How to create simple slopes

Clipping tool my friend.

Speaking of the clipping tool, you can also use that to drastically reduce the triangle count of your stairs. Assuming your stairs consist of boxes, you can cut them in half like this:


... To get this:


Most importantly tho, you need to func_detail brushwork with a lot of detail - like stairs. It will make it much easier for hammer to compile proper portals.

You mean vbsp and vvis.

ya, i phrased that wrong. I should also have said that, rather than making it "better", it does in fact make it not suck.

henke37 said:

You mean vbsp and vvis.

Click to expand...

The distinction was clearly crucial.

I just want to point out, that even though Hammer begins "Not Responding" it more than likely hasn't frozen. The compile is just taking too long to update the window with new information so Windows considers it frozen. Hammer will quite regularly stop responding even for my short <1 minute compiles, and in my 10+ years of mapping I think I've only had a compile actually freezecrash maybe 3 or 4 times.

To add to what ABS said, I always time the compiling with the stopwatch on my phone. Then I go do something else because "a watched pot never boils". This way if all my compile times have been about two minutes normally then I hit one that is taking five minutes or more, then I can safely assume it probably crashed.

For making slopes, just make a brush and use the clipping tool:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hammer_Clipping_Tool

I prefer making triangular brushes with the clipping tool because you can stretch them back and forth and they stay on the grid. Irregular shapes will come off the grid if you re-size them.

Keep the angle of the slope at or below 45 degrees or else the player can't go up it. Here are some dev wiki pages that discuss maximum slope angles.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dimensions
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/TF2/Team_Fortress_2_Mapper's_Reference