How does Valve get func_ladders to work in their maps?

I'm not sure, but that's probably just an error when decompiling due to the program being old. Just use the ladder tool texture.

Having a brush with ladder texture applied to the ladder face ( other 5 faces with nodraw ) works fine. In Left 4 Dead, ladders were created in the nav mesh directly, not sure about CSGO though.

Quote from tr0nic

Having a brush with ladder texture applied to the ladder face ( other 5 faces with nodraw ) works fine.

Just straight up making a brush with 6 ladder faces works fine too, although I don't know if it's better or worse than what you suggested.

However, you'll need to build them manually in the nav mesh, in nav_edit 1, point at them and use the command "nav_build_ladder", which also automatically connects the newly created ladder mesh to nearby areas, so there's that.

Don't they use ladder props these days? Eg cs_assault

in the HL2 map I've started I used the entity (start-end ladder point entity + dismounts) and worked at first couple compiles… then without changing anything, became non-climbable! >:(

Quote from blackdog

Don't they use ladder props these days? Eg cs_assault

in the HL2 map I've started I used the entity (start-end ladder point entity + dismounts) and worked at first couple compiles… then without changing anything, became non-climbable! >:(

The prop itself is just detailing. It'll always be wrapped in a tool brush

Edit - 2nd point. make sure you've not turned off the toolbrush visgroup and forgot to turn it back on..

I don't have any tool brush, as the tutorial I picked was showing to use the point entities.

I did start with a tool brush and when I tried to turn into a func_ladder, like in HL1 times, but that func wasn't coming up so I looked for tutorials.

It's not the same method for Half-Life 2. In HL2, a ladder is a sort of rail you have to follow, you place an entity at the beginning of the path and another at the end.

In counter-strike games it's different : you place a 3D tool brush (with the ladder texture) and when a player touchs it, he will stick to it and gravity is cancelled (you can go up and down). Therefore, players can also move laterally and fall if they go too far sideways.

As far as i know, func_ladder is completely useless. I also think, as Exodus said, that it's just the decompile process that does that.