3DS max is pretty good. I would recommend that or Maya. It's almost 50/50 on which one the studio uses. Mostly level designers work in the game engine so we rarely use 3D software but that's not always the case. For example Naughty Dog's levels are usually built in Maya while Bungie use to build their levels all in Max.
If you want to use something that's easy to learn and free, some designers like to use Sketchup.
Course this is all 3D software for level designing. Game engines is a whole nother bag.
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[–]stokeoner 2 points 8 months ago
Are you looking to make landscapes or just assets for an environment? if you're just looking to make assets i would stick with 3ds max if you're looking to build landscapes check out world machine or geocontrol they're both very good programs for creating 3d landscapes.
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[–]SecondSight_ 2 points 1 year ago
3D Max and Maya are basically the same today. Besides these and Blender... are there even any other 3D packages ?
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[–]colbehr 1 point 1 year ago
I would suggest Hammer, which is the source engine. Its free with any Valve game (half-life 2, Team fortress 2, CSGO) and is pretty easy to learn the basics. Another is the UDK or unreal dev kit. Its also free. 3ds isn't really tailored towards level design.
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[–]TopHATTwaffle 3 points 1 year ago
I use Hammer, but I would not say it's the best.
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[–]colbehr 1 point 1 year ago
I haven't used any others too much, I tried to play around in udk but didn't get far. I just suggested it cause I picked it up pretty easily.
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[–]thatyourownyoke 1 point 1 year ago
I'm an environment artist/ level designer, most studios create there game assets in a 3d software package. Most of the time it's ether maya or 3ds max, when the assets are created the level designer is the one who puts all the pieces together in the game engine. If you ever wanna create environments fast, you should look into creating modular building assets. I hope this helps!
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