when in hammer. all of the squares are black and i cant make any shapes or walls or props or anything, it says 2dtop/side/front and grid is toggled but it wont work. please help
I don't understand either. Please give a more specific description of your problem. You might also check out some tutorial videos at youtube and the valve developer wiki.
Hmmm, well first check the box on the top that is three to the left of the green leaf. You'll need that to see some displacements and props.
the only other thing I can think of to fix your problem is to go into the folder with hammer.
(i.e. C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\(Your Steam ID)\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin) and set it so that it runs in a compatibility mode. I had to do that for mine to work. I had to set mine to Windows XP SP2, but I'm running Vista so I'm not sure if this'll help or not.
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