Source Content Creation Workflow

[CoraBlue]

New member, so I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Cora, and I've been working with Hammer since Worldcraft. I used to be much more active in the community and for a while I even tried to break into the professional scene. I went to college for Game Art and Design and got what I thought was my very first freelance job with CEVO way back at the very beginning of Source. I was incredibly green, but I felt good about it. Interacting with the community itself on map layouts and art design was a ton of fun.

 

 

 

The experience left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth at conclusion though. CEVO never paid me, even though they did use the map as an exclusive in season rotation. All contact with me was shut down, and I faded into the shadows. I've mapped for myself in the meantime and still had a lot of fun with it whenever I get the urge to just open SDK. I gotta be honest, I want to come back for real. I miss community. I miss feedback. And its really high time I let my single bad experience stop me from doing something I love. I am SO out of the loop when it comes to content pipelines in Source, though. I have evolved a bit, but my modelling talents are really useless in a tool as unintuitive as Source is right now. I'm making things out of brushwork that really should not be brushes.

 

 

 

My latest map is blocked out and ready for a initial art pass, but I wanted some advice before I overdo it, so to speak. I know of Cannonfodder. I know of Nem's Tools. I know of Wallworm. But knowing about these things doesn't really equal experience. Can I get some help? Which of these tools works best? What is your workflow like? Is there a tool that will automatically center origins and things of that nature so each piece doesn't need to be made blind? I just need to know where to start. The more streamlined, the better.

 

Any help is appreciated, and sorry if this ground has been covered. I did use the search bar and a few different terms, but nothing came up initially.

[text_fish]

What you've posted there already looks fantastic tbh! Great work on those pillar bases if that's all brushwork in the last two shots.   The only bad thing about the very last shot is the doors with broken UV maps, but that's Valve's fuckup!

 

Wallworm is probably the most streamlined workflow solution and from what I've seen it's very versatile, but it does require you to be quite proficient in 3DMax, which I sadly am not. Cannonfodder's tool is a pretty good starting point if you're good with brushwork, but there's only so far you can go with the details so you'll feel very limited if that's all you use.

 

Personally I use Blender to create props because the interface just clicks well with me, but it's not at all streamlined and it lacks a lot of features that you get with professional (read: expensive/stolen) 3D tools -- I generally build some simple guide brushwork in hammer then use a VMF to SMD converter to import that in to Blender and build around that. Then I use the Blender SMD plugin to export from Blender and then StudioCompiler to import it to Source/Hammer! For the 2D stuff I use photoshop and VTFedit.

 

Ultimately the best thing to do is read up on various methods on the VDC and decide which suits you best. If you can get your head round 3Dmax that's probably the most futureproof option.

 

Edit: Also, welcome to Mapcore!

Edited March 9, 2015 by text_fish

[tomm]

Hey, welcome Cora!

 

You've some pretty impressive work there.

 

shame to hear about the CEVO thingy.. But you've come to the right place if you're interested in csgo mapping.

we're having regular map that you can join and give/receive feedback and mostly, have fun

It also serves as a good motivational boost if you see other people's work(at least for me)

 

My workflow is messy and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, I've learnt it the hard(and stupid) way.. and got used to it.

but you have options like wallworm if you use(or plan to use) 3ds max, which I think is great.

 

yeah, source still remains very cocky when it comes to custom content creation.

[CoraBlue]

Ultimately the best thing to do is read up on various methods on the VDC and decide which suits you best. If you can get your head round 3Dmax that's probably the most futureproof option.

 

Edit: Also, welcome to Mapcore!

 

Hey thanks! I was under the impression the VDC was still woefully outdated (to some extent it is I suppose) but there are some links to some really hand tools here. Thanks a bunch. Getting the map into a 3D tool in the correct scale is really the first and most important step, and I think VMF to SMD may be the route to go there. I'll play with it.

 

Hey, welcome Cora!

 

You've some pretty impressive work there.

 

yeah, source still remains very cocky when it comes to custom content creation.

 

Thank you as well. The first two shots are very old work, but I'll have a chance to show what I can really do soon enough! And yeah, I can't wait for Source2. I've been able to import models WITH textures (via FBX) in UE for so long now that Source is so painful. But I have such passion for CSGO I really want to get passed the current authoring drawbacks.

[scales]

I am in a similar boat to you, but just a little farther along. I did some CSS mapping, and made some not very good 1v1 maps and so on, and doing custom assets was always a PITA for me. I just got back into mapping, and I saw wallworm mentioned a few weeks back back, and I've been trying it out with some test maps and assets. It is the easiest way to work that I have come across, but some aspects aren't intuitive to begin with. Even with some strange quirks, I was able to go from model to game in only a few clicks as opposed to a mountain of clicks. 

 

The workflow I have been using for the past week is modeling in blender, scaling and detailing in 3dsmax, and exporting with wall worm. Not extremely smooth, but better than what I was doing in CSS.

 

Welcome back to mapping!

[blackdog]

That's an impressive vista there... definitely needs some artist touch. If your layout matches the aesthetic you won't have many problems in finding some skilled artist help you out to make it even more pretty.

But of course if you also want to learn yourself have to get into the 3D tools... which I have never used myself, so I'm here wondering where to concentrate my efforts as I only have just that little amount of spare time.

To the others: I remember the posts about Wallworm over here, but it was my understading that you kinda create what you normally would do in brushes, and import it as a model?

[TheGuma]

Looks quite nice. Reminds me of those Source 2 leaked screenshots a little bit!

For those who don't know, Google it. I'm talking about the entrance.

Here's an interesting fact;

Maxima in real life is not a clothing shop but rather a market on Baltic regions.

Edited March 9, 2015 by TheGuma

[CoraBlue]

Thanks for everyone's replies so far. Today was a trial run using some of the tools and techniques suggested, and I thought I would share what I learned.

 

1) VMF to SMD is a great tool. I used that. Wall Worm VMF Importer is horrible, because it can't ignore nodraw on single faces.

 

2) Unfortunately VMF to SMD tris the map mesh, so to fix that I welded verts and quadrified it (I didn't see an option to do this in the tool itself).

That got me my level, which thankfully is still aligned in worldspace properly. Can't tell you how much it would have sucked if it didn't. So then I got to start modelling over top. I did two test meshes. A window and a feudal-era roof. Here it is in Max.

 

3) I used Wall Worm model export tools, which seemed to do an okay job for the most part. These tools crash Max a LOT. And you have to make sure your origins are aligned properly or you're going to have a major headache (I did)!

 

Textures later, but this is the result of a couple hours of work. Most of it was learning interfaces and dealing with crashes and compiling. I can speed up this workflow. Still interested in hearing about alternatives!

 

 

[shawnolson]

Just wanted to chime in. I'm doing a lot of work on the level design pipeline right now inside Wall Worm. As mentioned above, the greatest challenge to someone trying to learn WW is first learning Max, then the WW workflow. I am currently recording some new videos and writing new documentation on various items that will be very helpful for anyone trying to tip your toe into this. You can do it all right inside Max without Hammer at all once you figure it out--and trying to help everyone interested in this learn WW is a never ending passion of mine.

 

@Cora: Could you please post more information on the WW Forums regarding the crashing issue you are experiencing? Whenever a crashing scenario presents itself, I am very eager to fix this--usually in the same day its reported. The problem is that when it isn't reported to me, I can't fix it. And please share info on the nodraw on faces... I'm not sure I understand that issue. Please include info on the version of WW as well as which 3ds Max you are using.

[CoraBlue]

Another update. I did decide to check out VTFEdit for textures, and it does a pretty neat job. It even allows you to generate normal maps (though I prefer to use highpoly bakes or NVidia's PS filter when I can. So I've imported a few small detail type textures to help me get a feel for the aesthetic. The wall is a SDK texture and doesn't look modern enough for me, but overall things are coming together.

 

 

@Cora: Could you please post more information on the WW Forums regarding the crashing issue you are experiencing? Whenever a crashing scenario presents itself, I am very eager to fix this--usually in the same day its reported. The problem is that when it isn't reported to me, I can't fix it. And please share info on the nodraw on faces... I'm not sure I understand that issue. Please include info on the version of WW as well as which 3ds Max you are using.

 

Sure thing Shawn. I hope you don't mind my candor about your tools, but they are great! I wasn't even aware you were here or I would have added some feedback.

1) Importing level geometry from a VMF in your tools is currently frustrating. There are a couple reasons why. One is this.

 

 

This happens pretty much consistently. Some level geometry is destroyed or garbage meshes are floating around unless the map is extremely simple (though I will say I do love entity representation and the scope of your tools).

 

The second thing is that it doesn't handle tool textures very well. I want to be able to choose to ignore very specific things like trigger, clip, and nodraw. And nodraw is tricky because in almost all cases, nodraw is going to be on at least one face of every brush in the map. So it needs to be able to delete on the polygon level. If you need a better idea of what I mean I suggest using VMF to SMD. I'd use your tools if I had the best of both worlds.

 

2) Wall Worm Model Tools 2.52, 3DS Max Design 2013. At first I didn't know what was happening. Now it appears that after using the export QC + Model button, Max tries to cope with it but crashes about 75% of the time. If it doesn't crash, somehow the translation tools stop working and I have to reboot anyway. It also appears that after turning Editable Polys into Wall Worm Models that they become uneditable. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.

[shawnolson]

@Cora : You should definitely update WW. The brush geometry import bug has been fixed. And for the model exporting, most likely fixed. There was a two-week-window in January where WW was broken and I wasn't aware because I was focused on building the WW Pro functions.

 

In terms of the nodraw... the problem is that the VMF Importer is set up to import the level so that the brushes remain as brushes so you can re-export the VMF from Max. Deleting faces of brushes just isn't pragmatic because they invalidate the geometry. I'll look into some other utilities for making it easier to show/hide objects by tools, etc.

 

You should hold off on update WW until later today, though, as I'm addressing a prop-import bug in the VMF Importer that causes an infinite loop in one case. I posted an update earlier for a related issue but still working on fixing it entirely.