newbie question

i would have posted in 'beginners' but it's defn. 3d related...

what's the difference between a world editor and level editor? some terrain editors seem to allow you to place objects, wouldn't that then be equivalent to a world editor?

what is a lightmapper for? what is a lightmap, when do you load that, what is it for?

and finally, what's the deal with shadows, why would i need a 'shadow system'? do lights not cause shadows to happen automatically?

slightly confused newbie!

(is there a beginners overview somewhere??)

As for level editor and world editor.

Level editors are generally indoor area editors, sort of what you would find in an FPS alot of the time. World editors are usually the whole deal, or mainly focused on outdoors.

Lightmapping creates a texture that overlays all other textures in a map, and creates what are known as static shadows, since they won't be upsating or changing when things move.

A 'Shadow system' manages shadows on dynamic(oposite of static ;)) shadows. Things like players, and other moving objects.

Theres no overview I've found for this stuff, it's just things you pick up along the way.

Lights do not cause shadows to automagically happen because this would be way to costly. Usually you only want shadows for your main charachter (makes it easier to judge position).