Pupsters - Day of Defeat Source - Map Making

Lesson 14 - Explosions - Bombs - Mines - dod_bombtarget

2009-11-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

To make a bomb you need to use env_explosion.

Select the entity tool.

Choose env_explosion from the pulldown menu.

Place it in your map.

To make the env_explosion explode, you need to use either a trigger brush, a button, or a logic_timer.

Double click on the env_explosion. And give your env_explosion a name. Click apply.

Also, if you want the explosion to go off more than once then go to the "flags" tab, and put a check mark in the checkbox next to "repeatable", click apply.

Trigger_Multiple

Now, we will use the trigger brush to explode the bomb. Draw the trigger brush and double-click on it, hit Ctrl-t on your keyboard. From the pulldown menu select trigger_multiple. Then click apply.

Now, select the "output" tab on the dialog box. Click "add"
Put on "my output named" - OnStartTouch
(that means when they touch the trigger the action will start)
"targets entities named" - boom
(that is the name of our env_explosion)
"via this input" - explode
(this is what you want the named entity to do)
"with parameter of override of" (not used)
"after a delay in seconds of" - 0.00
(this is used to delay the action should be necessary, for example if you set it to five, then five seconds after someone touched it, it would explode.)

After you change your settings, don't forget to click apply.

Arrange the trigger_multiple and the env_explosion like it is shown in the pic above. Now when you compile the map this will act like a little land mine, and when someone steps on it, it will explode. Compile the map and test it out. (Note: when you compile the map the trigger_multiple and the env_explosion will be an invisible, so you have to remember where they are to test it.)

Button

To make a button, draw a small brush using whatever texture you want. Double-click on the brush, and hit Ctrl-t on your keyboard. From the pulldown menu select func_button. Then click apply

Now, select the "output" tab on the dialog box. Click "add"
Put on "my output named" - OnPressed
(that means when they press the button the action will start)
"targets entities named" - boom
(that is the name of our env_explosion)
"via this input" - explode
(this is what you want the named entity to do)
"with parameter of override of" (not used)
"after a delay in seconds of" - 0.00
(this is used to delay the action should be necessary, for example if you set it to five, then five seconds after someone pressed the button, it would explode.)

Click apply
Compile your map, press the button and watch the explosion.

logic_timer

The final way to make a bomb explode, is to use a logic_timer. Select the entity tool, Choose logic_timer from the pulldown menu, and place it in your map. Next, Double-click on the logic timer.
Name - whatever
(you can give the name if you want to, but for this it is not necessary)
Start Disabled - no
(put no because, you want it to start active)
use random timer - Yes
(you want the bomb to be random, so you would say yes here)
minimum random interval 3 (the minimum wait time between explosions)
maximum random interval 100 (the longest it will wait to fire,)
refire interval (not used) (you would only used this if you were not using random)
( so anywhere between 3 and 100 seconds the bomb will randomly fire)

Now, select the "output" tab on the dialog box. Click "add"
Put in
"my output named" - OnTimer
(that means when the time is up the action will take place)
"targets entities named" - boom
(that is the name of our env_explosion)
"via this input" - explode
(this is what you want the named entity to do)
"with parameter of override of" (not used)
"after a delay in seconds of" - 0.00
(this is used to delay the action should be necessary, for example if you set it to five, then five seconds after someone pressed the button, it would explode.)

Click apply

Compile your map, and watch the explosion.

dod_bombtarget

These can be used to blow up walls and stuff.

First, Select the entity tool, Choose dod_bombtarget from the pulldown menu, and place it in your map.

Then draw a brush using a brick texture and make a wall.

Use the carve tool and cut the wall into three sections.

Select the middle section. Hit Ctrl-t on your keyboard, from the pulldown menu select func_breakable. Click apply. And give it a name, I named mine wall1. Change the material type to cinder block. Click apply

click the "flags" tab. Put a checkmark in the checkbox next to "only break on trigger" this way if someone shoots the wall or throws a grenade at it it will not break.

Click apply

Place your dod_bombtarget next to the wall and line it up nice and neat. Double-click on your dod_bombtarget and select which team you want to be able to plant their bomb , then click apply.

Now, select the "output" tab on the dialog box. Click "add"
Put in
"my output named" - OnBombExploded (that means when bomb explodes the action will take place)
"targets entities named" - wall1
(that is the name of our wall)
"via this input" - break
(this is what you want the named entity to do)
"with parameter of override of" (not used)
"after a delay in seconds of" - 0.00
(this is used to delay the action should be necessary, for example if you set it to five, then five seconds after someone pressed the button, it would explode.)

Now we need, Bombs for the players to pick up, use the entity tool to place a prop_static in your map. Double-click on the prop static and change the world model to "models/props_crates/tnt_dump.mdl" click apply
then using the trigger texture draw a brush enclosing the model of the TNT. Double-click on the brush and Hit Ctrl-t and change the trigger brush into a "dod_bomb_dispenser". Click apply and you are done.

Compile the map, join the correct team, and plant the bomb.

That's the basics, now you can be creative with it, for example you can put an explosion in front of the tank model, on a timer and it will look like the tank is firing.

Put another env_explosion downrange from the tank name it " boom2". then dubbleclick on the timer select the "output" tab and click add. then add
"my output named" - OnTimer
"targets entities named" - boom2
"via this input" - explode
"with parameter of override of" (not used)
"after a delay in seconds of" - 3 (this way when the tank fires three seconds later the other explosion will go off and it will look like that's where the shell landed that the tank fired.)

Don't forget to check the "repeatable" checkbox under the "flags" tab on the env_explosion.

The rest is up to you.

Lesson 13 - Water

2009-07-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

Water - How to make water in hammer.

To make water first click on the texture tool.

Then click browse.

Type tool in the "filter" dialog box.

Select the nodraw texture. Double-click on it to select it.

Select the block tool.

Draw a square brush.

Click the texture tool, click browse and type water.

Select a water texture, and apply it to the top of the brush only. I used "nature/sewer_water001". The other sides have to stay nodraw. And be aware that not all of these water textures work correctly. So if the one that you choose doesn't look right, then select a different water texture.

Then click on the entity tool.

And select water_lod_control in the objects pulldown menu. And place it above the water. water will work without this, but This makes the water look better. (you only need one for whole map)

Compile the map, and you have water.

If you put the water in something like a swimming pool, it is important to make sure that the water brush lines up exactly with the wall of the pool or you will get some weird effects underwater. (used nature/water_anzio001 in example)

If you compile your map and you cannot see the water. Then you want to check your map for leaks. If you don't know how to check for leaks, see lesson 2 on how to fix leaks. Also an invalid brush might cause water not to show up. So if you have a complicated brush, or you did a lot of vertex editing, that can also be the cause.

Also know that some water textures are only made to be seen from above. If you swim in these waters when you look up you will see pink and purple checkerboards. So when you compile your map, make sure you check that out.
(For example: water_anzio001 can only be seen from above, and water_anzio001_cheap can be seen from above and below.)

You can make a sample map with a bunch of little pools and use all the water textures so you can see which one you want to use.

GOTO LESSON 14

Lesson 12 - Advanced Displacements

2009-01-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Now im going to teach you about displacements.
First, I will give you a little information. I am going to tell you some of the common mistakes people make.

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

This is advanced displacements, if you don't know how to create a displacement, read Lesson 5, First, then try the advanced stuff. Lesson 5 Displacements

When creating displacements, the brush you use to create the displacement, should always start out as a square.(see p1)

You can make displacements out of rectangles, but the vertices will be stretched out and that makes it more difficult, to line up the edges of your displacements.(see p2)

if you were going to make a displacement out of the rectangle, first you should cut it in half, using the carve tool, to make two squares.(see p3)

Then when you create the displacements, the vertices will all be square and easier to manipulate.(see p4)

If you ever make a mistake, then you simply select the displacement, and click the destroy button. It will turn your displacement back into the original brush.(see p5)

Let's say you are starting your map.

We have our skybox and a ground texture. (see p6)

You can't just click on the ground and make a displacement out of it.(see p7)

If you do, then your map will not seal. Displacements are not solid. They are solid to the player, but not to Hammer. As you can see from this bottom view.
(see p8)

So if I were going to create a displacement, I would draw a new brush on top of the ground.(see p9)

Then I would texture the ground, and move it up about 1/3 from the bottom. If you left it on the bottom then when you push the displacement down it would hit the wall of your skybox. So move it up to give yourself working room, then create your displacement.(see p10)(note: I removed the sidewall just for illustration purposes)

As you can see I created my displacement, then I changed the bottom texture back into the skybox texture. We do not need to waste resources drawing the bottom that we will never see. Take notice of the vertices. This was created using a power of three. You have a choice of 2, 3 and 4. Default is three.(see p11)

I do not know why anyone would use 2. Three is good for creating mountains and hills. Power of 4 is good for creating more detail in your displacements, such as blast craters, Roads, piles of hay or boulders.

If you need to change the power of your displacement, after you have created it. Select the displacement, change the power in the face edit sheet. Then click apply.(see p12)

Now the vertices are smaller.(see p13)

Now you're ready to "paint the geometry". (That's another way of saying move the texture up-and-down.)

Click on the texture tool icon, then click on the displacement tab.(see p14)

Select your displacement, then click the paint geometry button.(see p15)

Now when the "displacement paint geometry dialog box" pops up, you'll see a little green wireframe globe that snaps from vertices to vertices. The globe cursor lets you know which vertices you are about to manipulate. I'm sure you can figure that out all on your own. Some people can't, so I have to say it. On the dialog box in the "effects" field, make sure the radial button next to "raise/lower" is selected. And the box next to "spatial" has the checkmark in it.(see p16)

On the dialog box you can see, "distance" and "radius". Distance is how far up-and-down you want the displacement to move per click. Five is good for that. Radius controls the size of the green globe. The bigger the globe the more vertices you can grab at one time. 155 is good for that.(see p17)

Paint the geometry, move stuff up in some areas, and push it down in others. Do not worry if it looks all crappy and pointy.(see p18)

You can get rid of all the pointy and sharp corners, by using the "smooth" option in the "effects" field on the "Displacement Paint Geometry" dialog box.(see p19)

When using the "smooth" option, you want to make the radius larger than it was when you created the hills and valleys. The the radius was 155. Now I moved it up to 200.(see p20)

Each time you click, it's smooths out the vertices a little. So the more you click, the more smoothing you'll see.
After you smooth them all out you're pretty much done with that.

And it looks much better

When you're ready to place your spawn points on a displacement, you must be very careful. You must take note of the yellow "bounding box" that surrounds the spawn point avatar. If you simply place the spawn point on top of the displacement, more than likely it will not work because part of the bounding box goes into the displacement. Hammer will detect an error and delete the spawn point. So after you place each avatar, on a displacement. You need to move them up a little, so that you can see the complete bounding box surrounding the spawn point avatar.(see p22)

The neat thing about displacements is, some of the textures have 2 textures in one. They are called alpha channels. All the textures that have the word "blend" in the title, are textures that use alpha channels. Alpha channels are used to give your displacements a more realistic feel. Some alpha channels change grass to dirt. Some change rock to grass. Some make the grass grow and make the grass go flat. You have to try them out to see what the alpha channels do.

To paint alpha channels click on the texture icon, the green rubic's cube.
Click the displacement tab.
Select your displacement.

Now instead of clicking "paint geometry", click "paint alpha".(see p23)

On the "Displacement Paint Alpha" dialog box, make sure raise/lower is selected in the "effects" field.
"Brush" - controls the size of the paintbrush.
"Value" - controls how much paint will be applied with each click of the mouse. You can set these to what ever works for you.(see p24)(Note: You can hold the mouse button down and move the mouse around on the displacement to paint it.)

Go ahead and paint alpha. You can use alpha to create trails, roads and such.(see p25)
(note: the invert alpha button switches between alpha channels, try it and see what I mean)

Now I will explain why you want to create your displacements from brushes that were square.

Let's say you have finished painting the terrain up-and-down. And then you notice a hole in your terrain where two or more displacements meet.(see p26)

To fix this error, you need to use the "sew" option. Select all the displacements surrounding the error. Then click the "sew" button.(see p27)

"Sew" will automatically connect the displacements, If your displacements were created from squares, and are the same power.(see p28)

Sometimes, the textures will not lineup automatically. This can be caused by displacements that are of different powers. Or the original brush is a different size square from the one you are trying to connect to.

If this is the case, you can correct this error by making a patch out of another displacement.

To do this, draw a brush completely covering the hole even overlappingly a bit on the edges.(see p29)

Texture the top of the brush the same as the ground.(see p30)

Then create the displacement.(see p31)

Using the paint geometry option, pull the edges down(see p32)

Play with it until you camouflage the error. People who play on your map, will never even know what happened here.
If I didn't have the patch highlighted you couldn't even see it. (see p33)

You can also create realistic looking rocks or boulders.

Create a brush slightly larger than the rock you wish to create.(see p34)

When you are ready to create the displacements, Select all sides of the brush except the bottom.(see p35)

Create your displacement.(see p36)

Texture your displacement using a rock texture.(see p37)
(note: textures that have the word "model" in the title, will show up black in your map, when looked at from certain angles, don't use these.)

Select the "displacement tab" on the "face edit sheet" dialog box. Select all sides of the brush.(see p38)

Now, click on the "subdivide" button. It rounds out all the corners. As you can see.(see p39)

Now, all you have to do is use "paint geometry" to push the displacements up, down, back and forth.
Take a look at this pull down menu.(see p40) This is where you can change the direction in which the vertices move. "Face normal" is default. It is up-and-down. The x-axis and the y-axis move the vertices back and forth or in and out. The z-axis is up-and-down, just like "face normal".

Try changing these values, paint the geometry and make the brush look more like a natural rock.(see p41)

I have a video you can watch, that will show you how to create cliffs.

Pupsters Day of Defeat Mapping - For more funny movies, click here
I hope you have fun, and learned little bit.

If you make a map that you think is good enough, send it to me.
If I like it, I'll play it on my server. sourcemapping@northstardesigners.com

GoTo Lesson 13 - water

Lesson 11 - Custom Textures

2008-12-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

Now I am going to show you how to make Custom Textures. There is probably more than one way to make textures. There are a lot of tutorials online. I found them to be very complicated. They say something about using a program called Vtex. I have tried to use that program but it never worked for me.

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

(The easiest way to make textures is to use VTF edit, get it from the links below, on this page!!
just click file/import, import the pic, save it as .VTF, click tools/make .vmt, restart hammer and you're done.)

or you can do it the complicated way.

In order for you to do this correctly. The need to be able to see file types. You know, ( .jpg , .bmp , .txt , .mp3 , ect.)

To do this, open any folder. Click on tools, go down to folder options.

In the "folder options" dialog box, click on the "view" tab. Look for the box that says, "hide extensions for known file types". Take the checkmark out of this box. Click OK. Now you should be able to see file extensions.

NOW you need to download an editing program. One called VTFedit and also .NET Framework . VTFedit will not work without .NET Framework. You need to install .NET Framework before you install VTFedit.
You can get .NET Framework from Microsoft. Click on the link below. After you install .NET Framework you will have to reboot your computer.
.NET Framework
You can get VTFedit from here. look for "Installer (850 KB)"
VTFedit
Install .NET Framework.
Install VTFedit
Now we need to convert your pic file into a .vtf - (Valve Texture File)

I will show you how to make a custom texture, using the custom spray feature, in DOD source. This is a typical DOD room. (See p1)

First, you need to select the textures you wish to use. (see p2)

You have to make sure the photographs you wish to use are the correct sizes. They have to be 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, or 2 Pixels wide.

Then you need to open DOD, to the game menus. And select options. (see p3)

Then click multiplayer. (See p4)

Then click import spray. (See p5)

Browse to where the picture is that you want to make a texture out of. Select the picture, then click open. (See p6)

After that, you should see the image you selected appear in the window called "spraypaint image". (See p7)
If you see that, then you are ready for the next step.
We need to find, on your computer, the texture files we just created. To do this, you need to take note of the name of your texture file. My texture in this example is called, pups-carpet_floor. (See p7)

Click the start button. Right click on "My Computer". Select search. (See p8)

Click All files and folders. (See P9)

Search for the name of the texture, you just made the spray out of.
1. Insert the name of your spray.
2. Make sure it says search local hard drives.
3. Click search
(see P10)

You should have 2 files. .vmt and .vtf (See p11)
.vtf file -is the picture
.vmt file -contains the information about the texture, like is it wood, is it metal, so steam knows whether to show sparks or splinters when your texture is shot that type stuff. It also contains information about where the texture is located. And because we are going to move these files. We have to edit the location.

In my example p11 you can see more than two files. The ones we are concerned with are the ones in the logos folders. Not the logos/ui folder. (See p12)

Right click on the correct file, and select "Open Containing Folder". (See p13)

This will bring you right to the logos folders, where the texture you just created is located.

Select your two files, and hit "ctrl c". To copy them to the clipboard. (See p14)

Click the "up folder" button two times. (See p15)
you should be in the ...\day of defeat source\dod\materials folder.

You need to create a folder, in this folder. Usually it will be the same name as the name of your map. But for this lesson, to keep it simple, I'm going to name my folder SB.

...\day of defeat source\dod\materials\sb

Open the new folder you created, and click ctrl-v, to paste the texture files. (See p16)

Now open the .vmt file in VTFEdit. You should see something that looks like this. (See p17)

The line that says "$basetexture" is the file location.
and The line that says "$decal" is some setting.

We have to change "$basetexture" , to reflect the new location that we moved our textures to. Also we have to change "$decal" from "1" to "0", so your texture will not be transparent. (See p18)

Change it.
Save it, and close it.

Now you should be ready to open Hammer and apply your new texture.
You might have to restart Hammer. If it's open.

I went ahead and added some more custom textures, the same way as I did the last.

One more thing you need to know, for your map to work right on your server. You will need to upload your "map file" with a ".res file".
A .res file is just a text file that tells the server where to find and download the custom textures to clients, when they join your server.

Also, a .res file should have the same name as your map file.
Example: if your map's name is "dod_further.bsp" then your .res file should be named "dod_further.res"

And you place the .res file in the same folder you place your map's on your server.

This is what is in a .res file. (See p19)

And you need to make a folder on your server just like the one you made on your computer.
...\day of defeat source\dod\materials\sb
and place your textures in that folder, so people can download them when they join.

I went ahead and added some more textures, and a World War II picture I downloaded off the Internet. Just to show you an example of how you can get a totally different look. (See p20)

Note: all the texture files you create using this lesson, will be created in the logos folder. So if you plan on making alot of textures, you should make a shortcut to that folder on your desktop. Then you will not have to search for the texture every time you create a new one. Or you can just browse to that folder if you like.

(Note: you do not have to do the following procedure if you're going to use .res file.)

Additional: if you are an advanced mapper, then you can take it one step further. You can eliminate the need for a .res file, by embedding your texture files into your .bsp after it is compiled.

Here is what you need, to avoid missing textures, which show up as pink checkerboards.
What you'll need:
you'll have to install java runtimes,
You can get them here.
Java Runtimes
PakRat for Source - http://www.geocities.com/cofrdrbob/pakrat.html
PakRat is a post compile process for embedding your custom materials into your map. If you need instructions on how to run Packrat , then follow the instructions on their web page. Or you can do what I tell all my friends, "Google it!"- I said you can use this if you are an advanced mapper.

I have never used it. So I can't answer your questions about it.

GOTO Lesson 12 - Advanced Displacements

Lesson 10 - Ladders

2008-07-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Ladders

To make a ladder in Hammer for DOD:s is very simple, compared to the way the teach you in all the tutorials you'll find on the web.

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

I know for a fact how difficult it is to find a good tutorial on how to make a ladder.

You draw a brush, in the shape of a ladder. Hit Ctrl-t. Select func_ladder from the pulldown menu. click apply, click cancel.

A Quick way to line up textures, is draw a brush in the shape of a ladder. Usually about 16 units wide, and 2 units thick. You can make the ladder as tall as it needs to be.
(see pic 1).

Then I copy that ladder and paste right next to it. And shrink it down to about 24 units. The smaller one is just so that we can set up the texture in one quick sweep.(see pic 1).

Then go to the texture tool, click browse, type ladder in the filter, select the ladder texture.

Apply the texture to the small brush. (see p2) notice how funky it looks. I'm going to teach you a quick way to line up the textures, without wasting any time.

After you paste the texture to the small brush, left click on the face of it to select it. (see p3)

Then click the fit button on the texture dialog box. (see p4)

Hammer will line up the textures for you.(see p5)

Now all you have to do is copy the texture from the small brush to the tall brush. Left-click on the small brush to select the texture, then right-click on the tall brush to apply that texture.(see p6)

The texture still needs to be shifted a little. Right click on the tall brush's face to select it. Then use the "X" Axis under "texture shift", on the texture dialog box. To slide the texture over, until the ladder looks correct. (see p7)

After you get the texture lined up, you can delete the small brush because we don't need it any more. Using the select tool, select the large brush to make it active." (see p8)

After selecting the large brush click Ctrl-T, from the drop-down menu select func_ladder, click apply, click cancel. (See p9)

So that's basically it. You draw a brush, in the shape of a ladder. Hit Ctrl-t. Select func_ladder from the pulldown menu. click apply, click cancel. And you can put any texture on the ladder that you want. You can even use the invisible texture (type tools in the filter. Look for the texture called invisible.) to make an invisible ladder.

Once you create your first ladder, you will agree with me how easy it is to make a ladder.

Don't forget to texture the other sides of the ladder and Topside also.

What if you had a model of a ladder? You want to make this ladder work.(see p11)

Using the ladder texture you need to draw a thin brush in front of the model.(see p12)
(note: ladder texture is a tool texture. Type tools in the filter.)

As you can see from the TopView, the brush is not touching the model.(see p13)

Select the Ladder Brush, Click "Ctrl-t", from the Pulldown Menu, Select "func_ladder". Then Click "Apply"(see p14)

And that's it. When you compile the map, the ladder texture will be invisible,(see p15,) So it will appear as if you're climbing up the model. And that's how you make these types of ladders work.

Goto Next Lesson Click Here

Lesson 9 - Map lighting - Sunset and Night

2008-06-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Map lighting, lights, light_env, env_lightglow, light_spot, point_spotlight

If you are New to Mapping Click this link and start at the beginning.

Lighting your map is very important. You can control the time of day. You can even make it night.

Let me illustrate how Hammer interprets lights.

If you do not have any lights, or a light_env. Then your map will be flat, with no shadows, and the insides are lit the same way as the outsides.(see p1)

If you have a light in your map but you do not have a light_env. Then your map will be totally dark.
(Except where you put a light)(see p2)

When you do have a light_env in your map, then your map looks correct. The outsides are bright. The insides are dark. And you can see shadows. It looks much more realistic.(see p3)

Adjusting light settings

If you don't know where to get your light_env then .click here and read (near p52)adding sunlight. Then use your back button to get back.

Double-click on light_env. On the "object properties" dialog box, click on brightness.(see p4)

To the right, you will see some numbers. The first three set of numbers represent the color. The fourth set of numbers is the brightness.(see p5). Default brightness is 200 I set mine to 600 to make it bright. You can change the color by clicking pick color. That's pretty much self-explanatory. Picking a color does not affect the brightness.

You can change the angle that the sunlight will fall by clicking "pitch yaw roll", then clicking "point at" (see p6)
your mouse pointer will turn into a "target scope" that is used to set the angle by clicking somewhere in your map.

You can also Control the brightness and color of the light bulbs. (see p7) the same way.

To make my map look like sunset, I changed the color of my light_env to orange. I left the brightness at 600. And then I set the angle real steep to make the shadows longer just like in real life.(See p8)

The angle is set depending on where you click and where the light_env is. (see p9)
if my light_env is right there and I click directly underneath it, then we have the noontime sun, with very short shadows. And as you swingout the the lengths of the shadows increases with the angle.

Making your map nighttime.

To make your map nighttime, you have to delete the light_env. Then add the moonlight in by hand.

To make realistic moonlight use the little light bulbs. You want to place it in your map, double-click on it to bring up the properties dialog box.(see p10) Notice in the sample how high off the ground that I placed my light. It's about three feet above the light pole.

Then double-click on the light. In the properties dialog box click on brightness.Use these numbers 0 47 94 300. Put those numbers in the text field, then click apply. The light bulb should have change colors.(see p11). It looks black but it's a cool blue. Makes perfect moonlight.

Once you set up the light bulb. Simply copy and paste it all over the map where you want to moonlight to shine.(see p12)

Compile the map it should look something like my sample (see p13) you can control the brightness of the moonlight by using the techniques above, and changing the 300 to a higher number.

Don't forget to add normal lighting inside your houses and buildings. And you can add outside lighting such as in my example.
(see p14)

Examples of the outdoor lighting models used in this example.

The light pole.
models/props_urban/lights_streetlight01_on.mdl
env_lightglow
2 light_spot

A lot of the lighting fixtures have two models of the same thing. Some use skins. One of them is turned on, and one of them is turned off. This light pole has two models so use the one that is lit.

I use the env_lightglow to add a glow to the light that kind of foggy haze that you see around lights at night. The light_spot is the same thing as a spotlight, and you can adjust the brightness and angle on the spotlights just like the light_env. Arrange them like I did in my sample. (see p15)

The wall mounted light.
models/props_urban/light_fixture01.mdl
env_lightglow
light (set at 255 255 164 30)

Most outdoor fixtures have two models. But this one uses skins. Some models have more than one skin. Double-click on the light fixture, click skin change into 1, click apply.(see p16) It changed the skin to the nighttime model. Some skins change to snow/non snow. But for lights it's usually on and off.

Put a light entity in front of the model and a env_lightglow also just like in the sample.(see p17)

(env_lightglow property settings.
Parent - blank
name - blank
pitch yaw roll - 0 0 0
color - 255 208 128
vertical size - 30
horizontal size - 30
maximum distance - 50
minimum distance - 200
outer maximum distance - 700
glow proxy geometry size - 15
HDR color scale - 1.0)

The stage spotlight.
models/props_wasteland/light_spotlight01_lamp.mdl
(for this model skin 0 = on and skin 1 = off)
point_spotlight
light_spot

The same deal. Place them in your map use the "pitch yaw roll" to point the model at the statue. Then copy and paste the numbers you get for the "pitch yaw roll" of the model into the "pitch yaw roll" of the point_spotlight and the light_spot. That way we can be sure that they are all pointing in the same direction. Then line them up neatly like I did in my example. (see p18)

Have fun, but remember not to make your map too dark, because it's not fun if you can't see. Sure we have flashlights, but no one wants to use them. Maybe if there's a darkroom, yeah. But not during the whole map/game.

Note: when placing lights inside buildings you should not make the lights too bright just think of the numbers as Watts. 100 watts is bright enough 60 watts 30 watts and 20 watts the're all good for inside lighting.(example: 255 255 255 30 = 30 watts light bulb)

GOTO Lesson 10

Lesson 8 - Ambiant sounds

2008-06-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

Ambiant Sounds

If this is your first visit to this sight you should start at the beginning.

Click on the entity tool, select ambient_generic. (See p1) Paste it into your map.
also paste a logic_timer (see p2)

Paste into your map. I paste things like this on the ceiling or sky, so that you can find them easier, if you need to. Like if you were making a new map and you wanted to use the same sounds. All you have to do is copy them from this map and paste them into your next map. So you might as well make them easier to spot.

Double-click on the ambient_generic. Select name in the key values:, give your sound a name. I named mine "boom".
(see p3)

Select sound name, click browse, select "Ambient.DistantExplosion", click OK, click apply. (see p4)

Click on the flags tab. (see p5). Make sure all the checkboxes are checked. Click apply, then cancel

Double-click on the logic_timer.

Select "Use Random Timer". Make it say yes. (see p6)

Select "Minimum Random Interval". Make it 5 (see p7)

Select "Maximum Random Interval". Make it 200 (see p8)

Select the outputs tab. Click Add (see p9)

Click the pulldown arrow next to the fields (see p10), in the first one put "on timer", in the second one put "boom", because that was the name of our sound. The last one is what you want it to do. So select "play sound". Click apply, then click cancel.

You may want to add more sounds to give it a battlefield effect.

All you have to do is copy and paste, then change the name on the ambiant_generic and the logic_timer and change the sound, you can add wind or airplanes.

Finally, we should add some trees. I do not like to add trees until the end. Because they clutter the map. Copy and paste a prop_static. Double-click to open its properties. Click on collisions and make it solid. (see p11)

Select "world model", click browse, type tree in the filter. Look for "models/props_foliage/tree_deciduous_01a.mdl".
Click OK, click apply. (see p12)

You already have sandbags, crates and bushes, and now you have a tree. Just copy and paste everything all over the map. You can even copy and paste the houses. You can put furniture in the houses just select world model, browse, type furniture in the filter.

I hope this series of lessons was helpful in getting you to make your first map. My next series of lessons will teach specific functions. For example how to make fire, how to make ladders, how to make water, how to make a 3-D sky box, how to make buttons do things, how to make explosions and much much more. So if you have any special requests. Just post them here. Or you can e-mail me at sourcemapping@northstardesigners.com I want to thank you for sticking with me, and helping me make DOD more exciting because of all the new maps that you are going to make. Don't forget to give me credit where credit is due. And tell your friends about this web site, so they can learn how to make maps just like you did.

Goto Lesson 9

Lesson 7 - Team wall, Flags

2008-06-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Lesson 7
team wall, flags

If this is your first visit to this sight you should start at the beginning.

Just about ready to wrap this up. There will be one more lesson after this. You are doing a great job.

First thing we should do is set up the map for gameplay. Open the entity report. Click on map, select entity report. The entity report shows you everything that you put into your map. It allows you to find things more quickly than trying to fly around and look for them. Now when we flipped our map we copied everything in the map. So now we are going to use the entity report to clean up those extra items that were copied, and that we did not need.

For instance, there should only be one light_environment per map. So select one of them in the entity report. And click delete. Then click OK. (see p18) Also delete all your spawn points, and close the entity report. We deleted them so, we can reinsert them without fear of mixing up the spawns. Also we need to put 16 spawn points for each team. That adds up to 32 players total. That will allow your map to be played on most servers. If you only have five spawn points in your map then only five players can join your game. Pick which spawn you want to be allies and pick which spawn you want to be axis. And add the spawn points.

See the example (see p19), I created my spawn with eight spawn points on the outside, and eight spawn points on the inside. Something you need to remember about placing spawn points on top of displacements. If you just placed them in their and leave them some of your spawn points will not work because displacements are not solid. Some of the spawn points get stuck in the ground. And if they are stuck in the ground hammer will ignore them. So once you placed your spawn points. You should use the entity report, to select all your spawn points and move them up a little bit to ensure that they are not stuck in the ground.

Here's what you do:
Open the entity report.
Select the first info_player_axis. (see p20)
Holddown the shift key and select the last info_player_axis, this will select all spawn points in between the two points. (see p21)
with all the spawn points selected go to your side view viewport and move all the spawns up off of the ground at the same time.

As you can see they are all off the ground and none of them are touching the displacements. (see p22).

Do the same for both sides, both spawns.

Now we need to add spawn protection. Turn the "IG" button off. We will use another "tool" texture. Select the "texture tool", click browse, type tools, select the "trigger texture". Go into the large house, where we created the spare room. Let's block this doorway so that the enemy team cannot enter this spawn. Draw a brush using the trigger texture and completely block the doorway. (see p23).

Here's another one of those really important shortcuts. Ctrl-t. Learn this one. This will be the most important shortcut in your Hammer mapmaking career. Ctrl-t is used to turn brushes into Brush Entities. So we're going to turn this brush into a team wall. So make sure the brush is selected. And hit Ctrl-t.

Select "func_team_wall" from the pulldown menu. (see p24)

Select "team to block" in the "key values" field. Then on the pulldown menu select the team you wish to block. In this case I am working at the Axis spawn so I am going to block the Allied team. Click apply, click cancel
(see p25)

Also place team wall at the fence exit. (see p26) I made this wall extra tall, to prevent people from boosting over the fence.

Add team walls to both sides.

Flags.
Adding Flags.
Select the entity tool.

From the pulldown menu select dod_control_point_master. In placed anywhere in your map. For your flags to work right, you need to have a dod_control_point_master in your map. Just one. And it can be placed anywhere. (see p27)

Then from the pulldown menu select dod_control_point. And place it were you want your flag to appear in your map. (see p28)

To create the capture area, we use a trigger brush. Use the texture tool, click browse, type tools, select the trigger texture. Draw a cube around the flag. This will be the capture area. As soon as someone enters this area they will begin to cap the flag. Make it as big or as small as you want.

After you get it the size you want, Hit Ctrl-t and select dod_capture_area, from the pulldown menu. (see p29) click apply, then cancel.

Double-click on the flag. Bring up the properties dialog box. Click on name in the "key values", and give your flag a name. I named my flag, flag1. Click apply. (see p30)

Select "Localized name to print on the" in the "key values". This is where you put the name that will pop up in the game when someone caps the flag I called mine Axis First. (See p31)

Select "sound made when axis capture" click browse, type voice in the filter. Select "Voice.German_FlagCapture". Click OK, click apply (see p32)

Select "sound made when allies capture" click browse, type voice in the filter. Select "Voice.US_FlagCapture". Click OK, click apply (same as above except for allies.)

Select "index of this point (unique)" and place a 1 in the text field. (See p33) this point number has to be different on each flag. That's why it says unique, duh. And this determines the order that the flags will appear on the HUD (hud stands for heads up display). Since this is our first flag, we are going to put a number 1. On the second flag will put a number 2. On the third flag will put a number 3. See how that works. So those twelve years of high school wasn't wasted after all.

That sets up the flag portion. Now we have to set up the capture area. Double-click on your capture area to bring up the properties dialog box. Click on "name of the control point area". Tie the name of the flag that we want to connect this control area to. In this case it is flag1, because that was the name of my flag.(see p34)

You don't have to change any of the other settings. But you can to make the game play a little different.
The other selections are pretty much self-explanatory. But if you cannot understand them, then don't mess with them. That flag is complete.

Don't forget to save your work often.

You might even want to save a backup copy of the file you're working on, just in case something goes wrong you only have to go back as far as the copy, and not all the way back to the beginning.

OK, that was one flag. Most maps have 5 flags. This is a small map. So it only needs three flags to keep it interesting.

Once you have one flag in the map, there is no need to go through all of that again. Why not just copy and paste. In fact I copy and paste all my flags, for all my maps. I only made one set for my first map. And then I copy and paste from then on. This is only the second time I made a flag from scratch. Just to show you guys how to do it. Like I said, once you have one, all you have to do is copy and paste the rest.

Let's copy this flag and capture area and make another flag. Because this map only has three flags, the next flag is going to be our middle flag. So let's put it in the middle. Make sure the ignore groups button is not on. Select the flag and the capture area. Click ctrl-c to copy. Go to the middle of the map. He Ctrl-v to paste. (see p36)

After copying the flag you need to change a few settings to make this flag unique.
------------------------------------------
Double-click on the flag,
changed the name of the flag to: "flag2"
changed the "localized name to print" to: Middle Flag
change the index of point to: 2
and that is it for the flag.

Double-click on the capture_area
change the "name of the control point this area" to flag2
now this flag and capture area are complete.
-------
Copy the flag one more time put it near the Allied spawn.
-------
Double-click on the flag,
changed the name of the flag to: "flag3"
changed the "localized name to print" to: Allied First
change the index of point to: 3
and that is it for the flag.

Double-click on the capture_area
change the "name of the control point this area" to flag3
now this flag and capture area are complete.
-------------------------------------------
When you're copying flags, never have the IG button on. It should always be in the up position, which is off.
Or it will ignore all the flag settings when you paste it.

Well this map is almost complete. Go ahead and Compile It and check it out. And we will be sure and finish this map up, in our next lesson.

GOTO Lesson 8

Lesson 6 - Flipping the Map

2008-06-14T12:41:00.001-07:00

Flpping the Map

If this is your first visit to this sight you should start at the beginning.

In This lesson were going to learn how to flip the map. Before we flip the map, we need to add stuff in this empty area. Let's practice with some more displacements. When creating displacements, you want to keep the brushes that you create the displacements from as square as possible. They make for the best displacements. (See p1)

Start by drawing a fairly large brush. (See p2) Remember to start with the nodraw texture. It is OK if the brush overlaps into the houses a little bit. We are going to push that side down, with the texture tool. Select the texture tool. Match the grass textures.
(Select the texture tool. Left click on the grass to select the texture, right click on the top of that brush to apply the selected grass texture.) (See p3).

Click the displacement tab on the texture dialog box. Left click on the top face of the new brush to select it. (See p4)

Click create, click OK. (See p5).

Click on paint geometry (See p6).

Use the same settings I used (see p7).

See all the triangles we created. Those are called vertices. If the vertices are too large, it would not be a natural effect. I think these might be a little too large. (See p8) So we can change these vertices and make them a little smaller.

To change the vertices look in the attributes section, change the 3 to a 4 (See p9) then click apply. See how the vertices got smaller. That will allow us to have more control.

Then go ahead and start painting the geometry, make sure you move everything down that is in front of the house. Add hills to break up the terrain. and To give people hiding places. Just go ahead, and move things up and down. To make the ground look more natural. Then select "smooth" on the effects field. Enlarge the radius. And smooth out the displacement. Let me know when you are done.

After you smooth out the displacement, you can paint the alpha channels, if you like. But you do not have to. You can try to make yours look something like mine, because your imagination is probably not working right now, because you are in a learning mode. So you can just look at my example, (See p10). And try to make yours look similar, something like that. But it does not have to be exact. That's the beauty of that all. It's art.

Once you're done with that, we are ready to flip the map. Zoom out in the TopView viewport. Select everything. (See p11)

Using this select copy method, copy the entire map to the left. (See p12)

We want to make this into a mirror image. So leave the new copy selected. Go to the pulldown menus, click tools, flip objects, horizontally. Or you can just hit Ctrl-L. that should flip our copy in a manner that will cause it to be a mirror reflection of the world we created.(see p13)

We have both sides of our map created now. Wow. Good. We need to connect these two halves now. We need to create another map area, that connects these two areas. In the TopView viewport draw a brush the same width as these brushes. Line everything up the way you were taught. (see p14)

Make the new brush hollow, at about 32 units. And paint the inside just like the inside of the other two is painted. Don't forget to slice the brush at the same level that we sliced our original brush to create the border walls.

Now we need to open up the walls in connect all three areas of our map. Turn the ignore groups button on. Select the back wall, and delete it.

Select the wall behind the wall we just deleted. And use the grips from the TopView viewport to drag it open, and create an opening.

Add textures to the newly exposed nodraw textures. (See p15).

Now, do the same for the other side. Check the displacement were the wall used to be it may need to be pushed down in some places.

Now let's create a displacement for the new area of our map. Draw a brush to cover the whole grassy area. (See p16)
make sure you draw a new brush and don't just try to create one out of the ground that is there. You will cause a huge leak

Before you create a displacement out of this brush let's slice this brush in half. Because two squares make better displacements than one rectangle.
(See p17)

Create the displacements using a power of 4. Then paint the geometry. Add hills and such.

After painting the geometry, and smoothing the geometry. Then compile your map. And because we cut into the skybox to connect all our pieces of the map. We need to check for leaks. Do you remember how to do that. All right I will tell you. Go to map, load pointfile. If you don't know what to do from there, then go back and read the previous lessons

GOTO LESSON 7

Lesson 5 - displacements - the entity report - player clip

2008-05-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

In this lesson we will learn displacements, the entity report, player clip

If this is your first visit to this sight you should start at the beginning.

First, I copied and pasted the doorway. (See p1) then I double-clicked on it, and on the properties dialog box, Select "World Model", select browse, then type "sandbag".

I used
"models/props_fortifications/sandbags_line1_tall.mdl". Click OK. Then click on "collisions", change the pull down menu from "not solid" to "use vPhysics" Click apply. (See p2)

Use select /copy method, and drag/copy them all the way across like in the example. (See p3)

Use your texture tool, and select the nodraw texture. Click the block tool, and draw a brush all the way across the top of the sandbags, just like in my example. (See p4)

Make the brush as long as it needs to be, so that it touches the wall and the house. Make it about six units thick and at least 89 units high from the top of the sandbags. (See p5)

Select the new brush, and from the top view viewport we are going to cut the middle section, about the length of one sandbag. (See p7)
Use two slices to slice the brush into three sections, keeping all sections. (see p6)

Click the texture tool, type fence look for the texture called wood/woodfence001. Apply the texture to the brush. See how the texture did not lineup? (See p8)

Sometimes you can get away with hitting the fit button, to line things up quickly. This doesn't always work. You have to use your judgment. Click on it. (See p9) if it looks OK then texture the rest the fence. If it doesn't look OK, use ctrl-z to undo. And line it up the old-fashioned way.

Be sure and texture both sides. (see p10) select the middle part of the fence and hit Ctrl-m to bring up the transform dialog box. We are going to rotate this brush on the Y-axis.

In the Transform dialog box type 110 in the Y-axis box, press OK. (See p11)

Move the brush, line up the lip of the brush to the top of the sandbag. And paint the newly exposed nodraw textures (See p12)
don't worry if that brush doesn't touch the ground. Trust me.

Displacements

Draw a huge brush like in my example. Notice how high it is. It comes up to the windowsill. (See p13)
I want to show you a method of selecting a new texture without having to go through the texture dialog box. This speeds up texturing your map, because you can use textures that are already in your map. Also if you need things to match, there is no easier way.
Here it is.
Select the texture tool.
Left click on the texture you want. (we want the grass for this example)
Then right click where you want to apply the selected texture. (see p14 & p15).
Simple as that.
To turn this brush into a Displacement, click on the displacement tab. (see p16)

Under tools it says select. That's for you to select the brush face that you wish to turn into a displacement.
So select the top face of our new brush.

On the displacement tab, press create, press OK. (see p17)

You just created your first displacement. (see p18)

You just want to make sure you select the top face and not the rest of the sides. Hammer will create a displacement out of the sides selected, and will delete the rest of the sides.

Displacements are used in Hammer to create natural looking terrain. It can be used to create hills, Grasslands, cliffs, and caves. Displacements cannot be used to seal your map. Displacements also allow grass to grow with some textures.

To edit displacements, you use the texture tool/displacement tab (see p19)
Paint geometry:
This button allows you to move the displacement up-and-down or back and forth.
(I will explain in detail what all this stuff does later on in the blog. Right now I want to teach you what you need to know so that we can finish this map.)
set your settings like i did below my example in p20. (See p20)

Distance = 9
radius = 116

This means that it will move our displacement up-and-down nine units and the radius, is the amount of space that it will grab and move.

One mouse button moves the displacement down. The other mouse button moves the displacement up. Push the displacement down, in a manner that clears a path from the door to the ramp. Leave the displacements high where they touch the wall, the house, and the sandbags. But push it down where the spawn exit is. Until it looks something like my example. (see p21)

See how I cleared the displacement out from in front of the doorway. You have to at least do that. And notice how bumpy and pointy everything is? We can smooth out those peaks, by selecting smooth in the effects field. (see p22) it is also a good idea to increase the radius when smoothing.

Close that dialog box. Click the "invert alpha."(see p23) Alpha channels allow you to control the look of the textures on a displacement. You can use the alpha tool to create a road or path. Textures with "Blend" in their name have alpha channels in them. And they only work on displacements.

Select the paint alpha button.(see p24) use your mouse buttons to paint the alpha channels the way you want to. I made a path from the door to the sandbag exit.

It looks more natural now.(see p25)

Copy and paste one of the sandbags into the opening in the fence, (See p26) double-click the sandbag, goto properties, go to world model, click browse, type hedge look for "models/props_foliage/hedge_256_128high" select that one, click ok, click apply goto collisions, set the pull down menu to "Not Solid" and click apply. Move it around and line it up until it looks like the example. (see p27)

I want to show you how easy it is to add rooms to existing houses. So let's add a room to the bigger house.

We are going to add a room to the house circled in red in my example.(see p28)

From the inside, facing the window that exits toward spawn. We are going to create a dividing wall. Select the texture tool, click browse, type tools, select the nodraw texture. From the center of the back wall, create a brush out to about half the rooms length. (See p29 )

Texture the wall using the quick select method.(select the texture tool, left click to select the texture you want to use, right click to apply that texture.) Make a copy of the wall we just created, using the drag shift method(select the wall from the TopView viewport, hold down the shift key drag the wall to the position you want, released a mouse button before you released the shift key.) rotate the wall 90 degrees using the transform dialog box, press Ctrl-m to activate the transform dialog box.

Type 90 in the Z: text field, click OK. (see p30)

From the TopView viewport, move the brush to line it up, and use the grips to shrink it to fit. Copy the front door and paste it where we want to cut the door. Cut the door. And double-click on the doorway model, select "world model", click "browse", type "door" in the filter, look for models/props_doors/doorway16_wood.mdl. Select it, click OK, click apply. (See p31)

This room needs a ceiling. You can put a ceiling across the whole room if you want. But in this case I am just going to put a roof over this little room. Select the wall that does not have the doorway cut in it. Slice that wall near the top. About the same thickness of the wall, or if you are using the same texture as I am, slice it just under where the wood at the top ends. This time just select the top part and slice it the same thickness as the wall with the doorway in it. Select the longer piece and drag it across the top part to create our ceiling. (see p32)

Check it out. Listen to Free Music Music room Download mp3s

Apply a texture to the top, and apply a texture to the inside.(see p33). Then copy and paste the light and the light model into the new room.

Now we are going to learn about the clip and the player clip. These are special brushes that are used to prevent a player from getting into areas of the map that you do not want them to. We want to keep these players from getting on the outside roof of this building. Fly to the outside in the camera view.

Select the texture tool, click browse, type tools, select player clip.(the clip texture, and the player clip texture do the same thing. They both block player movement and are invisible in the game.) with the player clip texture selected we are going to draw a brush on top of the roof. Slice that brush in half using the centerline of the roof as a guide. Select one side of the brush, and trim it along the roofline. Then do the same thing to the other side. Now nobody will be able to get on this roof. (See p34)

The clip and player clip can also be used to help a players movement in the game. Let's do an example. Let's go into the house that does not have the clip on the roof. Say for instance you want the players to be able to run out through this window without having to jump. We can use the player clip and create an invisible step to give the player a boost. This time select the clip texture. And draw a little step about 8 units high for the first step and 16 units high for the second step, and place it in front of the window. And that's how that works. (See p35)

They don't have to be the same length as normal stairs, I squished mine down to 12 units. (See p36)

Final for this lesson, I would like to teach you about the entity report. The entity report lists everything in your map. It can be useful to find things. To access the entity report, click on the Map pull down menu. Select entity report. In the dialog box you can see all the entities that you placed in your map. (see p37) let's say you wanted to find your spawn, all you would have to do is look on the list. And if you double-click on what you're looking for (info_player_allies) you can zoom to that object in the map. You can also delete entities through this dialog box by selecting them and clicking the delete button. This dialog box will come in handy later.

That is all for now.

Goto Lesson 6

2008-05-22T19:04:00.000-07:00

Lesson 4

"prop_physics" "copy and paste" "Make a House"

Welcome back, glad to see you are still interested.
I like the way the top of that wall came out. So I sliced the bottom also. I made the bottom and the top of the wall match.

A prop_physics is very similar to a prop_static. The difference is a prop_physics can be moved and or broken. A prop_static cannot be moved or broken. Examples of prop_physics are, wooden crates, wooden barrels, tables and chairs, pots and pans etc. etc.

To place a new prop_physics into your map, We use the Entity Tool. ( see p1 ) So we're going to select the Entity Tool, Then Select Prop_Physics from the Objects Pulldown Menu. ( see p2)

Now click in the camera view, ( see p3 ) use the top viewport so you can place it right where I placed mine. Notice how I lined it up with the spawn (see p4).

(the white dotted line I drew, for demonstration, it's not in hammer).

Zoom into the prop_physics in your Camera View viewport. (see p5)

Double-click on the prop_physics. In the objects properties dialog box select world model, then click browse. (see p6)

On the model browser, type "crate" in the filter. Then click on one of the names. Then you can use the up and down arrows on your keyboard. Scroll down to props_junk\wood_crate001a.mdl, select it then click OK. (see p7)

Then on the remaining dialog box, click apply (see p8).

See how our model is stuck half-way in the ground. (see p9). All we have to do is hit ctrl-x, place the mouse about where we want the crate. Press ctrl-v. That places our model right on the ground. The cool thing about cut and paste is that once we have one model, all we have to do is paste. Place another box right next to that one. Just hit ctrl-v. (see p10)

You can take a break it right now if you want, and compile the map to check it out. If not, let's continue.

Select the texture tool. Click browse. Type tools in the filter. Double-click on the nodraw texture. Click the block tool. Go to the top viewport and Draw a brush 252x296. Then go to the side view viewport. And make it 175 high. (see p11)

Using the shift and drag method. Make a copy and place it on the other side. (see p12)

Select the objects that you want to copy.
Hold down the shift key, drag it to where you want it. Let go of the mouse button before you let go of the shift button.
Stretch the new brush out to 430 (see p13)

Now go create a brush that we are going to use as a measure. So drag a third brush as I did in the example (see p14). Then use the grips and make it smaller about the same size as the crates.(see p14b) Go to the side view viewport, and drag it down to 24. We're going to make houses out of these two brushes and we're going to use the little brush so that we can carve the big brushes at 24 units high.

In the front view zoom in. (see p15). From the camera view, use the select tool and select the two large brushes. Select the Carve Tool. From the front view, draw your carve line across the top of the 24 unit high box. It enter to carve. (keep both sides)

Now move that box next to the large brush, like in the sample. (see p16) zoom in and make sure it's lined up.

Then shrink it down to 12x 72 from the top viewport. (see p17).

Select the large brush on the right. We need to make this brush hollow.(see p18) Click ctrl-h. This time are going to make the walls 16 units thick. Type 16 into the dialog box. Click OK.

Go inside the new brush, (see p19) click the "ignore groups" button, select the floor, hit delete, go back outside.

That piece that we deleted was an extra piece. We didn't need it. So we deleted it, and that gives us more room on the inside. Now I'm going to put textures on the outside, DOD style. Go to the texture tool, click browse, type brick. Select the white brick texture, called brick/brickwall002. (see p20)

Apply that texture to the bottom part,( see p21 ) all the way around. While we have that texture active we might as well go ahead and do the other one also. You don't have to put the a texture on the side that is right up against the wall on the larger block.

Select the texture tool again. Click browse. Type wood. Scroll down and look for the texture called wood/wood_halftimber003. Double-click on it. And apply that texture to all the sides.(see p22) notice this texture needs to be adjusted. It is not lined up in a way that makes it look realistic.

Open the texture dialog box up. Select the texture you want to adjust. Remember you have to hold ctrl to select more than 1. Select the entire front face.(see p23) we will use the X and Y textfield, under Texture Shift. Do not touch those buttons under texture scale. The X button slides the texture forward and backward.

The Y button slides the textures up and down. Slide that texture over until it looks similar to mine. (see p24) after getting them centered on the x-axis.
We need to select all the sides and them up on the "y axis" (see p25)

Now we are going to do the roof. Select the roof. Change the height from 16 to 6. (see p26) Select the Carve Tool.

Carve the roof right down the center. Keep both sides. Select one side of the roof.

Go to the front view viewport, and click on it again until we get to the grips that allow us to slide. (see p27) Slide the roof up, from the middle, pay attention to the camera view.(see p28)

Do the other side of the roof. (see p29) Go to the camera view, select the two walls that have the opening above them.(see p30)

Drag them up flush with the peak of the roof.(see p31) then go to the front view in carve off the extra pieces. This time no need to keep both sides. You can let the top part be deleted.(see p32) cut the other side also. Remember you have to hit the select tool after your first cut, before you can make your second cut. Now that the roof is cut, go to the texture tool, click browse type roof. Select model/props_exteriors/roof, and apply to all the nodraw surfaces on the roof. (see p33) Do not worry about the inside yet.

Now select and zoom in on a little block that we put next to this house. (see p34) we are going to turn this block into stairs. To do this will work from the top viewport, and we will keep track of what we're doing in the camera viewport.

We want to drag/copy the block. Steps in DOD are usually about 8 units high. Remember this block is 24 units high. A divided by 24 = 3. So we are to going need three steps. The first block is already there. Copy 2 more. (see p35).

Now all we have to do is drag the steps down. Quite simple, drag the first one to 8, drag the second one to 16. And the last one you do not have to do anything because it's already at 24. (see p36)

To Texture the stairs we're going to try something different. Select all three steps with the select tool. Then click the texture tool. Click browse. Type conc. That is short for concrete. Then select a concrete texture. You can take anyone. I use the smooth one without much lines on it. Once you pick your texture , then click apply, on the texture dialog box. It paints all the sides at once. You can only do that when the textures we are applying, do not have to be lined up.

Now I copied one of the doorways from spawn.(I selected it, then I pressed ctrl-c, to copy) and I pasted it on the top step.(ctrl-v) But the spawn doorway is not facing the same way as our doorway. So we have to rotate the model. So here is one of those shortcuts that you need to remember. Hit ctrl-m. It brings up to transform dialog box. In this box you can rotate, scale, and move brushes. At this time we want to rotate. So we make sure that the button for rotate his pressed. And then we type how far we want to rotate on the z-axis. And we want to rotate 90 degrees. Type 90 next to the Z. Click OK (see p37)

Line up the doorway from the Top View viewport. Like we did when we created the spawn exit. Let just a tiny bit stick out of the wall. Select the wall and the doorway. Slice it from the TopView viewport, close to the edge of the model.(see p38)(Don't slice all the walls just the one we need to.) after you make the vertical slices, back to the select tool, select the doorway and the wall blocking the doorway. (see p39)

Then make your horizontal slice, close to the top of the doorway model just like in the example. After that, all we have to do is click on the part of the wall that is blocking the doorway, and use the grips to drag it down all the way.(see p40)

Now select a wood texture. And texture the floor of the house use "wood/woodfloor007a"

then select another wood texture, for the ceiling use wood/woodwall004b, texture the ceiling. (see p41)

For the inside walls use wood/wood_halftimber005 (apply it to the inside, you may need to line them up.)

Copy the light and the light model from spawn. And paste it in your house.(see p42) now we have light we need to add Windows.

I copied the doorway and pasted it to the back wall. Double-click on it, go to "world model", go to browse, type "window" in filter.
Look for "props_windows\inset_windowframe_large2_broken.mdl" Select it, click OK, click apply. (see p43) move the model into the wall. Make room for two of them, so put it to one side. Copy the model and slide it over.

Cut the opening for the window the same way that you cut the opening for the door. Cut the vertical cuts first then select the new piece that was cut, because you dont want to cut everything, this time there will be two horizontal cuts.(see p44) and instead of dragging the middle piece down, we just delete it. You can do the same thing for the second window. But I just changed the model to "props_windows\inset_windowframe_large2_shuttered.mdl" to make it look like that window was closed (if you choose to do that also, do not forget to put one inside or it will look weird) add windows on the sides, and you are finished with that house.

Do the same thing with the other house. Make it hollow. Delete the extra floor piece. Squeeze the roof part down from 16 to 6.
All right here is the different part.

After you drag the roof piece down to 6, You need to expand the roof in the "top viewport", to give your house a more realistic roof overhang.(see p45) Now you are ready to cut the roof.

Cut this one at a 90 degree angle from your last roof (see p46) this would give your map a more realistic look. Finish making the roof the same way you did the first one.

Put your windows and doors like I did in my example (see p47) and in this view I removed the roof, so you can see where the door and the windows are.(see p48) dont forget to copy and paste stairs and don't forget to put a light inside.

You did great! After you finish your map, run it and check it out.

Save this map for the next lesson.

GOTO Next Lesson

Lesson 3 - creating a 2-d sky - Connecting two rooms - adding sunlight -Inserting models

2008-05-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

The first thing we should do. Is click the "ig" button. So that it pops up.

In the Camera View viewport, click on any wall to select all of them. Press Ctrl-e. Not only does that center the selected item in the 2-d viewports, it gives Hammer an idea of the size that it should draw your next block. Meaning when we draw our next room it will be the same height as the one that was selected when we hit Ctrl-e. And it will be on the same level. So it will already be in line with the current room. You will understand more of that later. For now, in the words of the great Hiram, "Just Do It".

Now let's create a huge room for these dudes to run into. Turn the Ignore Groups button back on. Select the wall that these two guys are facing.(see p32) This lets us know which side we're going to draw the new room on. (see p33) we need some room on that side. Make room by using the mousewheel to scroll out.
And then use the arrow keys to slide that thing over to the left.(see p34) now we have all this empty space to draw in. Let's draw a big room. Select the Texture Tool, click Browse, type Tools, double-click NoDraw texture, Select the Block Tool. In the Top View viewport, Drag a square 1601x 1010. (see p35)

I also changed my camera view, so I can get a better perspective of what's going on.(see p36) Hit Enter. Then click the Select Tool. (see p37 & p38) now the huge brush that we just created should still be selected. If not click on it and select it. Hit Ctrl-e, to center the 2-d viewports. Up to this point, we have been working in the Top View viewport. Now we are going to work in the Side View viewport. (see p39). We need to line these two rooms up.(see p40) slide the new brush over close to the room.

Zoom in with the mouse wheel as you get closer. So you can see the little white squares on the corners of the brushes behind the grips, little tiny squares.(see p41) We need to line them up.(see p42). After you get them lined up. Use the mouse wheel to scroll out.(see p43) we need to increase the height of our new brush. Select the grip in the middle, (see p44) And drag up to 775. (see p45) now we need to make it hollow. Hit Ctrl-h, thickness of 32, click ok.

Fly to the inside of the new brush that we just created.(see p46) now im going to show you a little trick a shortcut to create a quick border around your map. Make sure the ig button is not selected. Using the selection tool click on any wall inside the new brush. It should have selected all of the sides. Now take a quick look at the side view (see p47) you can see the spawn points outlined in purple. We can use these to adjust the height at which we should carve our huge brush. The height of the purple square is equivalent to the height of a player. So we want to make the cut over their heads. Because the height of the cut, is going to be the height of our border wall. So with the new brush selected click on the Carve Tool. Select to carve just above their heads (see p48) make sure you "keep both sides". Click Enter. You can see in the camera viewport the line we just carved. That will be the height of our fence.

Now working from the camera view,(see p46) let's texture our new box. Click on the Texture Tool. Click browse. Type tools, look for the texture called Skybox. Double-click the Skybox Texture. Apply the Skybox Texture to the top parts of the walls and onto the ceiling. (see p49) Select the Texture Tool, click browse type grass. Double-click on a Grass Texture. I used nature/argentan_blendgrassdirt. Apply the grass to the floor. (see p50) Click Texture Tool, type brick, select a brick texture. I used brick/brickfloor001a. Apply that texture to the remaining no draw texture's on the inside. (see p51).

Now we are going to place sunlight. To do this and we will use the Entity tool. The tool that looks like the chess pawn. Click on the Entity Tool. Now we need to go to that box on the right called move selected. Where it says Categories: Entities, objects:.
(see p52) click on the pulldown arrow on objects, and go to "light_env". And select it.(see p53).

Go to the Camera View viewport. Place the entity into your map by clicking where you want the entity to be placed.(see p54). Now we need to change the properties. To get to the properties of this entity. Use the select tool. And double-click on the light_env that we just placed in the map.(see p55) The properties dialog box will pop up. On the dialog box,see where it says, "Pitch Yaw Roll(X.Y,Z)" . Click on "Pitch Yaw Roll(X.Y,Z)". After, you select that, notice to the right the three zeroes, and under that a button that says "point at"(see p56). This controls the direction of the sunlight. We need to make it point towards the ground. Like in the real world. So click the button that says "point at"

Go back to the camera view. Your mouse pointer turns into a scope target. Just click on the ground approximately under the light_env. Click apply. Click cancel. (see p57) Now go back to the entity tool. And select from the "Objects:" drop down menu "prop_static."(like you selected the light_env) Now we're going to place it in our map. I used my arrow keys on my keyboard to swing my camera view down. As you can see in the example.(see p58), Notice How I use my top view to place the prop_static in front of our spawn room. Place yours, like I placed mine. Now I'm going to swing my camera down to get a better working view.(see p59)

Click the "select tool" then Double-click on the prop_static. The properties dialog box should have popped up.(see p60)

Select "World Model" then click on browse. (see p60).
A model browser should pop up.

(You can right-click on the pictures and select "open link in new window", to see the enlarged pic w/out leaving this page.")

(see p61)
1. You need to type door in the Filter.
2. Scroll down the list until you find the door just like the one I selected in my example.
3. You can preview the model in the window marked No. 3 on my example p61.
(After clicking on one of the model names you can use the arrow keys to move up and down)

Once you have the same door selected, double click on it.

On the object properties: prop_static dialog box click apply. ahhhhhhh! magic. That little red box turned into a doorway. Before we close this property box let's change the collisions. Click on collisions. Change the use "vPhysics" to "not solid." This makes the doorway not solid. vPhysics makes its solid. Some things you may want to be solid, like tanks, and cars. And some things you don't, like doorways and bushes. Well some of the bushes you might want solid. But you should never made doorways solid, because people run into them, and get stuck. Make it "not solid", click apply, click cancel.

The door we just created, is partially stuck in the ground.(see p62) We need to line it up. You can line it up with the Select Tool, By selecting it, then using the "side view" or the "front view", to zoom in, and move it up, out of the ground. But a quicker way, Is to Use the Select Tool, select it, then hit Ctrl-x, it will disappear. You put your mouse pointer in about the same place where the model was and press Ctrl-v. it will paste it. And it will place it right on the ground.(see p63)

Now that we have it lined up vertically we need to line it up horizontally. We do this through the top viewport. Select the doorway model. Go to the top viewport. Then zoom in if necessary I should not have to tell you that. Move it next to the wall, keep an eye on in the camera view. We want to move it partially into the wall.(see p64)

Now comes the fun part. Turn the Ignore Groups button on. Now we need to select the walls that we're going to cut. And not the walls that we do not wish to cut. (Remember: to select multiple items, we hold down "Ctrl key"). So select the doorway, hold the Ctrl key down select the wall that we're going to cut. Here comes the tricky part. Fly into the spawn room and select the wall that players are staring at. Because we have to cut a hole in that one too. So that's cut them both at the same time. That way we know the cuts line up correctly.

You should have selected the doorway, the wall that the doorway is touching, and the wall inside the spawn. Zoom in with the top view. Zoom in on the doorway. Select the carve tool. In the top viewport carve the wall close to the end of the door like in the example.
(see p65) Then do the same thing to the other side. It should look like p66. (see p66)

The vertical cuts are done. We still need to do one more slice. But we do not want to cut everything. We just want to cut what we have to. So we're going to use the "select tool," hit ESC, then select the door again. Hold down the Ctrl key and click the wall inside the doorway.(see p67) don't forget to swing around into the spawn, and select the door from this side.(see p68)

Once you select the doorway and those two wall pieces, zoom in, in the Front View viewport. Zoom into the top of the doorway, and slice that like you cut the sides of the door (see p69).

After you slice it, go back to the select tool, hit escape and select the part of the wall that is in the doorway like a brick door. Using the front view grab the grips, and drag that wall down to open up the doorway.(see p 70) Do the same thing with the wall that was behind that wall.

Go to the texture tool, click browse, type wood, and select a wood texture. I used wood/woodwall005a. Apply that texture to all the nodraw surfaces.(see p71) you are doing good, real good. Man, you should buy me a hamburger after this., Now to show you a quick way to get a model. If there is already one in the map that you want.

Click the Select Tool, select the doorway. from the top view viewport. Hold down the shift key, and drag the doorway to the other end of the hallway lift your finger off the mouse key before you take your finger off the shift key. This makes a copy. Without having to go through the dialog box.(see p72)

Select the door that we just slid over, Hit Ctrl-c to copy, hit Ctrl v to paste. Paste it on the ceiling near the light (see p73) then double-click on it, to open the properties. Select "world model", click browse, type "light_dome" in the filter, and look for "props_c17\light_domelight02_on.mdl". select that one click ok. Click apply. Click cancel.

Before you touch anything, you will notice that it is not lined up. You remember what we do. Simple we just cut and paste. It should still be selected already so all you have to do is hit Ctrl-x, to cut. Just do it. Put the mouse on the ceiling about where the light should be and press Ctrl-v.(see p74)

Now select the light bulb. Using the side view viewport and the front view viewport line up the light underneath the model just like I have it in the example.(see p75) Things you should know. The model by itself, will not light up the room. All the light comes from the light bulb.

Before you Compile the map, We have to change the default skybox texture. Valve, no longer uses that texture.

click on "Map", from the pulldown menus. Select, "Map Properties".(see 1a)

Click on the line that says, "Skybox Texture Name". Circled in red, where it says, sky_day01_01.....(see 2a)

We need to change that value to say sky_dod_01_hdr. (see 3a)
That is the skybox texture that they use in Anzio.
So that one will be good for a long time. Click Apply, Click Cancel.

Now that we are finished, and you've learned a lot. Compile the map and run around into your new space. You can practice adding new models. You know how to add models but, Let me give you an example of something that could happen. Let's say you copy the doorway and paste it into the field. Then you changed the model to a tank. The tank would not be solid. Because the doorway is not solid. So if you ever have a model in your map, and for whatever reason it is not solid and it should be, just remember to double-click on it. Open the properties, click on collisions, and make sure it says "vPhysics" instead of "not solid".

Go ahead and experiment with adding new stuff, just type whatever you are looking for, then see if they have one. You know the kind of stuff they have in DOD. Just use your memory. Don't mess up this map though. Click "save as"and mess around in that map, save this one. So you don't mess up this lesson. you learned a lot. But I'm not ready to cut you loose yet. There is still a lot to learn. Like flags, spawn protection, and a bunch of stuff. Don't forget to check your map for leaks. I checked mine, and there were no leaks.

When I ran my map, I noticed I didn't make the wall high enough.(see p76) so i decided to fix it real quick. I went back to hammer selected the box again,(see 77) (you might have to take the ignore groups button off.) I selected everything, and made another slice a bit higher than the first slice. Then I applied a new texture.(see78) I chose a different brick texture for the texture at the top part of the wall. It gives it a different look.

You can experiment with different textures.

Yeah I like that better.(see p79)

Goto Next Lesson

Lesson 2 - Leaks, Select Tool, Carve Tool.

2008-05-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Lesson 2:
Leaks, Select Tool, Carve Tool.
Ignore Groups Button

In this lesson you will learn about leaks, and more things we need to know about the Select Tool. Also I will introduce you to the Carve Tool. So let's get started.

Leaks, are important to know about. It is also important to know how to find them. A leak is caused by a hole in your map or by placing an entity on the outside of your map. A leak is an error created when Hammer cannot tell the difference between the inside of your map, and the outside. You want to eliminate leaks because they cause all kinds of funny things to happen. So the best way to see what a leak is, and how to fix it, we need to create one.

Before we create an artificial leak. I should teach you about the Select Tool. Because we are going to use the Select Tool to create the leak, and also to fix the leak. Open Hammer. Go to File and click new. Or hit Ctrl-n to open a new map file. As always, after opening a new map click on the "-" tic-tac-toe to make the grid smaller. I click it about six times. I move all those dialog boxes to the right of the screen. And I hit Ctrl-a to Center all my viewports.

Click on the Texture Tool, click browse, type brick, select a brick texture.
Now click on the Block Tool. In the Top View viewport draw a square 200x 200. And hit Enter.
You just made that solid. Now click on the Select Tool. Now the brush you just created should be highlighted with the little white squares showing around the brush.
(see p1).
Those little white squares are called Grips. They allow you to do real-time editing. When you see the grips active, that means that brush or entity is selected. To "Deselect" an object, you can simply click on another object, or click in empty space or you can hit the ESC button.

Let's try that. Hit the Esc button. You just deselected your brush. It should look like a blue box.(see p2) Now we need to select it again. There are several ways to select an object. Let's try them all. First one is, click near the outside of the blue brush and hold the mouse button down.(see p3) drag a yellow dotted line square around your brush(see p4)

Then hit enter. As you can see your brush is now selected again.(see p1)

Hit Esc to deselect your brush. Another way to select your brush is by clicking on one of the blue lines or the little blue "x" that marks the center of your brush. Try that. That's how that works.

Select your brush. Center your brush in the Camera Viewport. You should remember how to do this from the previous lesson. Click on the "View" drop-down menu, go down to "Center 3-D views on selection" and click. Now we should see some yellow lines in the Camera Viewport.(see p5) Remember that is because we are inside of a solid object. So to see our brush correctly, we'll use the mouse wheel to scrollback. Until your viewport looks like my sample in p6.(see p6). Take your time, I'll be here all day.

Now the last method of selecting a object is by directly clicking on it in the Camera Viewport. Let's try. Hit Esc to deselect your brush. Notice the yellow outline vanished. Now to select this brush again, just click on it in your Camera Viewport. Cool. I knew you could do it. In a populated map, this method is going to be the most common method used by you to select an object.

We will practice more later. After I show you how to use the Carve Tool. It is the icon that looks like a block with one of its corners cut off. Second from the bottom. Do not click on it yet. Just know where it is, so when I tell you to click on it, you will click on it. And I won't have to wait for you.

Your Camera View should look like my example in p6 (see p6). But for our lesson on how to use the Carve Tool, we should get a better view in our Camera View viewport. Using the W. A. S. D. keys and the Arrows on your Keyboard, fly around your camera view, until your view looks like my view in the sample
(see p7). Or something near to that. Where you can see the top, and one or two of the sides it doesn't matter.

With your brush selected, click on the Carve Tool. Place your mouse above your brush in the Top View viewport(see p8).

And drag it right through the center.
(see p9). Making it go straight up-and-down just like the sample. See the blue line you created, with two grips on each end. That is the line created by the Carve Tool, it shows you where you are about to slice the brush.

(We are making the slice right down the middle of the brush. If you make your "slice line" in the wrong spot. To reset it. You have to click on the Select Tool icon. Then click on the Carve Tool icon again.)

At this point, notice half of the brush is in Red and the other half is in white. Everything that is in red will be deleted. Everything that is in white will remain.(see p10). Just so we're clear, if you were to hit Enter right now half of the brush, the half that is red, would be deleted. And the white half would remain.

You can select which side of the brush you wish to keep. Just click on the Carve Tool icon again, and notice what happens in the Top View viewport. Each time you click on the Carve Tool icon, you toggle through the different selections. You can choose to keep the right side, you can choose to keep the left side, or you can choose to keep both sides. For our example, we need to keep both sides, so keep clicking the Carve Tool icon until both sides of your brush are white(see p11). Then click Enterto carve the brush.

As you can see in the Camera Viewport your brush is now divided in two.
(see p12)(if you're slice, is not going the same direction as my slice. Don't trip. It doesn't matter. Just follow along and try and learn.) You can tell its separated by clicking on the Select Tool icon.(red arrow) Then click the left side of the brush, in the camera viewport.(see p13) as you can see only half of the brush selected. And if you click on the right side, the right side will become selected.

And the left side will automatically be deselected.

We need to have both sides selected, so we can carve them both at once. To select more than one item. You need to hold down the Ctrl key. This allows you to select multiple items. Let's select both sides of this block. Click the brush on the left side.( see p13 ) Press and hold down the Ctrl key. Then click the brush on the right side. Now both sides should be selected (see p14).

Now we are going to carve the brush again. So that there will be four pieces. The brushes that we wish to carve are selected. So now click on the Carve Tool Icon. Drag a carve line through the middle of your brush perpendicular to your first carve.(see p15). Hit Enter. You now carved your brush again. There should be a total of four pieces now. Click on your Select Tool.

In the Camera View viewport, click on the top left corner block.(see p16). And your Top View viewport should look like my example.(see p17). I will give you a little more information about the Select Tool. Now listen carefully, in the Top View viewport click on the brush that is already selected. And watch the grips change. When you first select the brush, the grips allow you to stretch. If you click on the brush, a second time the grips turn into little circles. Circle grips allow you to rotate the brush. (see p18).IFyou Click on the selected brush again. The grips change again. When the Grips are in the centers only, and not on the corners(see p19) these grips allow you to slide the block to distort it. (These grips come in handy, when creating slanted roofs)If you were to slide it it would look something like this(see p20). You can try it, just hit Ctrl-zto undo when your done, (ctrl-z = undo). So a summary of this, is that if you click on the selected brush. You change the grips. They toggle through these settings. First click = stretch, second click = rotate, third click = slide (see p21). That is what they do. You can practice that on your own. We're going to use what we've just learned in our next examples. Close this map, you do not have to save this one.

Now open your map from the last lesson. You should have saved it to your computer, like I told you to. If you did not, don't worry, you just have to go back to Lesson 1 and recreate the room. I'll wait for you here.

After you open your map, The first thing you notice, is that you can see your room in three of the viewport's but not in the Camera View. This is normal. Hammer always opens like this. We have to center the Camera View viewport by clicking on the view drop-down menu and going to "center 3-D views on selection". (You always have to do that.) when my map loaded I was facing sideways to the spawn points. Rotate your view around until you are behind them, like in my example(see p22).

Click on the back wall (I mean the wall that the spawn guys are staring at). Oops, it selected all the walls of the room.(see p23) Because this brush was made from one single brush, so all six pieces are grouped together. I need to select one wall, not all of them. So we need to turn groups off, temporarily. To do this, click on the little button that says "Ig", that stands for Ignore Groups.(see p24). The proper name is "toggle groups ignore". I'm not going to go through the trouble of calling it that. Just call it the Ignore Groups button. Click on the Ignore Groups button. When the Ignore Groups button is pressed. Hammer will ignore all grouped items. And You can select each item individually no matter which group it belongs to. I will teach you more about groups later. I Just want to teach you what you need to know now, to do what we are trying to accomplish now. To turn groups on, press the Ig button again, it should be pressed in.

Leave the Ignore Groups button pressed.(see p24) Listen carefully, I do not want to have to repeat myself. Sometimes it helps, to read things more than once. And it also helps, if you read them out loud. When you hear the words spoken, you understand them better. Then you start reading sentences. Instead of reading word by word. When you start reading sentences. You understand what you read better. Because when people speak, we speak in sentences. Not one word at a time.

With the Ignore Groups button in the down position. Click on the back wall again, in the Camera View viewport.(see p25) it should have selected only the one wall that we clicked on. That's what you need to do if you try to select something and it selects everything. Just remember the "IG" button.

Now that we have our back wall selected, we are going to create a Leak. From the Top View viewport we're going to drag the wall away from the other wall to create a gap. Select a grip that is in the middle. On the long end of the rectangle.(see p26) and drag it from 300 to about 250. (It really doesn't matter if you are exact, we just want to create a gap.) it should look like my sample p27, in the Camera View viewport.(see p27)

We're going to pretend, that we do not know that the hole is there. Let's say we finished our map and we're ready to Compile It. Click the Run Map icon.(it's the bicycle link). Click OK and compile the map.

The map will run, and play with a leak in it. And on a simple map like this, the problems are not as obvious as they will be when your map is full of stuff. A leak will cause your water not to show up when you compile your map. A leak will increase your compile time. A completed DOD map, might take in hour to compile. That same map with a leak might take 12 to 18 hours to compile, while Hammer tries to figure out where the inside of the map is and where the outside of the map is. Also leaks cause Lag.

Now back to our map. The leak in our map is very obvious. But when you start making real complicated maps. Leaks are not going to be to easy to spot. So what can you do to find your leaks? Lucky for you, Hammer has a tool we can use to find the leaks.
We have to load what is called a pointfile. Pointfiles are saved as .lin files, and they have the same name as your map except they end in .lin To load your point file click on the drop-down menu called Map.(see p28) Go down to where it says load point file and click on it. This is important for you to know. If you have a leak you see a msgbox(see p29). If you do not have a leak you will see a dialog box.(see p30). Since we see the MessageBox and not a dialog box that means we have a leak. And we should click yes to load the pointfile.

Loading the pointfile tells Hammer to draw a red line to show you where the leak is. And it draws this line in all the viewport's. Follow the red line until you see where it escapes from the inside of your map to the outside. Then you need to close that gap. So click on the Select Tool and select that wall that is too short. Using the grips, close that gap in the walls by dragging it from 250 units back to 300 units. (see p31)(note: if you can't get it to go back to exactly 300 it may be that your grid is too large and you should click on the icon to make the grid smaller, like I told you to do, in the first place .)

Now that we fixed our leak. We can unload the point file. Click on the Map drop-down menu, go to unload point file, and click it. Now that the point file is unloaded, we need to test our map again. So hit the run map icon. And compile the map.

Then go back to Hammer. And load the pointfile again. Click on Map. Then "load point file". If you still have a leak, (because in a large map there can be more than one leak.) Hammer can only show you one leak at a time. So if you have a leak. And your trying to fix it. After every time you compile your map you should load the pointfile. Fix the leak. Unload the point file.Compile the map. Load point file. Fix leak. Unload point file. Compile the map.......

Just keep doing that until there are no more leaks to load. If there are no leaks in your map, you will see a dialog box(see p30). You can just click cancel. If there are no pointfiles to load, then there are no leaks in your map. It does not hurt to check for leaks after you compile your map. A simple room like the one we created should not have any leaks. You only need to really check for leaks when you cut into a wall that is part of the box that contains your map. Or like if you expand your map. Like we're going to do today.

If you like you can take a break. You do not want to overload your brain. Check out the Music Break Room and listen to some music while you make maps.

Are you ready to get started now? Did you stretch your legs? Good. Let's start by adding a second room.

Continue on to the next lesson.

Lesson 1 - First Room

2008-05-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Creating Your First Room:

Click on the texture tool. You should see the "face edit sheet" dialogbox pop-up. This dialogbox is like your palate. It contains all your textures, and your tool textures that you will need to make your map a real map, and not just a box with funny shapes. We will call the "face edit sheet" the "texture dialogbox". In the texture dialogbox, click on the browse button. Now your texture palate should have opened. Do you see all the stuff at the bottom? Don't mess with it. Just the box that says "Filter", is the one that we will use.

In the "filter:" 'text field', Type the word, "tools".

(' text field ', means the white box where you type the letters).

These are what we call your tool textures. These are all special textures that are applied in specific situations. To select a texture. Double-click on the one you want. Right now you want to select the nodraw texture. Double-click on the nodraw texture. In the texture dialogbox, you can see that the nodraw texture is now selected. Click on the "block tool".(The tool above the texture tool on the left.) The texture dialogbox should have minimized itself to the column on the right. That is okay. You can see the nodraw texture is still selected. It is important to note which texture is selected before you start to create brushes in Hammer. A brush is the same thing as a block. But in the world of Hammer we do not call it a block. We call them brushes. You want to create most of your brushes using the nodraw texture. Any face of any brush that has the nodraw texture on it, is not drawn by Hammer when the map is compiled. This way when we texture the map, we will only have to texture what the players sees, and we save space in MB's by not having the computer draw areas of the map that no one will ever see.

Now we will create our first room, by creating a brush, in the "TopView" viewport. That is the viewport in the top right corner of Hammer. (Note: If you hover your mouse in the top left corner of each viewport you'll see the name of that viewport.) With the block tool selected, and the nodraw texture active in the "texture group" on the right, you are ready to start drawing in the "TopView" viewport.

Click in the viewport and hold the mouse button down. Drag a square 300 by 300. Put your mouse in the center of the square until your mouse cursor turns into the four arrows. Then drag the square to the middle of the viewport. Notice you can see the white dotted outline of the square you just drew in the bottom two viewports also. (If you can't, don't worry, it will work out.) Here is another shortcut that you'll need to remember. Hit "Ctrl e". This centers in the 2-D viewports, on whatever is selected.

Now that we have the area of our room created in the top viewport. We need to give our room some depth. From either the "FrontView" or the "SideView" viewport grab the little white square on the bottom, in the middle of the other two squares. Drag it down to about 200. Doesn't have to be exact. These measurements are not written in stone.

Now that you have your 200 by 300 dotted line cube drawn and centered, Hit enter on your keyboard. The white dotted line turned into a red solid line. This means that your brush is now solid. To see your brush we need to center it in the 3-D viewport. To do this we need to click on view from the drop-down menus. Go down the menu to "center 3-D views on selection", click on it. (Sorry, there is no shortcut for this one.)

Now you probably see some yellow lines in the 3-D viewport. This is because our camera view is inside the solid object, the block we just created. Oops, I mean the brush we just created. To view this brush, just use your mousewheel to scroll the camera back. Your mouse wheel allows you to zoom in and out, in the viewport that is active. A viewport becomes active just by moving your mouse over that viewport. So you can use the mousewheel to zoom in and out in all the viewports. Put your mouse back over the 3-D viewport to make it active. To move around in the 3-D viewport, you use your a,s,d,w buttons. That allows you to move forwards, backwards, and sideways. To pitch the camera up-and-down, use the arrow keys on your keyboard. So you'll be driving around your 3-D viewport with two hands. Try it. It takes some getting used to, but I have faith in you.

Don't worry if you can't find your way back. Just go to the "View" drop-down menu and click on "center 3-D views on selection". That should have put you back inside the bush, by Centering your view in the 3-D viewport.

From the icons on the left, click the "selection tool". That is the icon that looks like a red arrow. When you do this you will notice that the dimensions of the brush you just created shows up in all of the 2-D viewports, and that the red lines of the brush, are now dashed red and yellow. This means that this entity is selected. If your brush is not selected, then zoom out in the 3-D viewport and click on the brush. Center it again using the view drop-down menu.

We are going to turn this brush into our first room. With the brush centered in the 3-D viewport. And with the brush selected you will hit "Ctrl h" on your keyboard. This brings the the hollow tool dialogbox. All you need to do here is tell Hammer how thick you want Hammer to make the walls. A good rule for beginners, is 32 units for outside walls, and 16 units for inside walls. In this example we are going to make our walls 32 units thick. Type 32 in the dialogbox. Click OK. There you go. It's a room.

Now that we have our hollow box, we need to texture the inside. Click on the texture tool. Click browse. Type "floor" in the filter. Select one of the floor textures by double clicking on it. (For this example, select concrete/concretefloor008a) Move the texture dialogbox out of the way of the 3-D viewport, if it is in the way. In the 3-D viewport right click on the floor to apply the floor texture. On the texture dialogbox, a.k.a. the "face edit sheet" dialogbox, click browse again, type brick in the filter. Select a brick texture by double clicking on it. (Select any brick texture) Apply the brick texture to all the walls and the ceiling by right clicking on the surfaces that you want to apply the texture to. (Use the W. A. S. D. keys and the arrow keys to navigate in the 3-D viewport.) At this point you only need to texture the inside, leave the nodraw texture on the outside.

Look at the texture dialog box. Notice the brick texture is now selected. Now left click on the floor. I said left click! If you made a mistake and right clicked. Don't panic. Whenever you make mistake, just undo by hitting "Ctrl-z", or clicking the undo button near the top of this viewport. It is the button with the little blue arrow, looping back to the left. If you didn't click the wrong one then...

Notice the texture dialogbox, it now shows the floor texture that you just clicked on. This is another way you can select a texture without going to "browse" in the texture dialogbox. Left clicking with your mouse select's a texture, Right clicking with your mouse applies that texture. With this little procedure, you can save a lot of time by not having to go back to the texture dialogbox. Let us use it in an example now. Make the floor texture active in the texture dialogbox by left clicking on the floor. Then right click on the ceiling. Now the ceiling has the same texture as the floor. It is as simple as that.

Time to populate our room. We are going to work with the "Entity Tool" now. Click on the "entity tool". It is the icon on the left, just above the block tool. It looks like a little chessman. A pawn. When you click the entity tool, look to the column on the right. Look for the dialogbox titled "Move Selected". Right under that, are two text boxes. One title "Categories:" and one title "Objects:". In categories: it should say "Entities". In objects: it will say whatever entity is currently selected. Notice both text boxes have a drop-down arrow. As I said before don't change the categories. Leave it on entities.

In the "Objects:" text box, left click with the mouse. It should have highlighted whatever is in that textbox. Now hit "i" on your keyboard. Now it should say Info_camera_link. (By putting "i" in that box, it puts all the entities that start with "i" at the top of the list.) Click on the drop-down arrow. Use the scroll arrows on the right side of the drop-down menu and scroll down to

"info_player_allies". Click on info_player_allies. Now click your mouse in the 3-D viewport, in the middle of the room you just created. You just placed your first spawn point. That was an allied spawn point. Now place an axis spawn point. Click the drop-down arrow on the "objects" textbox. Select info_player_axis. Now click on the floor next to the allied guy. When placings spawn points take note of the yellow box hammer draws around the little green man. You want to make sure each of the yellow boxes do not touch. If they do, when the players spawn they will be stuck together. I know you have seen this before. And it sucks. (The yellow box is called the bounding box) you can see clearly if they are touching or not by looking at them in the top viewport. If they are touching. You need to move one of them. To move one. You need to click on the selection tool. It allows you to select entities and map geometry. Click on the selection tool. Now from either the top viewport, or the 3-D viewport click on one of the spawn points to select it. Now in all the viewport's you can see that this spawn point you just clicked on, is selected. Whenever you select something new, it is always a good idea to hit "Ctrl e" to center your selection in the 2-D viewports.

(Note: if you hold the "Ctrl e" and scroll with the mousewheel, you can zoom all three 2-D viewports at once. The mouse cursor just has to be over one of the 2-D viewports)

Now we are going to need some light. Click on the entity tool. In the column on the right, click in the text field under objects: type L. This brings all the entities that start with L. to the top of the list. It just so happens that "light" is at the top of the list. With categories: on entities, and objects: on light, go to the 3-D window and place a light in the center of the ceiling by clicking there. Click on the selection tool. (After placing your entities, it is a good idea to hit the selection tool to avoid accidentally placing unwanted entities into your map) press Ctrl e, to center the 2-D viewport's. You can also adjust the light by moving it in the top viewport.

The exact center the all objects are marked with a little "x". Move the light to the center of the room by lining up the two little x's in the topview viewport.

Later on, when your maps become complicated, you are going to want to be in the habit of saving your work often. Because it's going to happen to you. Hammer will crash. And if you don't save your work often. You could lose all of the work that you just done. At this point we should save our work. Click file, click save as, create a new folder, call it map1.(always create a new folder when you start a new map. So you will be able to find things in the future.) Save your file to this folder, call it whatever you like. But do not put any spaces in the name.
(Example: Do Not name your map "map one" -- Do it like this "map_one". No Spaces!)
Save your map. It saves your map as a .vmf file-that stands for valve media file or valve metaFile or something like that.

On the toolbar at the top of hammer, can you see the buttons with the red and blue letters on them, DD, DW and DR. Directly to the right of those, there's an icon that looks like a bicycle chain link. This is the run map icon. A shortcut for this one is F9. Click the run map icon or press F9.

WELCOME to the run map dialogbox. Here you have a bunch of options.
Set them as follows: RUN BSP - normal, RUN VIS - Fast, RUN RAD - Fast. Do not touch anything else. Click OK.
Your map is now being compiled, when it is finished hammer will start DOD and run your map.
(Note: to view maps that you have already made, you run DOD. And where it says "find servers", look for "create server". This will run the map on your computer. Go ahead and click on that. A dialogbox Will pop-up. Find your map name in the pulldown menu. And click start.)(if your map name does not show up there after you have compiled it, you probably have spaces in the name.)

You're finished, for now.

Until my next entry, you can experiment with what you know already. Disconnect from the map. Go back to the hammer editor. You do not have to close DOD if you do not want to. But go back to hammer, and do something like make a giant room. You can either practice creating a new giant room. Or you can stretch the box you already have. I think you should try both. That way you will know which is more efficient for you. Just remember, after you make the new box, the light and the spawn points will no longer be where you put them. You can either move them, then line them up using the 2-D viewports or you can just delete them. And reinsert them, using the entity tool. (Note: if you run your map and you find that you cannot join a team.Then your spawn points may be missing, or may be stuck in a wall or something.)
You can also try to make your room look like the room at the top of this page. By selecting different textures. To get a carpet texture, type carpet in the filter on the texture pallet. Just like you typed brick to get a brick texture. It works the same way. Type wall to get a bunch of different kinds of walls. Type wood to create a bunch of wood textures. Etc. etc. see you soon.

Goto Lesson Two

Cool Links

http://www.northstardesigners.com/

Introduction: Part 2

2008-05-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Now that you have Hammer open, you have taken your first step towards making your first map.

Due to the recent OrangeCrap update some of the dialog boxes pictured in this tutorial have changed slightly. But the contents are still the same and you should be able to figure out what is what.

Click on "file". See the drop-down menu? Before we click on "new", take notice of the shortcut to the right. It says CTRL N. It's important to take note of the shortcuts because they make things go a lot faster. Now click "new".

You should have seen 4 black viewports pop-up, as well as all your tools. They are now highlighted, and clickable.

To the right of the viewports, there are a bunch of boxes with writings in them. One says "select:" another says "VisGroups:" another one says "Move Selected:" and the last says "Textured Group:" These are all things That you learn about as we go along. The first thing you learn about them, is that they are movable. So let us move them out of the way. Just click on them near their titles, and drag them to the right. Put them all in one column. Put them in this order for now from top to bottom. "Move Selected:" on the top. "Textured Group:" under that, next "select:" and last "VisGroups:". Don't worry if you can't see the whole "VisGroups:" dialogbox. It's not important at this time.

Moving those boxes should have given you some room to work with. Now you need to learn some vocabulary. If you hover your mouse over a tool icon, a little window will pop-up telling you the name of the tool. Take a look at the picture I created. Learn the names of these tools. It will make your life, and my life a lot easier. Although I show you the shortcuts to the right of the name, it is not necessary to memorize the shortcuts at this time. I will tell you which shortcuts are important, and which shortcuts you should remember. (Note: I know the funny symbol that looks like a Rubik's Cube says the name of it is, "Toggle Texture Application". But we are just going to call that the, "Texture Tool".)

Okay, This is the first shortcut that you should learn. "Crtl-A" go ahead and press that. It centers your four viewports. You can also click, "view\autosize 4 views", from the view drop-down menu. That's where the shortcuts come in handy, for all the stuff in the drop-down menu's.
Now we will take a look at the 4 viewports. 3 of the viewports have a grid in them and one is solid black. The solid black viewport is the 3-D viewport. In this viewport you'll see the world you create in three dimensions. The 3-D viewport will help you visualize the final look of your map. You want to make sure you set the view in this viewport, to "3-D shaded textured polygons". To do this, click on the word "camera" in the solid black viewport. And in the drop-down menu, select "3-D shaded textured polygons". This enables you to see your textures, as you apply them. The other viewports with the grids in them, are your 2-D viewports. They consist of your TopView, FrontView, and the SideView. you do not need to do anything to these viewports. As the expert mapper, you are, you will be working in all four viewports.

Now, see the little tic-tac-toe symbols near the top of Hammer, under "File", "Edit", "Map"? The only ones we need to worry about, are the ones with the little light blue "-" and "+" sign on them. These control the size of your grid in the 2-D viewports. Changing the size of your grid will help you line things up in your map. I like to work with a smaller grid, so right off the bat I like to click on the tic-tac-toe symbol with the little blue "-", sign about six times.

NEXT: GoTo Lesson 1

Introduction: Getting Started. Here you will find all you need to know to make your first map.

2008-05-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my site. I know you want to get started right away. But before you can get started, there are a few things That you should know.

(note: if you already have hammer up and running, then you can start on lesson 1. In the right Column under past lessons,2008, click may then click lesson 1)

UPDATED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO CONFIGURE FOR ORANGEBOX

Mapmaking is free. If you have Steam installed, then you are ready to get started. (Note: If you already have Hammer installed, Start with Lesson One. I'm starting from the beginning so that even if you never opened Hammer before you can learn all you need to know to get started and make a really neat map.)
First thing you need to do is login to your Steam Account. Then you'll need to install SDK tools. At the top of your Steam Window you will notice the words "file", "view", "games", "help". Now, click on the word "view". On the drop-down menu, click on the word "tools". (It should be on the bottom of the list.) The tools tab should appear before you. You will want to download Source SDK. You don't need to install Source SDK Base. You can check that out later. It is just a level that explains some of the lighting techniques that the Valve hl2 developers used to make their maps.
Double-click on Source SDK, and download it to your computer. Once it's downloaded and ready to go. Double-click on source SDK in your Steam Window. You should see a dialog box saying "preparing to launch source SDK".
Once it's loaded, you will see a new dialog box with a lot more icons to click on. Right now you're only going to be concerned with "Hammer Editor" under the "Application" section on the source SDK dialog box. Slowdown, make sure you read this before you start clicking on whatever. Because you have to make sure that Hammer is configured for DOD Source OrangeBOX.

At the bottom of the source SDK dialog box, you can see two fields. The first one says "engine version:" the second one says "current game".

You need "engine version" to say: "The Orange Box"
and you need "current game" to say: "Portal" (see p1)

(Note: if you do not have Portal in the Current Game pulldown menu, or you mess up the installation. Near the bottom of this page, in the Oops section I explain how to fix it.)

After that double-click on "Hammer Editor". An open it. (See p2)

Once you have Hammer open, click on "Tools" then click Options. (See p3)

That brings up a dialog box called "configure Hammer". On that dialog box, near the top. There is a button called "Edit". Click on That Button. (See p4)

That brings up another dialog box called "Edit Game Configurations". On this dialog box click the "Add" button. (See p5)

That will bring up another dialog box called "Add a Game". In this dialog box you want to type "DOD:S OrangeBox". Without the quotation marks. Just like you see it in the sample. (See p6) then click "OK".

You have just added that to the game configurations and you should see it in the "Edit Game Configurations" window, if that's the case then click "Close" (see p7).

Now the fun stuff begins. The first thing you want to do is click on the pulldown arrow near the top of the "Configure Hammer" dialog box. Under the word "Configuration:". Where it says portal... that's the arrow you want to click. (See p8)

Select "DOD:S OrangeBox" in that pulldown menu.
That should have blanked out all the dialog boxes. Now click on the "Add" button, under the "game data files:" section (see p9)

This is where you tell Hammer which version you are using. ep1 (episode 1) is the old engine that we were using. The "Orange box" is the new engine we are using. So you want to browse to the new Orange box engine. It should be at this same address.
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\your-account\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin
(see p10)

Select the "Bin" folder. Out of this folder you want to select the "dod.fgd" file. Then click "Open". (See p11).

Okay good. For The next part just make it look like my example in p12.
Where it says "Texture Format:" - "materials (half-life 2)"
"map type:" - "half-life 2"
"Default pointEntity class" - "info_player_start"
"Default solidEntity class" - "func_detail"
"Default texture scale:" - 0.25
"Default lightmap scale" - 16
"Cordon Texture" - Black (see p12).

The rest you can just copy and paste from this web page to your Hammer editor. They should be exactly the same.

Game Executable
$SteamUserDir\day of defeat source
Game Directory
$SteamUserDir\day of defeat source\dod
Hammer VMF Directory
$SteamUserDir\sourcesdk_content\dod\mapsrc
(see p13)

Once you get them pasted in the correct spots click "Apply". A dialog box will pop up saying something about restarting just click OK, but do not restart yet.

At the top of the "Configure Hammer" dialog box, There Are a Bunch of tabs. Click on the tab that says "Build Programs", and make sure it says "DOD:S OrangeBox" on the "Configuration" pulldown menu. (See p14).

The rest is easy, a cut and paste job, well... copy and paste would be more accurate. Just copy and paste these in the correct spots.

Game executable: - $SteamUserDir\day of defeat source\hl2.exe

BSP executable: - $SteamUserDir\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin\vbsp.exe

VIS executable: - $SteamUserDir\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin\vvis.exe

RAD executable: - $SteamUserDir\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin\vrad.exe

Place compiled maps - $SteamUserDir\day of defeat source\dod\maps

After pasting these in their correct spots, click OK then another dialog box pops up click OK. And you are finished with the configuration.
(see p15)

Close Hammer.

Close the SDK dialog box.

Double-click on "source SDK" under "Tools" in your main "Steam window". (see p16)

But this time, down at the bottom, where it says "current game" you should now have another selection besides portal to choose from. And amazingly its the configuration that you have just created. So select "DOD:S OrangeBox" where it says "Current Game"
and where it says
"engine version" it should say "The Orange Box". (See p17) That's it.

Now you're ready to Start Hammer.

GoTo Introduction Part 2

Oops

Instructions on how to restore game configurations to their default values.

(You only need to read this section if you messed up the installation.)

So you don't have any choices in the current game pulldown menu. There is no need to panic. This is an easy fix. Simply double-click on, "Reset Game Configurations" (see p18)

This will give you a warning message that you are about to reset current game configurations to their default values. (See p19) Click on the Reset button. After resetting your game configurations, go back to the top of this page and Follow the Installation Instructions. Goto Top

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