Got a couple of questions, if anyone would be inclined to help

  • If you're asking a question make sure to set the thread type to be a question!

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
Hey.

So, I recently started making a new map. Or tried to, anyway.
Got a few questions, though.

First up is: does anyone on here know, how they made the spawn doors in turbine and 2fort? The glass doors. I've always loved those doors, and would love to have them in my own map.

Second question is if any of you know how they made the textures go kind of.. what's the word I'm looking for? Wry, I think.

I'm talking about the hallway that descends down to the intelligence room in 2fort. I can't for the life of me figure it out

Also, how should I be making a skybox? So far, all I've done, when I needed testing, was to make a big cube around my map, and then using the hollow tool.

Also, this last question might seem a bit silly, but since I'm not that great at thinking creatively most of the time, I just thought I'd ask: How do you come up with layouts for maps?

Do you sketch it out? Make it in Paint/Photoshop or Gimp? Or do you just sort of get to work on it?

Thing is, I've got some ideas, I just wouldn't know how to get started on them, really. Also, while I can livingly imagine the spawn room I'd make, as well as the capture points, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything for inbetween those points.

Last question: what kind of map would you recommend for a beginner to make? Team Fortress 2-wise - I would love to make a 5CP map, but those needs to be well-balanced, as well as being quite big, so I'm thinkig that might not be the best choice.

Any and all help appreciated.
 
Last edited:

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
Hey to you

First up is: does anyone on here know, how they made the spawn doors in turbine and 2fort? The glass doors. I've always loved those doors, and would love to have them in my own map.

Those are made with brushes [blocks], each door is put together in either a func_door or a func_movelinear

Second question is if any of you know how they made the textures go kind of.. what's the word I'm looking for? Wry, I think.

Not sure what you mean. If you mean the staired route then the walls have displacements on them to make them lumpy bumpy. If you mean the ramped route the wall textures are rotated with the rotation box in the texture tool

Also, how should I be making a skybox? So far, all I've done, when I needed testing, was to make a big cube around my map, and then using the hollow tool.

That works, but it's really badly optimised. So don't just lazily do that, have walls that go around your map [leaving a little regular map space - but out of bounds - so it doesn't look undetailed] and having a ceiling that fits on top of that [that isn't again just a square]. It is called a skybox, but it doesn't have to be a cube shape.

Also, this last question might seem a bit silly, but since I'm not that great at thinking creatively most of the time, I just thought I'd ask: How do you come up with layouts for maps?

Layout is something everyone does differently. From what I can remember of regulars, someone drops dominoes on the floor and sees what formation it takes [which is really messy], someone [Bakscratch?] draws triangles and does some funky stuff on that. But personally I either wait until I have a good idea, or start with a spawn room and slowly go out from that.

Last question: what kind of map would you recommend for a beginner to make? Team Fortress 2-wise - I would love to make a 5CP map, but those needs to be well-balanced, as well as being quite big, so I'm thinkig that might not be the best choice.

The best first map type is always Arena or KotH, mostly due to size and symmetricality. 5cp is probably the worst to start off with, there's a lot to know about making maps before-hand.

 

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
Hey to you



Those are made with brushes [blocks], each door is put together in either a func_door or a func_movelinear



Not sure what you mean. If you mean the staired route then the walls have displacements on them to make them lumpy bumpy. If you mean the ramped route the wall textures are rotated with the rotation box in the texture tool



That works, but it's really badly optimised. So don't just lazily do that, have walls that go around your map [leaving a little regular map space - but out of bounds - so it doesn't look undetailed] and having a ceiling that fits on top of that [that isn't again just a square]. It is called a skybox, but it doesn't have to be a cube shape.



Layout is something everyone does differently. From what I can remember of regulars, someone drops dominoes on the floor and sees what formation it takes [which is really messy], someone [Bakscratch?] draws triangles and does some funky stuff on that. But personally I either wait until I have a good idea, or start with a spawn room and slowly go out from that.



The best first map type is always Arena or KotH, mostly due to size and symmetricality. 5cp is probably the worst to start off with, there's a lot to know about making maps before-hand.

Thanks for the answers. I know the basic functions of Hammer, like brushes and such. I also start off my brushes with nodraw, and then just paint the surfaces people can see.

Also, how hard is it to do "advanced shapes" and such in Hammer? I saw a tutorial, where the guy was just using a a cylinder, which he put inside a block. He used the vertex tool to merge them together - I tried that a couple of times, and it usually ends up with my map getting errors, so I understand it's probably not the best.
 

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
Thanks for the answers. I know the basic functions of Hammer, like brushes and such. I also start off my brushes with nodraw, and then just paint the surfaces people can see.

Also, how hard is it to do "advanced shapes" and such in Hammer? I saw a tutorial, where the guy was just using a a cylinder, which he put inside a block. He used the vertex tool to merge them together - I tried that a couple of times, and it usually ends up with my map getting errors, so I understand it's probably not the best.

I've not used advanced shapes myself (assuming you mean the vertex tool), but I suppose it depends what you want it for. Most of the time when you dev out a map, you don't need these real special shapes, but I guess it's there if you do.

And as for nodrawing, that's one of the good methods, the other one being devving out regularly, then when you come to detail it you detail it as normal with nodraws or devs, then replace all dev textures (with Replace in the texture tool) to nodraws.
 

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
I've not used advanced shapes myself (assuming you mean the vertex tool), but I suppose it depends what you want it for. Most of the time when you dev out a map, you don't need these real special shapes, but I guess it's there if you do.

And as for nodrawing, that's one of the good methods, the other one being devving out regularly, then when you come to detail it you detail it as normal with nodraws or devs, then replace all dev textures (with Replace in the texture tool) to nodraws.

Well, what I mean by advanced shapes is round shapes, though that may not be too advanced. I've seen people use the cutting tool for it, but I can't figure out how they do it - it goes quite fast when they do it, at least from what I can see. Or, making a hole in the floor or the wall, and making it look realistic. I realize that that kind of thing would take lots of practice, but it'd definately add some depth to the map.

And I think that odd shapes makes a map a bit more detailed. Granted, in real life you won't see a lot of odd shapes on buildings, but in games, a big cube with windows and some props outside tends to be a bit boring.
 
Last edited:
Sep 19, 2010
475
499
Well, what I mean by advanced shapes is round shapes, though that may not be too advanced. I've seen people use the cutting tool for it, but I can't figure out how they do it - it goes quite fast when they do it, at least from what I can see.

And I think that odd shapes makes a map a bit more detailed. Granted, in real life you won't see a lot of odd shapes on buildings, but in games, a big cube with windows and some props outside tends to be a bit boring.
Round as in a sphere or a cylinder? For cylinders, there is a drop down menu on the right side (default is set to block). You can change that to cylinder and choose how many sides you want it to have.
 

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
Round as in a sphere or a cylinder? For cylinders, there is a drop down menu on the right side (default is set to block). You can change that to cylinder and choose how many sides you want it to have.

I'd guess a sphere. Though, what I'm talking about, is a VERY smooth kind of circle, be it a wall or a floor, maybe a skylight. I know there's a map in Team Fortress 2, where the walls in the spawnroom is a very smooth half-circle of sorts. Or a crescent, I don't know.

I can't remember the map name, though. But the middle point on Gullywash is kind of a good example, I think. The round building, where the point is
 
Last edited:

Zeigh

L2: Junior Member
Jul 13, 2012
60
18
http://imgur.com/Y30tQCq

This is how I clip round stuff out of blocks, I used to draw stuff like this as doodles in school when the lesson was boring. Funny how this turned out to be an useful method in mapping. The more points you use the rounder it gets.
 

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
I'd guess a sphere. Though, what I'm talking about, is a VERY smooth kind of circle, be it a wall or a floor, maybe a skylight. I know there's a map in Team Fortress 2, where the walls in the spawnroom is a very smooth half-circle of sorts. Or a crescent, I don't know.

I can't remember the map name, though. But the middle point on Gullywash is kind of a good example, I think. The round building, where the point is

I'm pretty sure those used cylinders, yes. You can change how many sides it has, like for a sphere too (but not a regular block). As for the spawnroom, I'm more than confident they put a quarter of a cylinder into a cube and then used the carve tool on the cylinder (not the cube!), then stretched and fit the result in, removing the used cylinder.
 

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
http://imgur.com/Y30tQCq

This is how I clip round stuff out of blocks, I used to draw stuff like this as doodles in school when the lesson was boring. Funny how this turned out to be an useful method in mapping. The more points you use the rounder it gets.

I'll have to try that out eventually, thanks.

I'm not that great with the cutting tool yet, though.
 

M.O.M

L1: Registered
Feb 25, 2014
6
0
I'm pretty sure those used cylinders, yes. You can change how many sides it has, like for a sphere too (but not a regular block). As for the spawnroom, I'm more than confident they put a quarter of a cylinder into a cube and then used the carve tool on the cylinder (not the cube!), then stretched and fit the result in, removing the used cylinder.

I'll just have to play around with it, I guess. Or, at the very least, I know what tutorials I'll have to look for.

Thanks for your help - all of you. (I don't know if you can quote multiple posts on here, so I can't include all in one post)

As for the layout of my map, I guess I'll just kind of go with the flow, whilst trying to think about balance, and where to place health and ammo packs.

It feels daunting - having to think about balance. Making sure there's lots of routes, and that every class has a fighting chance.

Again, thank you all. I'll definately be hanging around, even if I'm not going to post most of the time. My knowledge of Hammer editor isn't that big, haha.
 
Last edited:

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
Don't use carve.

The scapegoat of "don't use carve" is completely wrong. "most of the time there's a better tool for the job than carve" is a lot truer. In a situation like this, carve does this job as you want with minimum trouble.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
The scapegoat of "don't use carve" is completely wrong. "most of the time there's a better tool for the job than carve" is a lot truer.
I'm pretty sure there's always a better tool than carve. If you're trying to do something only carve can legitimately do better than building the shape manually, you're probably trying to do something ridiculous that shouldn't have been attempted in the first place. Like, I dunno, an inverted sphere or something.
 

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
I'm pretty sure there's always a better tool than carve. If you're trying to do something only carve can legitimately do better than building the shape manually, you're probably trying to do something ridiculous that shouldn't have been attempted in the first place. Like, I dunno, an inverted sphere or something.

We really shouldn't turn this thread into a debate about the infamous Carve tool, but there are situations where it's useful, despite what people will tell you; mostly because they're ignorant.

For the situation mentioned - wanting rounded corners to a room - what would you use? The vertex tool would take a long time, as would using wedges - for essentially the same result with the Carve tool; the only difference being the Carve tool is more accurate.

It definitely shouldn't be used for your lazy go-to though, because it does mess up things sometimes.
 
Sep 19, 2010
475
499
One of my favorite methods for rounded corners: Click.

And of course, as Frozen says in the thread:
Just make sure that when you do that subdivision, you add a nodraw texture behind it (not through it) and seal it with with the other walls. Displacements don't seal a map.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
The drawback to that, if you're talking about inner corners, is that it gives you the same problem as func_detailed wedges jammed into your corners: The lighting doesn't remain smooth between the rounded corners and the flat walls. The best method is to use the arch tool, never func_detail the pieces, and stretch the outer edges out to form a flat corner if necessary. You'll just get a visleaf that happens to have rounded corners, is all. Ain't nothing wrong wi' dat.