@HeadClot and @ Duion :
What is it about quake editor that's attractive? Is it the ability to edit the geometry so freely, or the 3-view grid system so moving objects around and resizing them? Or both?
I dug through the threads a bit and that lead me to the latest version of Hammer:
They seem to have went with the grid view as well and constructive geometry (BSP) seems popular. I'm just wondering what pieces of these we're really after? Are the grids a good way to do level editing? Or is it a thing of the past?
Just thought I would chime in on this -
It is not really the quake editor but it is how it operates.
So - Back in the days of Doom / Quake the tools of the Doom and Quake editors allowed for rapid creation of levels using CSG/BSP. Basically you could do all your texturing and level design inside of the editor and not need to touch a third party app.
Basically allowing for a stream of consciousness on level design. What I mean by that is being able to iterate fast and modify things on the fly without relying on a 3rd party app apart from the engine. This goes for all things such as Lighting, Geometry Modification, Texturing, etc.
My advice would be to watch both videos that I have linked.
So what I would recommend is -
1. A mesh or CSG based solution for Torque 6.
2. Real time subtraction, addition, and other operations for new Geometry.
3. Highly Optimized for intricate and large scale scenes.
4. Texturing should should just work similar of that to the Quake 1 and Doom level editing tools.
Now for unreal engines CSG Tools -
CSG slows down the engine (Every face is a draw call) and you are forced to use 3rd party applications such as 3DS max and the like for creating assets. They are planning an upgrade to the toolset called Geometry Tools 2.0 but I am unsure right now.
So basically right now Geometry tools for Unreal Engine sucks right now. I cannot say for certain that will change but I am optimistic.
My advice would be look into a tool called trench broom -
LINK
It used a singe real time view port to get things done also look into the dota 2 mod tools as they are a version of the Source 2 toolset.