If you built any maps for Counter-Strike/Half-Life then you probably know that there are several map editors from independent developers which can be used for these games instead of Valve Hammer Editor. For example, J. A. C. K. (also known as Jackhammer) or Q3Radiant. Not everyone knows it, but the developer of the Jackhammer editor is XaeroX and he introduces new features and fixes bugs very actively. We have successfully contacted him and made a small interview. We hope that you will see more of such interviews on our site in future. :)

* Interview was translated from Russian and may contain some translation inaccuracies.

lxr: Tell us about you. What is your name and what do you do?
XaeroX: My name is Alexander, I do a lot of stuff but my primary activity is C++ programming.

lxr: C++ programming is cool. Are you self-taught or did you study it at some school/university?
XaeroX: My way in C++ began while studying at school in 2001 when I found out that Half-Life had been written using it. After that I downloaded SDK and started to learn it deeply and it was cool for me.

lxr: What hobbies do you have?
XaeroX: Development of games and game engines is my primary hobby.

lxr: When and how did you get the idea to make a map editor?
XaeroX: I got this idea very long time ago but I had not got enough skills to implement it until 2013 when I learned the Qt4 framework and understood that the time has come :)
I wanted to give people a "Hammer" with extended options, because all those years I had been watching modders suffering without simple yet useful editor features.
I also needed an editor for my own game engine. Previously I used Q3Radiant but it was too raw and uncomfortable for me; moreover, people did not want to learn a brand new editor in contrast to Hammer which was an accustomed editor in our community.

lxr: Do you have any plans to add support for Source Engine?
XaeroX: There were such plans in the beginning and I modified a parser of FGD files to prevent crashes on Source-specific features, also i added import and export for VMF files. But after that, the progress in this direction was stopped because I needed to add a lot of stuff like support for Source models and textures, Input and Output system, and the most important thing - "Displacements". Besides, Source is not very popular in our community. However, I do not lose hope that this feature will be finished someday.

lxr: Yeah there is a lot of work with adding support for Source engine, but what about Plugins. Do you have any plans to add plugin system and the corresponding API which will bring us an ability to extend features of the editor via plugins?
XaeroX: Jackhammer already has got the plugin system. For example, editor knows nothing about Half-Life or Quake 2 and it uses plugins to work with resources of these games. The same situation is with the importing and exporting MAP, RMF and VMF files. At the same time plugins are not flexible enough to implement such features as "Displacements" in Source Engine. This is the main reason why I modify API from time to time and it breaks compatibility with older versions, so I plan to release Plugin SDK but currently it is not stable yet.

lxr: Do you have a roadmap where users can see information about updates?
XaeroX: At present I update only the Beta version of the editor on Steam, and it is updated automatically for all the clients who enabled the Beta. I hope that a new version will be released soon, but at any rate all the new features are initially added to the beta version.
Here I post information about new features (in Russian).
From time to time I update this steam discussion.
Also it is common practice to post news on Steam after the release version has been updated.
We have not got a roadmap but we have a private bug tracker where I register bugs and suggestions from users. Also I do not set any deadlines for the updates, because currently J.A.C.K. is not a primary project.

lxr: OK, for our users we added an article How to enable Beta in the Jackhammer where I also wrote about current features in beta. Where can we write about found bugs or send our suggestions?
XaeroX: Everyone chooses a convenient way for themselves. All bugs and more or less reasonable suggestions I add to our bug tracker. I do my best to fix fatal bugs as soon as possible, especially those of the released version.
The most reliable way to send a bug report is to use our forum thread (in Russian).
For the suggestions we use another thread (in Russian).
Of course I do not guarantee that complicated features will be added, but I add almost all minor things. I visit Steam community very rarely, so if you want to send your request there, then it is more reliable to send me a private message that I need check it out.

lxr: Tell us about your current projects.
XaeroX: At present our most important project is Perilous Warp - an old-school 3D-shooter. It is still under development and it was not much advertised outside of our community. The second project is a game engine, Volatile, which is being used for our shooter. By the way J.A.C.K. was developed for these projects too. The engine is private now and I think that it will interest only old-school players and developers (others have got Unity and UE4). If you are interested in our projects you can check out this thread.

lxr: Wow! Old-school shooter is a cool thing. Do you give players an ability to jump and duck in this game? :D
XaeroX: Sure. Besides we give an ability to save the game everywhere and skip all the cutscenes. And by the way there is no health regeneration. ;)
We are inspired by Quake 2, Half-Life, Unreal and the almost domestic game Chasm: The Rift (from Ukrainian developers).

lxr: Will you add support of some exotic and interesting movement techniques like bunnynhop/rocketjump or something similar?
XaeroX: Not in singleplayer. But in multiplayer we are going to pay attention to movement tricks for sure. Initially our game is to be released without multiplayer and it is going to be added later; however, the network code in the engine is already written.

lxr: Are you developing Volatile Engine from scratch? What problems do you have in this work?
XaeroX: Yes, Volatile is not based on any third-party engine but of course we use some algorithms and approaches from idTech engines. The main problem is always the same - lack of free time to implement all the desired features.

lxr: Why are you building Volatile from scratch instead of using some ready-to-use engines?
XaeroX: I started to develop my own engine in 2003 and at that time it was trendy and modern approach. I was captured by the process of making huge multi-component system which integrates Rendition, Sound, Physics, Network code, Gaming logic and many other things. That is why I did not think of using a complete engine developed by others despite the fact that it could definitely be of better quality. If I had taken a third-party engine I would probably have lost 90% of satisfaction from the development of our game.

lxr: By the way, talking about your projects, you must have finished some which you can tell us about, must you not? ))
XaeroX: I am more a developer than a designer, so usually I finish projects where the code is more important than the content. :)
For example, here is Wolfram - a remake of Wolfenstein 3D: http://wolfram.hlfx.ru
Or Headcrab Frenzy, "Casual mod" for Half-Life 1: https://store.steampowered.com/app/354900

lxr: Nice. Maybe you have something to say to our community?
XaeroX: I am very glad to see people who respect classics and popularize it among the young. Guys, you are cool! ;)

lxr: Thank you XaeroX :) I hope we will arrange another interview in the future, when your shooter is ready :) Good luck!
XaeroX: Many thanks to all of you!


We are glad to inform you that on this Sunday we start a new Offline Tournament with new map by mlSaNce. To warm up your interest he prepared a special teaser, check it out: