Help me make a map!

Ah, the silly reason i joined here, to act like a noob and beg people with actual talent to help me make my map for me.

...erm, forget i just said that xD

anyway, if anyone could be slightly motivated to help me, please send me a pm or reply to this topic. great idea for a map, have no clue how to use the hammer editor well. i got basics, but i lack motivation (and concentration - the hammer editor hurts my brain, literally, gives me a headache)

 

Lack motivation? Sketch a layout out. Make some designs and visions of what you want your map to be.

Hammer's not too hard once you know it, and it's not really that hard to learn it (compared to others like UDK), so just start off with some Hammer tutorials and such on Interlopers or heck, even YouTube.

 

no one needs idea guys, sorry. The idea for a map is one of the smallest stages of development, and all good maps are set apart by their execution. Unfortunately, this is the way most things in the world work as well, so it's not in your interests (or anybody else's) to have other people do work for you.

 

this.

 

ah man don't know how to explain it, but this post pissed me off so much, I now feel motivated, so much in fact to piss myself off in hammer and make this map. thanks, i guess?

anyway, if anyone would like to offer assistance in any way shape or form, please let me know in the topic or in a pm.

also, noting the fact that getting people to do my work for me, i was joking around with that first sentence. maybe i needed a sarcasm tag.

 

We're always willing to help you through it, we have craploads of tutorials on here and on the Valve Developer Wiki (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:Level_Design) that you can take a look at that outline every basic step on making maps.

And yeah, sorry, I didn't notice you were joking around! I've seen a lot of people even offering money for people to make them maps

 

[drama]

-head hitting desk at every period-

fucking. sadists. how the fuck. work. this piece of. living hell. gah.

i give up. if anyone wants to have my idea, just let me know. you can have full credit for it, i dont care. just let me get away from my new nightmare. GAH

[/drama]

(the drama is a lie by the way)

with that out of the way, just want to say that hammer is an unreliable piece of shit, in the sense that you cant ever get it to do what you want it to do, and have to do it in a so damn roundabout fashion it takes forever. I put this project on hiatus until i regain my patience. which will probably be a few days.

 

You could always try UDK if you think Hammer is unreliable. Hammer is just how Valve works even though it's unreliable and old (same with their clocks, dohoho). UDK is a lot more efficient but it's horribly hard to pick up, and you'd be making maps for an entirely different game community.

Maybe think of centring your map around a landmark of some sort. What sort of theme do you want your map to be? Do you want it quite flat, or mountainous? Like I said, try sketching some ideas out and try to strike some inspiration. Don't be afraid to try making some crappy maps first on your own that you don't release, they don't have to be flawless every time, that's how map development goes.

 

Current situation

Really, for my sort of problems i have experienced, its not the efficiency or lack of inspiration I'm having the trouble with right now, its the inconsistency of hammer. When making buildings, aligning certain objects becomes impossible, especially when you crop part of it off. I've had blocks put down in such a fashion and place that next day, I couldn't get newer blocks to align up with the older blocks. trying to move the older blocks would also make them unable to be reverted back to their older position(s). The rotate function is impossible to make a rotated object aligning parallel to other blocks. Texturing the blocks is a pain in the ass because there's no kind of order to what textures there are, its all thrown in there randomly. Also, i have no idea how to make items not reflect light, be see-through, or anything of the sort. To top it all off, the hammer editor literally gives me a headache, which actually limits the amount of time i can work on it at once, lest i become sick.

I'll be going on and off with this project.

The whole idea I have is a CTF map where Blue must capture Red's intelligence in progressively harder to get/different locations. To make it even more crazy, its all inside a huge ass tower-like building. the first CTF would open up more paths around the complex, and give route to the next intelligence, and so on. Many spots for side routes, small overhangs, tunnels, a huge mainstream route, in short, total chaos. Honestly now I think about it, this is going to be impossible for someone like me to do, with such little experience. But I'll try until i cant put up with hammer any more, then I'll release my work out to you guys.

Watch and see, in an hour I'm gonna end up putting this back on hiatus, probably until tomorrow. xD

 

So you want to make a CSF map.

 

[noob]

erm... what?

[/noob]

 

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?ltr=E&t=17142
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?ltr=R&t=17380
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?ltr=G&t=17785

and the prefab

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=17720

 

vertex edit is your friend.

 

Ah, but you don't capture just SOME of the flags, you capture 3 in total, and they change EACH time, so its not CSF. its technically different flags but each flag can only be captured once, either the location is changed or the old flag is blocked off. And its only a one way goal, so its still somewhat different. This is how it works - red wins if blue fails to capture all 3 Intel within the time limit, blue wins if they capture the Intel. Red cant cap Intel.
In short, its like dustbowl and gravelpit, attack/defense, but with Intel. so you could call it control-point-flag xD
(CPF)

and once again with the stupid obvious questions...

[noob]

whats vertex edit

[/noob]

 

Wait, when you mean things don't align, do you have the grid turned off...?



Make sure that's enabled.

 

ah the grid is enabled, but for whatever reason the way some blocks got placed, i cant place blocks the exact same way. it wont stay on the same unit (by guessing at the vague wire frame) sometimes large as a whole grid, sometimes less than half a grid it wont align either.

 

There are 2 buttons to change the size of the grid next to the "snap to grid" button, or you can just press the bracket keys.

Be sure to stick to a consistent scale, Valve uses 64 x 64 overall. 16 units is the minimum thickness for walls before players can visually clip through them.

Vertex edit is the button on the far left toolbar in hammer, it allows you to move separate vertices of a brush without skewing the other corners; for example, if you have a triangular brush and want to make it longer, just stretching the brush would move the other vertices out of position and they won't line up. I can't describe it in detail, but it's easy to get the picture when you play around with it.

Also, you mentioned having trouble aligning rotated brushes; rotate brushes/props/entities with "ctrl + m" so you can get an exact 90' or 180'. I wouldn't recommend rotating brushes at a degree that's not a multiple of 45; even at a Hammer unit scale of 1, brushes and vertices can be impossible to align if they are rotated or skewed incorrectly.

 

Something tells me i should have read a tutorial about using hammer than just jumping strait into it, thinking a hands-on learning experience is best. xD
Also, it seems i was working without the grid snap option enabled. Man i really could use some "common-sense" dispenser action over here.
:3

Hopefully this gets some of my woes a break from torture atm.

 

No worries, the best way to get acquainted with Hammer is really through trial and error.
SDK is a harsh mistress that you later find out is a miss-ter, but after a while you'll be able to manipulate as you like.

 

Now that i think i wont be posting back here about hammer woes for a long time, would anyone like to suggest possibilities for the map that my idea will make?

I want to make this a good map, so I would appreciate anyone's interest in helping the development of the map.

(don't have much besides a spawn room done yet, and yes that's where all these problems came up, so there's no point in posting any screenshots yet)