GTKRadiant or DF level plugins?

[Teancum]

So I'm starting to get to that point where I can't hold back on finishing levels. The issue is that I don't just want to map all willy nilly -- I want to take the original Dark Forces maps and import them so I know that as I build I'm staying true to the rooms and proportions (basically). Does anyone know of a Dark Forces .lev plugin to get it to .obj or something, or for that matter converting it to .map? I'm really hesitant to continue work on mapping without the original levels to whitebox test from.

 

For those curious what whitebox testing is, take a look at the images below. Basically it means taking basic shapes (in this case the original levels) to get gameplay down, and then coming in with finishing touches. Doing this with the original levels as my whitebox means I get it right for every level.

 

Why don't I do this on my own? Well in the 18 years I've modded 3D modeling and 3D programming have always been my weakness. What takes some people a few hours to do takes me weeks and weeks. Thankfully GTKRadiant is fairly simple to use. But looking at a bunch of coordinates in the Dark Forces .lev and GTKRadiant .map files in a text editor makes my head spin.

 

Whitebox testing (note the low poly form):

 

Whitebox on top, sketch for final map on bottom

[ensiform]

What engine was the original ?

 

NVM it was an in-house engine.

[mrwonko]

The XL Engine can load the levels, maybe contact the author for information about the format.

[Teancum]

Okay, I might have a solution

 

1. Use the WDFuse level editor to convert to Duke Nukem 3d Format: http://df-21.net/downloads/util.php
2. Use Map2Map to convert a Duke Nukem 3D map to Quake III Map: https://sourceforge.net/projects/map2map/files/src/Map2Map_2010-29-12.zip/download?use_mirror=iweb

I'll let you know if I make any progress. Maybe I can still find the shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D for this process.