Defrag

You can't use CS:S stuff. Not everybody has CS:S installed

Bungee, good luck with Insurgency. A dear John letter would've been nice, though

I hate that. Undo + texture face tool with face selected = bug ahoy.

Thanks for posting that batch file. I was having lockups in hanger whilst compiling (crashed vrad, too). With the batch file it runs swimmingly.

Looks like good fun, I love what you've done with the displacement maps -- nice and original. Now, I wonder what would happen if you spawned the buggy in a low grav environment then made a loop the loop using displacement maps?

The adjoining brush faces must either share one edge or one brush face must be exactly half the size of the other (as well as touching the other as normal). Check out the snarkpit's tutorial and it'll show you what I mean (regarding the way in which brush surfaces must line up). Click and look at the picture showing the displacement surfaces lining up. The Source SDK page also has some info on it.

Cool, I'll check it out when his site actually works again, thanks.

In days gone by I would use the TBCC (Tool Box Compilation Controller) for compiles. It was a sweet tool that would output a .bat file according to the specifications you set using the GUI. There were loads of options for each stage of compilation set by using checkboxes / fields and whatnot. Great little tool. Unfortunately it got abandoned

Triangles work nicely, cheers (I have nightmares thinking back to making a huge rockwall and terrain solely ouf of vertex manipulated triangles...). To anyone wanting to know how to very quickly achieve the triangle method just do the following: [*:3uzmycej]Select a brush that must be changed to triangles [*:3uzmycej]Select the clipper tool [*:3uzmycej]Put a clip node on one corner and the other on the opposite corner [*:3uzmycej]Hit Shift-X a few times to change the clipping mode so it keeps both brushes (both pieces will remain white in the 2D mode) [*:3uzmycej]Make the cut [*:3uzmycej]Vertex edit any erroneous vertices back onto the grid [*:3uzmycej]Save and reload the file to make sure it's still as you intended Pretty obvious stuff, but it beats making the triangular brushes by hand and a few chaps here and there may not twig about using the clip tool as a shortcut.

Perhaps they will release an update to Hammer with a lighting preview in future. We can but dream.

Thanks for the reply. I'll have a go at the triangular approach where absolutely necessary -- most of this stuff will be getting redone as models like you said. I guess it wasn't a bad idea to start learning max a few weeks back.

Pics: (apologies for the delay) Click the thumbnails to view. Here's what the geometry looks like in the 3D window: Top view of the curves Zoomed Top view of the vertex errors. Fixing those vertex errors and then saving & reloading the map simply reinstates the errors. This isn't much of a problem for simple stuff like the above example, but if you're making a large curved tunnel with bevelled walkways and things like that it gets extremely crappy.

Pretty much what the topic heading indicates. Several people on the level design team for a Source mod I'm working on have noticed precisely the same thing. When editing a complex shape, usually a torus (I keep typing taurus and then editing it ), the vertices of each part are perfectly lined up on the grid and connect with the other pieces of the shape as one might expect. However, save the file and then reopen it and there are tiny vertex errors all over the place. Initially I just thought this was Hammer being crappy with rounding errors or something like that. Many of you will no doubt have noticed the new Hammer's tendency to make certain brushes appear as if they are not perfectly square at times. When this happens, the brush will appear to have a slight error when zooming out to a certain level. However, the brush is actually fine in these instances. The problems I'm having actually involve geometry being altered. I initially thought it was perhaps some new feature where Hammer auto-fixes invalid geometry, but I've yet to trigger an invalid solid warning when using map->check for problems. I've never had such a problem using the old Hammer. Also, has anyone else noticed that func_details currently split world geometry and look as if they are split themselves? When I load my map using sv_cheats and use mat_wireframe 1 it's subdiv city. I've used func_walls and func_illusionaries heavily for light fixtures and complex detail brushes in HL1 and this has never been a problem. I was under the impression that func_details behave exactly like world brushes except they are discarded during compilation when performing cuts/visibility calculations. Does anyone know what the problem is or whether I'm doing something wrong, or is it the compile tools? I'll go install Photoshop then post a few pics. Didn't realise it wasn't installed otherwise I wouldn't have typed this post without including pics.

Yeah, they changed the directory structure and also added sdk_dm_lockdown.vmf when HL2DM was released. It's currently located in the sdk_content/hl2dm/srcmaps/ folder iirc. And yeah, the lighting is a bit of a damp squibb in source after having a poke through the Doom3 editor. The integration of Doom3 Ed is astounding, though anything less would've made editing extremely tedious given that lighting is basically the most important part of the game. With Hammer, it's still possible to get by without a lighting preview, but it does the process no favours really. Hammer's encapsulation in steam also slows things down quite a bit and hogs more RAM. I'll be quite interested to see how editors progress from here.

I'll post a few pics tomorrow as I can't show the map I'm working on right now (see siggy ). I've tried using the spotlights with various settings including quadratic, linear, constant (500,000 like valve used for dm_lockdown) and large/small inner/outer angle values.. but I still typically end up with a very intense look sporting big contrasts between light/dark. I'm not sure whether Source is particularly suited to the option of texture lighting either. *edit - This is the sort of lighting I typically shoot for, nice and warm -- reminiscent of scary one's HLDM maps. http://img142.exs.cx/img142/5082/scorpius22ae.jpg . (Screeny is from someone's WIP map posted on the other forum. Looks very nice, too. )

I would have to agree that prodigy is one of the most beautiful pieces of level design I've ever witnessed. It's just a shame the rest of the CS:S maps (except Aztec) look rather plain compared to it. I'm having real problems getting acquainted to the Source lighting system. With HL1 I could create any mood I desired and accentuate certain architectural features. Now I seem to always have a pitch dark room with very bright lights that only light up small portions of the room. I've tried fiddling with various entities and values, ambient lighting settings and more. Can anyone suggest any good values to get me started? My geometry is looking grand, but it's hard to appreciate it when my lighting looks like it was put together by Marilyn Manson.

I remember emailing scary one and asking him for an .rmf back when I first started mapping umpteen years ago. He sent me two .rmfs (for outcry and enraged iirc) and it helped me immensely in terms of learning good mapping practices and developing some style. Top bloke. He was a mapping God and an inspiration to me when I started. Nothing much has changed in that respect I guess. scary_1 and scary_2 were two of the most God damn beautiful maps ever created for the HL engine. Ever since then I've done the same when asked for .rmf files for my maps. P.s. I see he's signed up for Source: AG and look forward to seeing what he creates.

Off topic slightly (I noticed someone mentioning exporting from max and trying to get the scale correct for their map), but: Can anyone tell me the easiest way to get props exported at the correct scale? I've been learning a little 3DSM so I can place simple props in my maps without needing to use pre-made valve pipes (or hassle others) etc. However, I'm wondering if the Max units correspond to the HL2 units somehow. I know HL2 Hammer units are an inch. Does one max unit correspond to the same scale when exporting or am I barking up the wrong tree? If not, is there a quick and easy way to get the models to scale correctly? Thanks.

My very first was called "The Think Tank". It was basically a ripped off bootcamp texture theme complete with a big pool of water in the middle housing a good weapon (hence crappy name). It got reviewed on Radium and got a nice review but a shitty mark for some reason. Radium was cool (the death of radium's map site really did dent the HL and TFC scenes as it was a central point for getting 3rd party maps) but you could tell he was pissed off by the amount of shitty maps he had to review before he jacked it all in. It's too bad his site is no longer hosted, some of the vitriolic remarks on his later reviews were uncomfortably amusing. I think my contribution sent him over the edge. He definitely didn't actually playtest it otherwise he would've noticed the lift buttons were the size of 50" rear-projection TVs. I remember being chuffed to bits when some random guy emailed me to say he loved the map and I should make more. I (un)fortunately cannot find any pictures

A very interesting topic for sure. I've been actively interested in level design for the best part of six years now. I've built up a solid technical ability over my HL mapping days but have always wondered how working in the industry compares to an (my) amateur workflow. I knew there were many facets to level design at a professional level (gameplay, scripting, texturing, brush-based geometry and model-based geometry etc.) but didn't realise each company had its own approach to the process or quite how much they differed. Thanks for the read - it was very informative. Hi btw (first time poster).