Mappers, ask your questions here :)

Ok well i thought i would create a thread where people could post problems or questions they have about basically anything to do with mapping, and i or anyone else with enough knowledge will answer to the best of our ability.

Please note that flaming, spam and meme's will NOT be tolerated, and your post will be deleted if you only post a meme picture, reply with just an emoticon or quote a post with "Fix'd" as your reply.
You have been warned.

Ok i will start off with displacements.
You can read more about the technical aspects of displacements here. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Displacement

Recently someone here had a problem with lighting due to displacements not being made entirely correctly. This is very common and i feel that it should be addressed first.

== Displacements ==

• The problem was that shadows were appearing at the seams of the displacement, where there shouldn't be any shadows. This took quite some time to debug the problem, but after looking for myself i had found that he created the displacement with the whole brush selected instead of just the top face. This is an easy mistake to make for even an experienced mapper, and of coarse the internet or the Wiki provide no real concise method of how this problem occurs or is fixed.
  If you have this problem, and are afraid to lose your work so far, do not fear! You can select the sides you can't see as the player, then go to the displacement tab, and click Destroy.. It will only destroy the sides you have highlighted, and you won't lose your original displacement work from the faces the player can see.
  
  
• Next is another common misconception. Displacement brushes CANNOT be made into func_ anything.. VBPS converts a displacement into func_detail when you compile the map, and if you have it tied to an entity, you won't be able to compile the map until you have turned the displacement back into a World brush.
  Now that doesn't mean you can't have func_detail brushes going inside a displacement... Also as much as people love to do this, try and avoid putting water inside displacements. It can be done without any repercussions but be careful and don't make the water brush massive because displacements aren't world brushes and therefore as far as the engine goes they are completely transparent aswell, meaning NPCs and also the player can see right thru them (as far as VisLeafs and PVS goes) meaning if you have a large water brush and you are looking at it, chances are the game is trying to render the entire water brush.
  
  
• Ok next is is a pretty straight forward one, displacements can only be created on faces with 4 sides/edges. No more, no less. Simple yet stupid limitation
  
  
• Alright this one i haven't tested myself but i'm pretty sure it applies. transparent materials probably can't be used on displacements, and if they can i have a feeling they wont be transparent either.
  Also relating to this one, Nodraw materials on displacements will NOT act as nodraw normally does. The actual yellow material will be visible ingame.
  
  
• Another thing to remember is that i THINK displacements are classed as entities when you compile the map. That is something i am unsure of aswell so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong!

Anyway that's enough to start off with, if i think of more and if someone posts a problem or a solution here i will add it to this list

Remember feel free to correct me on those couple of things that i made an educated guess about..

== Useful Links ==
Here are some links that i have found useful for mapping over time. Not a complete list just some useful ones i have bookmarked.

• http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List - Invaluable Sky list and lighting reference with all Listed Valve games (GoldSrc & Source)
  
• http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Intermediate_Lighting
  
• http://www.editlife.net/tutorial.php?tutid=42 - Mounted gun tutorial
  
• http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:Level_Design
  
• https://www.youtube.com/user/Vaatrad & https://www.youtube.com/user/VaaMap - Great beginners tutorial series (Starts with the Vaatrad account and continues on his VaaMap account)

If anyone else has some useful links they want to share (concerning Source mapping) please do

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

sfc3 wrote:

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

It doesn't freeze, it's compiling your map which takes a long time, from couple of seconds to couple of days

Evil Genius wrote:

sfc3 wrote:

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

It doesn't freeze, it's compiling your map which takes a long time, from couple of seconds to couple of days

This is why.

Also your computer specs have ALOT to do with that aswell. Also the fact that nearly every WC map is unoptimised.

yeah, thats one of the biggest things with the old maps guys, there leaky, bugged, rough, raw maps....hence why me and jenkins customize them so much. They were unfininished and as such, need to be finished off. Add shit, delete some stuff, rearange.
Only thing holding ANYONE back with hammer, is a lack of immagination.....however with this comes a price :/ somin me and jenkins have learnt alot......

"there is nothing to fear but hammer itself..."

you cannot go to over the top with your maps (i should know.....ive lost count of the amount of times ive busted hammer with my maps :/ )

like this?

Crash-Override wrote:

"there is nothing to fear but hammer itself..."

amen

LambdaCore 21 wrote:

like this?

DEAR GOD MAN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!

"Everytime someone uses carve, Jesus kills a baby"

Omg i know right xD!

Jenkins wrote:

LambdaCore 21 wrote:

like this?

DEAR GOD MAN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!

"Everytime someone uses carve, Jesus kills a baby"

guess jesus became a child killer then *slowly slips away into the shadows*

sfc3 wrote:

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

You can avoid freezing by using .bat for map compiling.
I can give you my compile.bat file if you want, but you will have to edit it for your game paths of course

ШЛЫК wrote:

sfc3 wrote:

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

You can avoid freezing by using .bat for map compiling.
I can give you my compile.bat file if you want, but you will have to edit it for your game paths of course

does'nt work in the new engine bud, valve got rid ofit ¬_¬ this is what jenkins tells me anyways....he MIGHT have fixed it im not sure

Crash-Override wrote:

ШЛЫК wrote:

sfc3 wrote:

While not mainly a mapper, I have a question.
When I try to compile WC maps, it always results in a freeze up of Hammer.

Why would this happen? I fixed every error in the map before this happens.

You can avoid freezing by using .bat for map compiling.
I can give you my compile.bat file if you want, but you will have to edit it for your game paths of course

does'nt work in the new engine bud, valve got rid ofit ¬_¬ this is what jenkins tells me anyways....he MIGHT have fixed it im not sure

Nope VBSP crashes at "Building Physics collision data" for bat compiling

Didn't know it doesn't work in retail, but it still works in beta, so if anyone needs it just tell.

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

Vic I am ashamed.This forum PROVES that valve started fucking up their games since 2004(the day hl2 came out)

ШЛЫК wrote:

Didn't know it doesn't work in retail, but it still works in beta, so if anyone needs it just tell.

It used to work back before the april 2009 beta sdk update.. ever since then its been fucked

doomlord1992 wrote:

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

Vic I am ashamed.This forum PROVES that valve started fucking up their games since 2004(the day hl2 came out)

2003, when they changed HL2 soo much

wait 2004 is better

doomlord1992 wrote:

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

Vic I am ashamed.This forum PROVES that valve started fucking up their games since 2004(the day hl2 came out)

Fucking up = ruining =/= cutting things out when the final product is amazing

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

Vic I am ashamed.This forum PROVES that valve started fucking up their games since 2004(the day hl2 came out)

Fucking up = ruining =/= cutting things out when the final product is amazing

A lot less amazing then it should have been

doomlord1992 wrote:

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

TheNewCity wrote:

doomlord1992 wrote:

VALVe: Fucking games up since 2004

Except they haven't fucked them up since 2004 lol

A more appropiate date would be 2008 when they started spamming TF2 with updates (which is nice but completely changed the game) and quite frankly, fucked up L4D1.

Vic I am ashamed.This forum PROVES that valve started fucking up their games since 2004(the day hl2 came out)

Fucking up = ruining =/= cutting things out when the final product is amazing

A lot less amazing then it should have been

tbh

I got a question, and i hope you can help me Jenkins.

as you can see the lightning failed. the problem seems to appear here:


I really hope you can help me on this one jenkins. i really really realllyyy want to get this map done. It's my first experience with a horror map. and it's being very good atm. and i really want to finish it, so hope you can help.