First map

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
cp_mineshaft

CP MineShaft

Progress bar:

Rough layout - 95%
Displacements - 70%
Spawn Rooms - 30%
All other - 0%

If obvious and newbie questions offend you leave now....you have been warned....feel free to link me to useful sites whereever necessary

Picked up hammer for the first time a couple of days ago, and I am still experimenting with it, want to make a basic CTF, just to get used to the program.
Read the easiest/best, way to do this is to make one half of the ma and then just mirror it, to create two identical sections, one for each team.

So far I have a room/building.
Image1
As is obvious, for some reason the defult texture when I open hammer is brickfloor, which is annoying difficult to distinguish courners and seperate sections apart from each other. How can I change this to be the standard orannge/grey scheme that everyone else seems to have?

My second question is regarding "invalid solid structure" error, when using vertex manipulation. Some shape are obviously not really possible, but what flags up this error (all I know is it is something to do with concave shapes) I had this error when making the back wall that you can see in the image, in the end I solved this problem by using two blocks, a triangle and a square, instead of making it from one, it worked to start with, but when I tried to add mitre joins to the other vertical walls it came up with this error, and the autofix option did nothing to help.

Last question for now is where do i find (and how do I add) standard objects like the red and blu containers to the map?

I'm sure these questions are painful for the experienced mappers out there, but I hope that this thread will be able to be refered to in the future by new people when they start making maps.

Does anyone know any GOOD first map tutorials out there? I found a few, but nothing amazinging insightful.
The tutorial on this site are great, (just not basic enough stuff for me) I think I could probably make a set of Youme's cliffs, but as I don't yet know how to make a container, I think thats a few months away.
 
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Scoobingsthe2nd

L4: Comfortable Member
Nov 11, 2007
170
0
If obvious and newbie questions offend you leave now....you have been warned....feel free to link me to useful sites whereever necessary

Picked up hammer for the first time a couple of days ago, and I am still experimenting with it, want to make a basic CTF, just to get used to the program.
Read the easiest/best, way to do this is to make one half of the ma and then just mirror it, to create two identical sections, one for each team.

So far I have a room/building.
http://project7.dnsalias.com/tf2/firstmap/room1.jpg
As is obvious, for some reason the defult texture when I open hammer is brickfloor, which is annoying difficult to distinguish courners and seperate sections apart from each other. How can I change this to be the standard orannge/grey scheme that everyone else seems to have?

My second question is regarding "invalid solid structure" error, when using vertex manipulation. Some shape are obviously not really possible, but what flags up this error (all I know is it is something to do with concave shapes) I had this error when making the back wall that you can see in the image, in the end I solved this problem by using two blocks, a triangle and a square, instead of making it from one, it worked to start with, but when I tried to add mitre joins to the other vertical walls it came up with this error, and the autofix option did nothing to help.

Last question for now is where do i find (and how do I add) standard objects like the red and blu containers to the map?

I'm sure these questions are painful for the experienced mappers out there, but I hope that this thread will be able to be refered to in the future by new people when they start making maps.

Does anyone know any GOOD first map tutorials out there? I found a few, but nothing amazinging insightful.
The tutorial on this site are great, (just not basic enough stuff for me) I think I could probably make a set of Youme's cliffs, but as I don't yet know how to make a container, I think thats a few months away.

#1 you have to retexture the walls manually, there isn't a button you can push (to my knowledge).

#2 invalid solid structure is when you have a brush that forms a concave shape. Sometimes you can easily fix this, but most of the time unless you know exactly what is causing it to be concave you have to just delete the brush. If you quit the map and try to come back any invalid solid structures won't load, so make sure you always check for problems before you quit

#3 I'm not sure what you mean by containers, but details and such are entities entitled prop_static, or prop_dynamic. Dynamic are ones that move, static are ones that are stationary. It's recommended that you use static because dynamic prop calculations very from client to client (so if something gets moved for one person, it might be in a completely different spot on someone else's).
 

fartron

L1: Registered
Jan 27, 2008
45
11
The Texture Application Tool (shift+a, also is in the toolbar) has a Replace... function that will let you swap textures en masse.

The orange and grey textures you see people using while they're working are the dev textures.. when Browsing for textures type in "dev" to search for them.
 

Diddly

L1: Registered
Nov 5, 2007
29
1
Look in the tutorials section of this forum, there are some good links in there and please only use the orange/grey textures for development only ;-).
 

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
cylinders/circles etc.

I have been using the arc tool to make some cylinders, and I was wondering how many sides should I use. I want it to look circular, but I can imagine that if I make if from 1000 blocks it with slow the map down. Manly wondering what is a good number to use? What sort of numbers do you use?

P.S. Images coming soon


Edit: Oh....Also what is the easiest way to mirror one half of the map, so I don't have remake it again exactly the same. Do I have to Ctrl + click every single block??? Then transform or is there a way to select all? assuming that is how you do it (using the transform tool).
Note: I want the map mirrored not rotated (like ctf_impact).
 
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Paria

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 12, 2007
202
31
from my limited experience the biggest thing with arches and cylinders is what they will do to visleafs - make sure they are going to be func_detail and if you need them to block visibility you can hide a nice big fat nodraw square inside them(cylinders).

I've found that making the number of sides similar to hammer grid increments will help with aligning things together - so ,8,16 seem to work for me

you can select all from the edit menu.
 

bazola

L1: Registered
Feb 12, 2008
34
1
A few quick things.

My advice is to change your texture to nodraw (type nodraw into the filter) before you start making brushes. Then later when you are getting ready to compile something you can use shift+a to add texture to only the visible sides of the brushes. With the shift+a tool, you can hold control and click on multiple faces to apply the same texture to multiple places at once.

The second thing would be to make the big boxes you are working on with a large grid size(I usually start with 32); then with the select tool, shift+left click to duplicate the objects. Then resize them to make the room. You will find that starting a map this way is very quick.

Also I wouldn't use the arch tool and I would rarely use the vertex tool, except for small stuff I guess. The reason is that when you are trying to put walls and things together than are made out of arches, many times your walls won't line up the way you want. What I do is build the map out of cubes, and then use the clip tool to make cuts. This method guarantees that at least the ends of your brushes will be on a grid point.

My final advice has to do with optimization. You will probably reach the point in a few days where you notice the performance of your map suffering. Inevitably the reason will be a lack of optimization planning, and func_details. I love this tutorial: http://www.student.ru.nl/rvanhoorn/optimization.php?chapter=intro

So I would not plan on keeping anything you make until after you understand optimization. Welcome to the community and I hope you are enjoying mapping!
 

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
Thanks for replies

Don't think I can use a func_detail as this is going to be a large cylinder building that people can enter etc

How does clipping tool work? Been carefully using vertex tool up to now.

"change your texture to nodraw (type nodraw into the filter) before you start making brushes"
Do you generally do this for everything?

Not thought of optimisation at all (Don't really know what it is other than something to do with what is rendered)
 

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
Ok time to revive this thread now that the layout is done.

I have completed half of the map (layout wise) - the other half is just a mirror image so this is easy to just copy across, although displacements and lighting before copying I think.
But I am not sure what to do next.

Things I can think of -
Displacements
Textures
Lighting/Optimisation
Functioning Respawn Rooms
CP's that work
Playtesting
Props/details

What order do I need to do the above in?
Other than respawn/CP's before playtesting
Im not sure if displacements first, as they will (slightly) affect the shape of the map.

Screenies to follow...When I get a chance.
 

Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
your default texture should be "nodraw", then you retexture the walls (etc) that people will see. Also nearly every basic brush that isnt a wall (and sometimes walls) should be a func detail unless its plugging the void. Displacements and func_details dont block the void.

Before you playtest, get basic lighting and basic textures done. Props and details arent needed for playtesting.
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
your default texture should be "nodraw",

Matter of opinion.

Personally my default texture is Dev, as its easier to see.

When i texture it all up i go to replace>dev>nodraw.

so all my covered dev is now nodraw.
 

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
Thanks guys, nice idea DJive, since I have been using dev textures I'll porbably do that.

But mainly what should I do next after the layout.

Someone said playtest others said to displacements first, and even texturing.
 

Vander

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Feb 16, 2008
506
215
Matter of opinion.

Personally my default texture is Dev, as its easier to see.

When i texture it all up i go to replace>dev>nodraw.

so all my covered dev is now nodraw.


Never thought about it doing that before. Nodraw isn't always easy on the eyes. Nice technique!
 

Spike

L10: Glamorous Member
Feb 13, 2008
716
82
I use always nodraw, bacause when testing compiling is faster, and ingmae is easier to render.
 

Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
YAY Screenies....

Ok, it is NOT going to stay orange, cause thats bad
Only half the map is there, as I havn't copied the other half across
Cliffs and floors will become displacements...When someone tells me what order I should do stuff in (see previous post).

a601.jpg


a602.jpg


a603.jpg


a604.jpg


a605.jpg


a606.jpg


The last image also shows a line in my skybox, why is this? Is it becasue currently there are massive leaks (as half the map os open where it hasnt been rotated) or is it something worse

P.S. How do I do thumbnails rather than big images?
 
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Ace

L3: Member
Feb 15, 2008
112
9
Spot the difference with the above :)

a607.jpg

a608.jpg


Displacement Cliffs done! Took hours to do as the merge fully to the floor and tunnel entrances. - special thanks to Youme for displacement cliff guide which pushed me in the right direction when I needed help.

Might have a playtesting session, not sure cause it still needs to be played with mat_fullbright 1 as the only light is the light_env so it's dark everywhere else.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
Looking better, as 'displacement king' I've got to critisise them :p - They look very vertical, nicely smoothed, but they don't actually look like cliffs yet, try pulling the base out a bit and pushing the top bit in so its more of an S shape profile rather than an l shaped profile. (in places you might want to pull the middle in or out to or put the base further in or out to create variety)


oh, and don't forget to add some Z axis action on the ground aswell.