http://articles.thewavelength.net/section/9/
http://countermap.counter-strike.net/Tutorials/
here are 2 places you can find like; making your first map in worldcraft

good luck

Yes it's the same Worldcraft.
When Torque started, they made it so that people could use Valve's Worldcraft to do their levels, as Worldcraft was free. I also believe you can use Hammer, which corrects a few little bugs that were really annoying in Worldcraft (if you did a lot of vertex editing like me, they were really annoying).

I do agree that if you are gonna do level design, you are probably better off starting with an existing game, which is why I suggested Tribes 2 (since it's the same engine, really), or maybe one of the many Halflife (since it would be the same level editing software).