Well, I've been using Unity3D engine for quite some time on the graphical side of things, I've always used it to create my maps and get everything set-up all nice and neat how I wanted it, I've also played around in UDK which is basically the same thing, but with more buttons.

However, the friend that I'm working with for our games has gone off to university and he no longer wants to use Unity3D, but the problem is, I'm the graphics designer for everything that we do, we share in writing the stories and he does the programming aspect.

He's recently moved on to writing games in java using OpenGL, however I have no idea how to help him with creating maps anymore, we've taken up Tiled for 2D map editing, which offers Isometric and Orthogonic Tile maps, but we've found nothing for 3D.

Incase some of you don't know what Unity3D was like when it came to world design, it was like this..

You could import models, and place them wherever you wanted them, scale them wherever you wanted them, texture it however you wanted to.

Basically it was a modeling program that allowed you to combine multiple models

Well, if he's going to use pure Java, then you're going to need a level editor.

I am programmer myself, I've used both Unity and Java.

Unity gives you alot of stuff, that your friend is going to have to build or integrate by himself.

Designing a level is the least of his problems... Java can't even load models unless you use some external packages.

Whenever I use pure Java or C++ I build/integrate my own level editors, model importers, image loaders, etc...

The answer is not simple here: If I was an artist, I'd expect the engine programmer to supply me with decent tools. Otherwise you will not be able to work :-(.

This is one of the main reasons people use ready made engines.

I'd try to convince the friend to go back to Unity. Don't pester him, just explain and ask one more time. If he says no, you might want to find a new programmer, who will use Unity.

I'd try to convince the friend to go back to Unity. Don't pester him, just explain and ask one more time. If he says no, you might want to find a new programmer, who will use Unity.

Hello, I posted the thread on behalf of my friend who is over here right now, the reason that I have decided against using unity is simply because of the scripting aspect of it, the RakNet integration that was imported into unity is very low quality and inefficient, while hosting a 4-8 player game on a Unity server isn't that big of a task, anything holding >50 players would certainly start to see a large latency increase.

I'm moving to java for educational purposes as-well, I believe that it will help with my studies while working on something that I have a passion for.

In order to spare my friend the heart-ache of picking up a new program, I'm learning the standard networking in C# and attempting to create a Unity based client to connect and share packet-data between the Java stand-alone server, while doing so I only have noticed one problem so far that seems to be a hassle, while using a TcpClient, Unity will gladly connect to the server (of-course) but as soon as you get the client waiting for packet-data, the unity editor just completely locks up until the server is shut down.

I'm going to continue to look into the matter, perhaps we will be able to salvage the visual aspect of unity after-all.

Use Blender.

Blender exports to any file format you want and will allow you to easily create levels and props, you then only need to program a interpreter for the .blend file.

If you wan't you could wright a text file that stores the position of the objects in blender or unity and use this to import objects into your game.