Learning Hammer

I kid, I kid. This actually isn't so bad. I love the dev textures for everything. Decided to start with Half Life 2 since Portal 2 seems to require a fair amount of Hammer knowledge before jumping in.

The problem with the very cursory prefab experiment I tried in Portal 2 (using a door prefab and a button prefab) was that the scripting doesn't seem to connect properly (and the arrow is always showing broken whether it works or not). The light overlays on the floor change color just fine, but the door wouldn't open.

I'll come back to it. Main reason I decided to take the plunge on Source was to have a wide variety of games to work with (unlike UE3 or CE2).

Hammer has improved with P2 but some stuff keeps getting more broken. You can never trust the I/O icon anymore, especially with instances. Don't use 3rd part prefabs, use the valve provided instances. Make sure you set a vmf fixup name.

Got a crazy physics bug going on here. I followed this tutorial to set up a simple plug puzzle. Picking up the crowbar enables motion on the plug's func_physbox, but instead of simply falling to the floor, the plug goes insane, ignores most of the level collision (except for the prop_dynamic objects), and swings around like crazy. In addition, the plug sticks in at the wrong angle once the trigger is set off. Anyone know what might be causing this? I can share the VMF if needed.

Quote from Serenius

Got a crazy physics bug going on here. I followed this tutorial to set up a simple plug puzzle. Picking up the crowbar enables motion on the plug's func_physbox,

I think you need to set it to force drop not enable motion

Figured it out.

Had the no-collision flag checked on the phys_lengthconstraint (collision issue),and the length value was set way to short (bungie cord issue).

I like how the bug made the puzzle solve itself

Yeah, that was pretty hilarious too. I have since replaced that set up using the ragdoll model from Ep. 2.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to place a zombie ragdoll that still has the headcrab attached. One that is "dead" to the player, and doesn't scream when damaged by the player. Simply trying to fit two ragdolls together and bind them with a phys_constraint or ragdoll_constraint doesn't seem to work since the headcrab collision doesn't allow it to actually fit over the zombie model's head.

Also, is there a way to set up brushes that only block physics objects/debris? I know there's the player clip brush, but I have a few spots where a cable ragdoll is getting snagged that I need to address.

Quote from Serenius

Also, is there a way to set up brushes that only block physics objects/debris? I know there's the player clip brush, but I have a few spots where a cable ragdoll is getting snagged that I need to address.

Func_clip_vphysics does that. You might want to give it a filter to sort by as well, otherwise it will block handgrenades and other physics objects as well.

Perfect. Thanks, Insta!

So after trying to figure out how to release a map last night, I realized I was building in Source 2009, but have to release in Source 2007 to actually do this. Is there a way to convert 2009 maps to be 2007 compatible, or do I have to start from scratch?

Google wasn't too helpful on this one.

You could load the .vmf in the 2007 hammer then compile and hope there are no errors or use VBCT to compile the map but instead of using the orangebox compile tools set it up to use the source2007 compile tools

Wow there are many good tips in here, but you are bound not to absorb most of them until you learn by example actually doing stuff.

I would recommend re-reading this thread a few more times during your first couple of weeks mapping and try your best to try all the shortcuts and tips listed in the thread. In particular, the "ctrl+S" to autosave... (also, i would recommend setting up your autosave option to save frequently, and log more versions of the map than the default is set to (i use 5-minute saves and log 50 iterations of the map, and i also do a manual save of the vmf and logfile every hour or so of editing time)

Quote

Unreal and Radiant are from the future and Hammer is from the past.

Sure hammer is old, but afaik, it's the easiest way on the planet to quickly and easily prototype your 3D world ideas, and has to be the most user-friendly interface out there.

Quote from Serenius

Perfect. Thanks, Insta!So after trying to figure out how to release a map last night, I realized I was building in Source 2009, but have to release in Source 2007 to actually do this. Is there a way to convert 2009 maps to be 2007 compatible, or do I have to start from scratch?

Google wasn't too helpful on this one.

I've been learning as I go with similar stuff recently.

You'll be able to compile under the 2009 SDK and the map will run fine, just swap out your mod's appid to the specific game whose content you're mounting before loading the map (420 in my case, the Episode 2 GCFs). This steps around some missing content issues in Hammer, because the tools apparently don't understand the AdditionalContentID parameter in GameInfo.txt. Swap back out to the SDK 2007 Base to test (218) and all should be good.

Quote from captain0terror

Sure hammer is old, but afaik, it's the easiest way on the planet to quickly and easily prototype your 3D world ideas, and has to be the most user-friendly interface out there.

No.

Quote from Vilham

No.

Exactly, fuck no!

At my work I was checking lots of editors to get as much cool stuff as possible to our editor. In my opinion UDK is really close to be the most user-friendly but the brushwork is a pain in the ass and selecting objects in 3dview is also sucky. If you'll move content browser and other cool UDK stuff like world settings (post processing/rendering stuff) into 3DSMax it could be a blast for prototyping in 3D

That's the thing that gets me, brushwork in Unreal is a terrible pain in the ass compared to Hammer. Maybe I just don't know the shortcuts, but even resizing brushes seems to take so much longer. The center points of my brushes keep moving, they're harder to select, I just feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good way to prototype in Unreal?

Quote from SamCom

That's the thing that gets me, brushwork in Unreal is a terrible pain in the ass compared to Hammer. Maybe I just don't know the shortcuts, but even resizing brushes seems to take so much longer. The center points of my brushes keep moving, they're harder to select, I just feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good way to prototype in Unreal?

Even if you know all the shortcuts it's still annoying. Prototyping is still a nice ride in comparsion to fixing some brush bugs on finished level where brushes covers you all around. Madness... I will be a bless to see "Editable Poly" from 3DSMax in UnrealED or just kick the BSP out.

Quote from SamCom

That's the thing that gets me, brushwork in Unreal is a terrible pain in the ass compared to Hammer. Maybe I just don't know the shortcuts, but even resizing brushes seems to take so much longer. The center points of my brushes keep moving, they're harder to select, I just feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good way to prototype in Unreal?

Brushwork in Unreal is great! The only real down-side is that you have to rebuild brushes to see any changes you make. Subtraction brushes alone are a godsend. Trying to switch from additive + subtractive to only additive has been a nightmare.