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J.A.C.K. (Initially Volatile Hammer Editor^[1], commonly Jack) is a map editor for games with a Quake-style BSP architecture. J.A.C.K. is heavily based on Hammer, improving upon the experience from Hammer 3.5 by adding many quality of life features inspired by those found in Hammer 4.x, Q3Radiant, and more^[Clarify]

J.A.C.K. is available for free on its website. A paid version, with several bugfixes and some extra features, is also available on Steam.

Important:The map compilers which come with J.A.C.K. are forked from older versions of the various engines' compile tools and are not actively maintained. Additionally, the paid version of J.A.C.K. does not include compile tools for GoldSrc due to license conflicts.

As J.A.C.K. exclusively uses Valve220 notation for exported MAP files (being the first editor to extend it for use with Quake II and Quake III), a supported compiler is required. The following up-to-date compilers are supported:

GoldSrc - VHLT 3.4 and forks
- Sven Co-op - SCHLT
Quake (and Hexen II) - ericw-tools
Quake II - see Quake MAP (file format)
id Tech 3 - the version of Q3MAP2 included with NetRadiant-Custom

Features

General Features

Cross-platform editing (Windows and Linux)
Large memory addressing (64-bit)
Extensible via plugins
Supports various game formats and resources
Customizable color schemes
Realtime texture effects (transparency, animation, scrolling)
Improved decal rendering (Half-Life)
Embedded shader editor (Quake III)
Large map support (up to 262144 x 262144 units)
Multiple VisGroups per object
Textures bound to game configurations
Loads resources on demand
Dynamic sky rendering
Supports curved surfaces (patches) from Quake III engine

2D View Features

Background images with adjustable offset, scale, luminance, and filtering
Selection while dragging in 3D view

3D View Features

Selection while dragging objects
Display of origins for models and sprites
User camera placement, movement, deletion, saving, and loading

Entity Editing Features

Smart mode improvements with preview of assigned key values
Support for Hexen II
VMF format import and export (beta)
Triangulation of non-planar faces
Incremental saving with version numbering
Improved entity report with hidden entity management
Advanced patch texturing functions

Other Features

Tabs in Texture Browser
Ability to hide triggers and unknown entities
Texture axes locking during vertex manipulation
Selection center display in status bar
Tear-off mode for submenus
Support for deformVertexes autosprite and autosprite2 in Quake 3 shaders
Many more minor improvements

Additional Features (from previous versions)

Compile maps within the editor (non-blocking)
Automatic selection in 3D view
Improved snap to grid functionality
Preserve internal connections during copy/paste and clone operations
Model viewer integration
Extended FGD format for entity descriptions
Autosave functionality
Update checking
Multilingual support (English, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish)
Precise model selection in 3D view
Loading and rendering of portal (*.prt) and hull (*.p0-p3) files
Assigning random yaw to entities
Multiple texture fitting
Texture replacement with scaling
Context menus for entity creation

For more details, refer to the changelog^[2].

Trivia

J.A.C.K. was used to make three of the four deathmatch maps that were added in Half-Life's 25th Anniversary Update. Contamination and Rocket Frenzy were built using the free version (1.1.1064), and Pool Party was built using the Steam version (1.1.2800).