calculatedChaos Gaming

So, since I quit my job to focus full time on school I have realized that I have more time than I know what to do with. I want to learn to make maps. So how the hell do I do that? I just opened source SDK and droolled for about ten minutes. If anyone has some starting points for me or would like to steam chat me through it, I would love to know more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W0sWjQ5 ... C7&index=0

This youtube playlist is a good start.

All you need in the Source SDK to make a map is Hammer. Just make sure TF2 is the game you have selected at the bottom of the SDK. Then, its all tutorials like Riftoff mentioned from there.

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=198

This is a very important part of the map to get right, a great tutorial, and umm, yeah.

oK, I am beyond pissed off now becuase people are starting at points beyond what I can do because I have done nothing. Nobody has explained how to do the basic shit so I have no idea what they are saying. I give up

What can you do anyway?

Plastic Jesus wrote:oK, I am beyond pissed off now becuase people are starting at points beyond what I can do because I have done nothing. Nobody has explained how to do the basic shit so I have no idea what they are saying. I give up

If you want me to talk you through it on voice some time, hit me up via steam. Though, tbh, if you're giving up at this point you're going to hit a wall of frustration not long after this bump in the road. I've hit about 47 walls of frustration so far, and though playable I've yet to get a map release ready.

Yeah, I'd be more then happy to help you also but usually the easiest way is to just find a beginner tut (which I thought Grim pointed you to) and learn Hammer.
Your first 'map' should just be learning the tools. Basically just a crappy little box with some textures and a bunch of errors.

No you got that out of the way start a 'real map', one you plan to release.

But it's gonna take months probably to get a decent finished product, so if you are gonna give up in a week of people not telling you what to do it's probably more effort than you really want to put into it. I guarantee nobody will do it for you. But we will be more than happy to help.

Most of making a map is just time, and the tuts are easy to follow. But I wouldn't want to hold your hand and say, drag out a cube here, add a cube there... Id want to answer specific questions like 'how do I drag a cube', OK, got that, 'how do I texture it...
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With that said, I think this is the best tut to start with. 'The Ultimate guide'.
It starts with how to get hammer up and running and goes from there

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=807

I kinda know what you mean but not really. I just went to youtube, typed in source SDK tutorial, and found a really good tutorial. but i don't really know what to make.

thedoghouse wrote:I kinda know what you mean but not really. I just went to youtube, typed in source SDK tutorial, and found a really good tutorial. but i don't really know what to make.

That's where you can let your crativity flow . Try to make something that you and others would actually want to play. I know of a bunch of maps that are well-made and all, but are lacking on the gameplay scale.

plastic....i have been watching this guys videos and it helped me....and i had to ask him about how to make the spawn rooms and he helped me with that 2 lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQeqVSrA ... annel_page

LilSam__U wrote:...and i had to ask him about how to make the spawn rooms and he helped me with that 2 lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQeqVSrA ... annel_page

well yea, you're a girl. He'd even help you with something he didn't know how to do if he could.

Divine Fate wrote: That's where you can let your crativity flow . Try to make something that you and others would actually want to play. I know of a bunch of maps that are well-made and all, but are lacking on the gameplay scale.

The problem with that is that I lack creativity in almost anything.... the other day I was messing around on it.... my creativity got me a brick tunnel...

Creativity can be a learned skill. Try things and see how they work. You have no idea how much of my time I spend doing things trial and error before I can figure out a creative solution.

thedoghouse wrote:The problem with that is that I lack creativity in almost anything.... the other day I was messing around on it.... my creativity got me a brick tunnel...

The way I usually come up with map ideas is randomly throughout the day. Whether I'm playing a different game or walking to school, something usually pops into my head once a day (recreations of things, or simply just a plain old new idea). Problem is I never write them down. Get yourself an idea notebook, so whenever you think of something (it usually doesn't come when you try) you can jot it down and make it later.

Is it possible to place timed locks on doors? I.E. say I wanted to create multiple pathways, all of which have a door that would be open or locked after so many minutes of game play. Is there a way to do that, and if so, is there a way to randomize which doors are opened and locked durring those time frames?

It should be possible. I don't know much about mapping but I know that we used to play a map called arena_grid on SM that had timed doors on it that opened and closed. They wern't random but they were timed.

can be timed, cant be random

Ok, cool thanks. I guess I would just have to work on creating a randomizing pattern and use it as my sequences. Ignore spelling, I am an engineer not an english major, haha.

There is a round start entity (sorry, don't know the exact name off hand). a trigger signal can be sent from it with a time in seconds. (OnRoundStart maybe)

That's how the arena cap point opens at 60 seconds.

steiner949 wrote:Is it possible to place timed locks on doors? I.E. say I wanted to create multiple pathways, all of which have a door that would be open or locked after so many minutes of game play. Is there a way to do that, and if so, is there a way to randomize which doors are opened and locked durring those time frames?

Yes and yes and yes.

1. Timer entity fires output "unlocking" the door (enable probably).
2. To randomize..depending on if I understand you correctly, you'd need a logic_case entity.
Case 1: door 2 open rest locked
Case 2: door 3 open rest locked
case 3: all locked
case 4: Door 1 open rest locked

Then you'd have your timer fire at the case with an input of 'pick random' (nice of them to have that input).

I'll warn you tho...based on my experience players don't like not knowing what's going on...and randomly opening doors would confuse a lot of them

Ugh ugh ugh. I am still having a lot of problems just figuring out the tools and how to navigate the program. After that is done I am sure I won't have a problem. One thing I would just like to do is open a map that I already know and screw around with it, but I can't figure out even how to do that. Why didn't they just make an instruction manuel for this thing?

you'll either need to decompile a map you already know, or get the .vmf from somewhere.

They include a handy one called game entities - I've slapped a skybox on it so you can compile it and run around and compare what they did with how it works without the horrible leak effect, extract to: \Steam\steamapps\%username\sourcesdk_content\tf\mapsrc

Good to see you are still trying Plastic.

You should go to tf2maps.net and dl a few things.

1:they have all the valve maps decompiled. Nice to run around 2fort and look at thingsa you are familiar with. decompiling can break areaportals and stuff but for the most part everything is as should be.

2:abs prop library. has all the tf2 props in one map. You can just fly around it and copy paste into your map. Much better than trying to find stuff on the [fixed/broken] model browser.
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One thing that always get me in new editors is moving around.

spacebar plus left click will let you rotate cam in 3d.

wasd let you move around.

space and right click (i think) let you zoom in/out. mousewheel also zooms.

Options. There are tools/options for different windows and view distances. If something is a yellow box it is 'out of view', changing the setting will make it visible further but bogs Hammer down alot when you get alot in your map.

On the right side is a auto button. That menu lets you hide stuff from view (water, sky, props, func_details). Very handy tool.