[GD-General] Level Editing

[Tiziano L. <tl...@li...>]

Hi to all!
I have a problem in level editing and I wonder if anyone has any good idea.
Let's say that a game uses models created for example with 3DS Max and that 
there are several
changes in the 3d level during the development. For a game (such as a FPS) 
there are a lot of other informations
that are needed (such as trigger positions, paths, custom shaders, lights).
Well, every time that a modified level is exported from Max this data is 
lost and it needs to be reimported.
I thought about some alternatives but no one seems to me the silver bullet 
of level editing (if one exist :)).

- do all the editing inside 3ds Max
I think programming a plugin like this is not so easy... and what if the 
next project uses Maya or Lightwave?

- merge
Starting from the old level the objects are merged in the new (empty) 
level. The problem is that some data are geometry
dependent (eg. shaders, paths) and can be lost or invalid.

- editor
Build a 3d editor with tools to modify or create the level and provide a 
simple interface to import data from Max.
This could be the better choice but it's an huge amount of work and 
modellers'll probably complain because 'it's not max'.
Thank you!

P.S. sorry for bad english