Level Design Help Files

Killing Grounds has closed (AKG) and now redirects to the Valve wiki. I'll post my Source links tonight when I'm home.

Nice stuff. I think this might be useful too:

http://www.mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic ... 34&start=0

Here's a mirror for AKG :

http://www.gmodcentral.com/mirror/akg/index.htm

I'm sure most of you on the Source engine know these sites already, this is for the newcomers:

Snarkpit: http://www.snarkpit.net/

A (rare) French tutorial on a lot of things: http://nyko18.free.fr/Hammer/?p=optimisation#II_3_B

Free sounds and sound effects for everyone: http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/

Halfwit2:http://halfwit-2.com/?page=tutorials&action=view&item=44

Obviously the Valve wiki should be listed as well:

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

Here's my 50cent! =)

Yet another great bump han?

Source engine resources

Communities

HALFLIFE2.NET - http://www.halflife2.net/

Half-Life 2 Online Source - http://www.hl2source.com/

Cannonfodder's Half-Life 2 Tools - http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfodder/cftools.htm

Edit Life - http://www.editlife.net/

Slackiller - http://www.slackiller.com/

HLGamer.com - http://www.hlgamer.com/

Half-Life 2 Files - http://halflife2.filefront.com/

Interlopers.net - http://interlopers.net/

Mod HQ - http://www.mod-hq.com/

Half-Life 2 Mods - http://www.hl2mods.co.uk/

HL2Mapping.com - http://www.hl2mapping.com/

Iwannamap.com - http://iwannamap.com/

Forums

Wavelength - http://forums.thewavelength.net/

Hammer

AMMAHLS - http://ammahls.com/index.php?page=downloadcat&cat=tools

Category:MappingTutorials | HalfLife 2 Knowledge Base - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/ ... gTutorials

Gamewag - http://www.gamewag.com/hl2.html

Modding

Source Blog - http://www.sourceblog.net/

VERC - http://collective.valve-erc.com/

Valve Developer Community - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

Tutorials

..:::MNeMiC Tutorials:::.. [V4.0] - http://www.mnemic.tk/

Modding Resources - http://forums.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=173279

Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.moddb.com/?search=true ... =61&diff=0

VMT - http://0mfg.co.uk/hl2_mod.html

69th Vlatitude - http://www.vlatitude.com/tutorials.php

Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.moddb.com/106/Complete ... a-single-/

Mod Making Tutorials fogs - http://tutorials.moddb.com/70/?fpage=0

Gamewag - http://www.gamewag.com/hl2.html

The SnarkPit - http://www.snarkpit.net/editing.php?pag ... s&game=HL2

HL2World Knowledge Base - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Edit Life - http://www.editlife.net/tutorial.php

Interlopers.net - http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=tutorials.htm

Props

Creating a simple model for HL2 with StudioCompiler - http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfod ... r_help.php

Static Models - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/Static_Models

Textuting

Hammer Face Edit Dialog - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... ture_Group

Unreal Engine 3 tutorials:

http://help.hourences.com/tutorialsindex.htm

http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEdito ... l:Allpages

http://www.avld.org/pages/tuts/tuts.htm

Source Panorama technology tutorial:

http://blog.johnsto.co.uk/?action=view&id=57.

other random wisdom from DaveJ:

http://blog.johnsto.co.uk/

the best map directory on the web as far as I'm concerned (perhaps this could go under PR category or something):

http://lanmaniax.com/

i've decided to pick up unreal engine, all the links here are dead (i don't want to learn unreal3 just yet) - can anyone recommend some good tutorials on just using the engine - also getting static meshes from maya (preferably 8.5) into the editor/engine?

big thanks in advance

http://architectonic.planetunreal.games ... level.html

http://www.3dbuzz.com

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/JBrzezinski ... rkflow.htm

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/StaticMeshes.html

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

There is no reason not to learn UE3, knowing UE2 is pretty much entirely useless right now.

Quote from Hourences

There is no reason not to learn UE3, knowing UE2 is pretty much entirely useless right now.

Yeah, I guess so...

If anyone knows any useful links regarding UT3 editing, post away please.

I know the game isn't out yet, but RoboBlitz has been released ages ago, I bet there's already some tut's and articles around the internets.

Quote from Hourences

Unreal Engine 3 tutorials:http://help.hourences.com/tutorialsindex.htm

http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEdito ... l:Allpages

http://www.avld.org/pages/tuts/tuts.htm

?

Theres not much more than that, or at least not any large sites.

ok, I guess we'll have to wait...

In a few weeks, we're gonna put our hands on the official Epic tutorials that come with the collectors edition, so...

Quote

":3quxqsuv]ok, I guess we'll have to wait... In a few weeks, we're gonna put our hands on the official Epic tutorials that come with the collectors edition, so...

Collectors edition of what? gears?

Quote from Hourences

http://architectonic.planetunreal.gamespy.com/first_level.htmlhttp://www.3dbuzz.com

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/JBrzezinski ... rkflow.htm

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/StaticMeshes.html

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

There is no reason not to learn UE3, knowing UE2 is pretty much entirely useless right now.

thanks man - I was browsing around the udn after clicking the link in the editor and i found all the actor/mesh related stuff, but I'll browse some tut's and try to find some info on how static meshes work in unreal (whether I can texture them in the editor, or how I can go about using a collection of textures (tilables) on various different meshes and make sure the exporter doesn't create a new material for each texture etc).

and the reason I am holding off ut3 is because I want to make a Red Orchestra map to begin with, when ut3 is released properly I'll get stuck into that.

thanks again H

Im bored on sunday afternoon so here goes:

You cant texture meshes in the editor. Technically, you can, as you could convert them to brushes first, then use BSP texture tools, and convert them back, but this is highly unoptimized and buggy and should be avoided at all costs. All texture work must be done in Max or Maya.

You can however, just assign a different texture ofcourse, as long as you dont want to modify the alignment. Scaling and rotation of the entire UV layout can also be done through a material.

I dont get the other question but you can assign a near unlim amount of different tiling tex to the same mesh, however, the more you add, the worse the perfomance.

The game is out in less than 2 weeks btw.

thank you again - the maya_workflow link you posted pretty much answered all my questions concerning using textures from the 'game' as it were - an invaluable link

do you know how wise it is to build a level almost entirely from static meshes and just use bsp to block vis and assist in portaling? they did this a lot in the later stages of gears of war but i'm wondering how earlier versions of the engine would handle it :x

Open a ONS map and you will see that it has almost no BSP.

You dont need BSP, its entirely useless if its an outdoor level, and only somewhat useful for indoor levels.

Indoors youd want to zone the thing out as it works better than just placing occluders, for that you do need BSP. Open my DM rrajjigar and youll see that the whole map is mesh based, however theres BSP carved around the cavern mesh, to allow for zoning.

If you model the whole thing, be sure to place as many objects as you can in the editor. If you can place a crate, place the crate mesh in UED and dont attach it to a larger mesh in Maya yet. Keep stuff as seperate objects, and try to reuse objects in the editor.

amazing - thanks for the help