My Advanced Hammer YouTube Tutorial Series (Episode 8 RELEASED: Packing Textures/Models into the BSP)

Hey all, I make YouTube videos and have been asked to talk about advanced concepts when it comes to mapping in Hammer, so I started a little series. I don't go over the basics (making brushes, applying textures, putting down entities like player spawns, props etc.) because there's already more than enough high-quality video tutorial content out there on these topics, but instead I talk about more advanced topics; how to make the most of Hammer, how to work efficiently with it and who knows what else haha.

This first episode briefly goes over unit scale and then focuses in on how to get textures to look good and trims. I expect a lot of you experienced Hammer users to know all this already but maybe this is still of some interest to some of you that are not quite total beginner but also aren't experts yet?

Do let me know if this helped you out and if you want to see more. Cheers!

(I also hope a shameless self-promotion post is okay here on Mapcore, it DOES have the goal of helping others and is relevant at least? )

Haha thanks everybody. I was very nervous to post this here with all you experts. And naming the series 'advanced' was... risky... I thought. Because as an expert, it's all too easy to look down on this and scream "THAT'S SO EZ LOL I KNOW HOW TO THAT" hehe.

Aaanyways, it's very motivating to hear this this of value to some and I can only get better at these kinds of videos. I'll produce the next one tomorrow and focus on arches probably.

@onebit: Cool, will do that next!

Today I released Episode 2 in which I briefly recap texture alignment and nodraw, then show a method to get 'perfect' arches and finally talk a bit about func_details.

As always, I hope this helps, let me know if it did, if you have topic suggestions for the future or if you've got any other feedback on my videos. Cheers!

Episode 3 is out which talks about displacements and how to surround them so you don't get leaks. Also how to alpha blend textures and sew properly.

Thanks for watching, as always, and let me know if you have any suggestions for future topics. And, if this is too spammy to keep posting new episodes here, please also let me know and I will stop, don't want to step on any toes!

If anybody is still following the series, I just released a short 2-part video that aims to explain the bsp->vis process, leafs, portals and how to optimize with hint and skip brushes:

The first video explains the theory (how the source engine 'works' in regards to visibility checks):

And the seconid video shows how to make hint and skip brushes in hammer and how to check what's being rendered (and if you actually optimized well) in CSGO:

Hope this helps out, even though I'm sure most people here are aware of this stuff.

Cheers!

Thank you very much, @KID A, great to hear that it's helpful to you! I'm planning on recording more but I'm running out of ideas as to what to cover. Any ideas anyone?

I'm back baby! Here's the fifth installment in my Advanced Hammer Tutorial series:

This time I talk about instancing in Hammer, how it can be very useful for keeping everything nice and tidy but how it also adds overhead when used for an entire map. I show how to use func_instances in a little tutorial map setting and even show that you can put instances in instances. Instanception, yay!

Let me know if this is of use to you and cheers!

Hey @Tomato, thanks. That little 'niche' is exactly what I'm trying to fill so that's awesome to hear.

Yeah, how to make models for Hammer/Source is often requested. And I CAN do it (have done it in the past in de_spice) but it's a very lengthy and difficult process. Plus it requires 3DS MAX which is very expensive and I don't think a lot of people have access to it... Hmmm, not sure. Other opinions? Would it be worth it to make an episode on that anyways? Other ideas?

Thanks @capslock!

@clankill3r: Interesting, I didn't know there was a pipeline for Blender. Unfortunately I only know 3DS MAX and Maya and not Blender so I'd have to learn that first most likely. Maybe I'll make my model for the tutorial in 3D MAX and import it into Blender and tell people they can use whatever they want and then see how I can get that into the engine using the guide you posted. Cool stuff anyways, thanks for posting that suggestion!

Quote from Dosentti

You should definitely do that! 3Ds max is free at least for students. But if you think it's not worth it then blender is free and pretty popular so I guess you could do that with blender if not with 3Ds max. I think that would be awesome tutorial. Some other subjects could be for example

- advanced optimizing (like for big open maps).
- texture creation (like for example vmt options, explaining all terms like alpha texture, bumpmap etc..)
- skybox creation (from start to finish.. that's major job and I haven't found good tutorial)
- advanced lighting (it could be based on leplubodeslapin's source lighting articles. Articles are great but they are more theoretical and thereby a bit hard to understand how those lights work in practice)
- proper workflow (which steps you should take while creating map... like draw layout, make greybox, test, test, test, tweak and test more..)
- Storytelling in csgo maps (this is probably hard one, but not many maps have good story behind them)

It could be a series about creating map that has been made correctly from start to finish and with (at least some of ) your own custom props and textures. Because mapmakers should be encouraged to use custom content imo.

Also.. one suggestion I have for tutorials that you make in future: It would be great if the example map was a bit bigger. At least I find it hard to figure out the scale and everything when there's only 2 walls or one corridor.

I hope some of these inspire you!

Hey, thanks for the ideas, definitely inspiring!

- I'm not sure what you can do to really optimize a large open map in Source (apart from horrible render distance plus fog) so not sure on this one

- custom textures definitely need a tutorial, agreed

- yeah, a good 3d skybox tutorial is also a nice idea, especially since it's not just a simple how-to-thing (those exist plenty) but how to actually work with a 3d skybox throughout a project requires some pretty smart workflows (with de_spice I didn't do that and had tons of issues with trying to change the 3d skybox later on)

- not sure what I can teach about advanced lighting but I haven't really studied the article yet, will do that and decide then. I don't want to teach the 'art' side of things because I don't think that can be tought but if there's theory or methods or anything (beyond instancing light sources which I've already mentioned in the instancing episode) I will do that

- yeah a whole overall workflow guide would be nice but requires me to make a full map or at least take a part of a map through the full process which is very time intensive, we'll see!

- hmm, storytelling is an interesting idea, I'll give you that, not sure I could turn that into a video (apart from just running through maps and pointing out things)

About your suggestion: the issue is really just my lack of time, that's why I generally use little map segments as I don't have time to make a large/full-scale map just to show off a certain feature, sorry

Thanks again for the feedback and the ideas, definitely some good stuff in there!