Useful console commands for mappers

Brandished

L5: Dapper Member
Jan 19, 2008
234
311
This is a list I've been putting together of all the helpful console commands I've found for testing out maps. A lot of these I've found either here in the forums or over on the Steam user forums, others on my own through experimenting.

Anyways, here's what I have so far:


For Reference

command_name minumum_value - maximum_value


sv_cheats 0 - 1
1 enables. Turns on cheat mode, necessary for running most of the console commands below.

noclip 0 - 1
1 enables. Disables player clipping allowing you to walk through walls and not be affected by gravity.

map mapname
Reboots the server and loads the selected map.

changelevel mapname
Change to the selected map without rebooting the server.

mp_waitingforplayers_cancel 0 - 1
1 enables. Turns off the "Waiting for players" time when you load up a new map.

mp_disable_respawn_times 0 - 1
1 enables. Enable instant respawn (no respawn times).

showtriggers_toggle
Renders all trigger boxes in the map using the tools trigger texture.

mat_texture_list 0 - 1
1 enables. Generates a table of all the textures currently being displayed on the screen.

vcollide_wireframe 0 - 1
1 enables. Renders the collision boxes for models in a blue wireframe.

buddha 0 - 1
1 enables. Turns on buddha (god) mode. your can still take damage, but won't die. hp will stop going down once it reaches 1. Also, once your health reaches one can no longer perform a sticky/rocket jump until your health is replenished.

cl_drawhud 0 - 1
0 hides. Hide/Unhide the HUD display (ammo, health, etc.).

cl_leveloverview 0 - 1
1 enables. Shows an ariel overview of the whole map.

cl_showpos 0 - 1
1 enables. Reports your current world position in hammer units, angle of your vision, as well as your current velocity in hammer units/second in the upper right corner of the screen.

mp_simulatemultiplecappers 0 - 15
Change the capping number that shows up when you stand on the point.
eg: "mp_simulatemultiplecappers 1" is the default, "2" would show 2x (same as scout), 3 for 3x, etc. If you playing as the Scout, the value is doubled (eg: "mp_simulatemultiplecappers 2" would show 4x).

mp_tournament 0 - 1
1 enables. Turns on tournament mode which removes team auto-balancing and disables the map round timer.

give item_ammopack_full
Simulates walking over a large ammo pack. Refills your ammo supply to 100%.

give item_healthkit_full
Simulates walking over a large healthkit. Refill your players health to 100%.

surfaceprop
Reports the name of the texture under your targeting reticule and how far away it is from your current location.

mat_wireframe 0 - 1
1 enables. Shows a wire-frame outline of all object currently being rendered on screen. Red for brushes. Blue for models. Yellow for ? (Dunno)

mat_leafvis 0 - 1
1 enables. Shows a red outline of the visi leaf you're in.

mat_fullbright 0 - 2
0 - Disables
1 - Fully bright.
2 - Removes textures leaving just lighting and normal/bump maps.

showbudget 0 - 1
1 enables. Turns on the texture budget panel.

maps *
Lists all the maps currently available on the server.

mp_restartround 1 - 60
Restarts the current round in the specified amount of seconds.

net_graph 0 - 3
0 Disables.
1 Shows the network usage graph.
2 Draws data on payload.
3 Draws payload legend.

cl_entityreport 0 - 3
1 enables. Displays a list of all the entities currently being rendered clientside.

report_entities
Lists all entities used in the map.

map_showspawnpoints
Shows the location of all the spawn points in the map and the direction they're facing for a time period of 60 seconds.
(Dunno how to disable this short of rebooting the server or waiting 60 seconds)

r_drawentities 0 - 3
1 Enables. Changing the value to 0 hides all models and brushes tied to entities (other then func_detail) from view.

cl_showfps
Show the current FPS in green which can be seen in the upper right corner of the screen.

hurtme damageamount
Removes the specified amount from your health, negative numbers add the specified amount to your health. (Not sure what the min and max values are for this)


I'm planning on adding to this list as I go along. I've been using a few of these through a mapping configure file, mapping.cfg I have set to load up when I hit my kp_insert key. (thanks to Youme for most of this script)

Code:
alias distancealias "developer 1; surfaceprop; wait 750; developer 0"

bind "p" "distancealias"
bind "KP_SLASH" "sv_cheats 1"
bind "KP_MULTIPLY" "mp_waitingforplayers_cancel 1; ent_fire tf_gamerules addredteamrespawnwavetime -20; ent_fire tf_gamerules addblueteamrespawnwavetime -20; mp_teams_unbalance_limit 16"
bind "KP_MINUS" "noclip"
 
Last edited:

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
I believe, that for buddha mode once you reach minimum hp you can no longer demo/rocket jump due to not being able to take further damage. however I may have a faulty memory on this one since I've not used buddha mode for a fair few months.

good list though :D

you might want to include mat_fullbright 0, 1 and 2 (where 0 is normal lighting, 1 is fully bright and 2 is no textures, just lighting and bump/normal maps)
 

Brandished

L5: Dapper Member
Jan 19, 2008
234
311
I believe, that for buddha mode once you reach minimum hp you can no longer demo/rocket jump due to not being able to take further damage. however I may have a faulty memory on this one since I've not used buddha mode for a fair few months.

Just checked, your memory serves correct. I added a note.

good list though :D
Thanks!

you might want to include mat_fullbright 0, 1 and 2 (where 0 is normal lighting, 1 is fully bright and 2 is no textures, just lighting and bump/normal maps)

Added.
 

Paria

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 12, 2007
202
31
perfui - has a very useful tool for visually checking areaportals particularly with mat_leafvis 1 you can see how your hints are helping /not helping alongside areaportals.

mp_respawnwavetime 0-10 - for making it instant respawn- useful if you only have a few players testing and you want them straight back into the action when they die

mp_timelimit can be used to test end game conditions on the fly - i.e setting it 1 min in game is a quick way to see what happens on a ctf map -e,g in my case when i forgot to add the tf_gamerules to a logic auto :D

record demoname
stop - to stop recording
demoui - for playback and a host of other cool features
 

Pseudo

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 26, 2008
319
150
I'm not sure if "hurtme" has a limit; I've given myself millions of negative damage and it seems to work. If you use it to give yourself more health than your maximum, it will act like you're overhealed and your health will slowly decrease until it reaches its normal amount.

Here's some commands that I like:

help <command>
Display info about a console command.

find <text>
Search for commands with the specified string in their name or help text.

ent_fire <target> [action] [value] [delay]
Send an entity an input.

ent_info <classname>
List all of the inputs that a class can receive.

ent_messages_draw <0 - 1>
Visualizes all entity input/output activity.

mat_reloadallmaterials
Reloads all materials.

mat_reloadmaterial <materialname>
Reloads a single material. Can be used to make texture changes while running the map.

mat_specular <0 - 1>
Turns reflections on or off. Will also reload all materials.

r_drawviewmodel <0 - 1>
Turns your display of your playermodel on or off.

crosshair <0 - 1>
Hide/Unhide the crosshair.

Turning off cl_drawhud, r_drawviewmodel, and crosshair will hide all screen elements and is useful for taking screenshots.

bot -team <teamname/number> -class <classname> -name <botname>
Create a bot. See this for more info.
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
This should go to the tutorial/tips forum. Great info btw
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
And lets not forget the most important command when it comes to making a map that doesn't look like crap:
buildcubemaps You should set mat_specular to 0 before running this or the pink grid might get captured in the cubemaps.

There is also tf_bot_add for some intelligent bots (run nav_generate before or else they are worse than the dummy bots).
 

NateTheNatyMapMaker

L1: Registered
Feb 6, 2021
19
6
mat_wireframe also has a 2 and a 3 mode that display different types of wireframes. E.g. 3 displays wireframes that are rectangular and match the dimensions of brushes instead of being all triangular

mat_leafvis has these too, but idk what 2 does. 3 however shows all of the visleaves at once, and you can see them through everything
 

bonke

L1: Registered
Jun 30, 2021
1
0
in net_wireframe, the yellow ones are decals (like bullet holes and sprays) and there are also dark red wireframes for particles. I don't know if there are other color wireframes but those are the two I noticed.