Editing Tips
Interlopers Editing Tips
We've collated some useful tips for you to read and learn from. Whether you're a complete novice or an advanced level designer - you should find something here to interest you.
To contribute your own useful tips please visit this thread and read the first post for instructions.
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Tips statistics
In total there are 50 tips
The users who submitted the most tips are:
- Blink ( 12 )
- Lord Ned ( 2 )
- Olympus04 ( 2 )
- source-maps ( 2 )
- Zecrah ( 2 )
The users with the highest rated tips are:
- Penney ( 3.00 )
- forty-nin3 ( 3.00 )
- goldendeed ( 2.00 )
- marnamai ( 2.00 )
- Ripper_hugme ( 2.00 )
A fresh Perspective
Tip Rating: 0.00
Never, ever, ever, test your level/map pack/mod by yourself. You need beta testers, maybe 3-5, to get a fresh persective of your maps. Find out from a player's mind if the experience is satisfying and enjoyable, and if not adjust your mod. Every map needs to be beta tested.
Category: Half-life 2
Easy Texture Scrolling
Tip Rating: 0.00
Select a face with the Face Edit Sheet and then just use your arrow keys to scroll the texture easily.
Category: Hammer
Keep things in scale
Tip Rating: 2.00
By using the dev textures you can ensure parts of your map stay in proportion with the player. Things such as doors and walls have specific textures for this use. Failing that, add several info_player_start entities in your map when you are working on new areas - this will give you a constant visual reminder of your level in relation to the player.
Category: Hammer
Untextured Geometry.
Tip Rating: 2.00
When using dev textures or placeholder textures on complex and repeated geometry such as multi-brush pillars and archways for hallways, just keep one and use a simple brush as a reference for the rest.
Category: Hammer
Pre-Hammer Planning
Tip Rating: 3.00
Just because "You have a good idea in your head" doesn't mean it's the best idea. Turn off the screen and get some paper, a pencil, a ruler and whatever geometry tools you think will be necessary. Draw a layout, basic or complex, it's for YOU to follow. Editing your drawing is a 100x easier then editing your map later in hammer. Also keep in mind your original idea is rarely your best idea. Let your mind flow and think, let the map evolve.
Category: Miscellaneous
Shortcuts
Tip Rating: 1.00
Get to know the shortcuts! You'll save yourself a few seconds each time you use one, and that'll build up to minutes and hours as you continue mapping.
Every action that will be used relatively often will have a shortcut; take the time to check what they are, and memorise them by using them.
Most of the common tool shortcuts are accessed through the SHIFT key and use the lower left side of the keyboard for easy access.
Use shortcuts! They aren't called shortcuts for nothing.Category: Hammer
Spice up vents
Tip Rating: 1.00
You can make normal model vents look a bit more interesting by adding a smaller vent to the side at varying intervals. Adding models/props_vents/vent_medium_grill001.mdl as an add-on to normal vents will compliment it nicely and break up the monotony of long vent systems.
Category: Hammer
Splitting Vertices
Tip Rating: 2.00
Splitting Vertices can be useful in many situations. For example, if you make a curved corner you don't want to have long thin pieces so you can split a edge and make it have larger pieces.
Like this:
- Select a face
- Press CTRL+F while you have selected a Yellow square
- Move the newly created vertices
Category: Hammer
Don't release your first map
Tip Rating: -1.00
Even you know your first map isnt going to be a work of art. Because of this fact, you shouldn't release a first map. Use your first map to practice various techniques, or try something crazy just to see if it will work. If you really feel inclined to, you should only release a version of your first map to some close friends, to test it and give you constructive criticism.
Category: Miscellaneous
Re: Tips Submission Thread
Tip Rating: 0.00
This is something that I use occasionally and most people don't know of.
When exporting a model for source if you don't need animation you can use the .obj format. I normally use this for complex collision model where the source exporter can throw an error and crash max.
Also if you do use this remeber to un-tick flip y-z axis (if you have the option to).Category: Modelling
Re: Tips Submission Thread
Tip Rating: 0.00
Don't turn off building mipmaps. EVER. Even for UI textures. You can disable it in the texture's flags but build them when importing to VTFedit anyway. Why?
It screws up in-game. Without mipmaps it can't figure out how to show the texture in hammer's broswer. Plus if used ingame it only becomes visible up close, standing maybe 4 feet away causes it to turn into y-linear noise.Category: Textures
Creating displacements the easy way
Tip Rating: -1.00
Right after turning a brush into a displacement, deselect the sides of the displacement you want to stay by CTRL+Left click and hit Destroy.
Now you have no unnecessary sides which probably would have confused you when painting the geometry.
This will also increase performance and the decrease the time of the compiling process.Category: Hammer
Flexible rotation
Tip Rating: 2.00
Do you think it's annoying when you can't rotate things 180 with exact precision? Well have you tried ticking the "15 degree rotation" box in the "2D view"-settings? Do that and it shouldn't be a problem. What? You need stepless rotation again? Well, just hold the shift button and rotate.
Category: Hammer
Re: Flexible rotation
Tip Rating: -1.00
"Do you think it's annoying when you can't rotate things 180 with exact precision? Well have you tried ticking the "15 degree rotation" box in the "2D view"-settings? Do that and it shouldn't be a problem. What? You need stepless rotation again? Well, just hold the shift button and rotate." - lillerik
Or...
Press Ctrl+M and type in 180 in "X" and press OK.Category: Hammer
Re: Flexible rotation
Tip Rating: -1.00
" "Do you think it's annoying when you can't rotate things 180 with exact precision? Well have you tried ticking the "15 degree rotation" box in the "2D view"-settings? Do that and it shouldn't be a problem. What? You need stepless rotation again? Well, just hold the shift button and rotate." - lillerik
Or...
Press Ctrl+M and type in 180 in "X" and press OK." - Phott
Sorry, should me "Y" and not "X" :SCategory: Hammer