I have been working in Blender trying to make maps for my game. I have been struggling for months trying to learn best practices when it comes to blockouts, proper topology, etc. I had an epiphany today to just use map editors to make my maps instead of Blender. Finding your tutorials was a godsend. TYSM for this this is what I have been looking for for months.
Great video, came back to S2 after not touching hammer for years and I was still stuck to creating corridors out of 4 blocks, clipping out sections for doors etc. I immediately ran into a lot of messy problems - Certain bits ending up misaligned with the grid, weird lighting artifacts etc. Makes sense that it should be approached more like you are modelling than just sticking bits together, this look not only more optimized but far cleaner and easier to manage than having tens of objects per room.
Really glad that it helps put things in modelling perspective! I really believe these good work habits will continue to eliminate problems along the way :)
Excited to get started on your tutorial series here. I was building by blocks and a lovely patron (Neon) helped me, and also pointed me your direction. Very cool stuff. Thanks you.
Would’ve been nice if you could’ve pressed f8 (I think) when explaining the n-gons, to show how the triangles are different. I like the advice on cubemaps and meshes!
For anyone who's a complete noob like me, when he get's to the point where you need to drag the beveled edge and don't have any arrows to move, press T to toggle transform mode.
Is there anyway to make the Hammer Grid more pleasing to look at if that makes sense? My eyes get super-strained looking at the grid lines... Or do you have any advice for making this strain less irritable?
I can still work fine without this but I noticed for you that you look through the faces closest to you so you can see the inside of the box from outside, however mine doesn't do that and i have to be inside the box to see anything in it.
Hey quick question: In preparing for S&box, I'd like to know the map limitations that source 2 imposes on. What is the brush limit and size limit of a source2 map? Original source had 32768x32768 as it's size limit, which would estimate to about half a kilometer by half life 2 standards and allows up to 8192 Brushes (Doubled for GMOD) what should I expect from it's sequel?
seeing as noone has updated you, garry and his team have managed to expand this limt a few months ago, but after about 2-3 hammer 1 maps in length you begin to encounter obvious floating point errors
@ 4:40 doesn't having the extra edges create Ngons on the side walls and the ceiling though? While for *modeling software* it's not recommended, in terms of Hammer it should be able to compensate for that well enough.
Yup! We do address this in video 3 and beginning of video 5. The better way, as Marnamai suggested, is to extract the face before splitting it to avoid the additional vertices. In the end, the engine can handle N gons that are horizontal and vertical without issue - but it is good practice to try and limit them when possible!
Not sure if you still reply to this, but if you use the cut tool in straight lines that avoid cutting n-gons, wouldn't that work just as well and allow a more simple solution to doorway placing?
Yup! Thats another great method as well - I don't think there are any WRONG ways to make a door just a bunch of DIFFERENT ways depending on work flows Avoiding NGons as much as possible is best but the engine can end up triangulating it in the end if you don't care much for UV or subdivisions
This series is awesome; thanks for putting it together! I'm new to this; and having an issue with the entities tool. @2:17 when you choose that entities tool I'm not getting the same toolbar display you get. Mine is only showing a small text box instead of that nice list of categories like player, lighting etc. I can't figure out how to change that to display it in the same way yours is. I imagine it's a simple setting adjustment but I'm new to this and can't figure out how to duplicate that display. Any help would be appreciated so that I can proceed with adding HLA entities to my design. Thanks
Hi, stupid question but: I closed the material selection window instinctively to reduce clutter, and I can't figure out how to open it again. How do I do that?
I'm a super noob with this stuff, but in another tutorial (another channel) they explained you should set some kind of "lightspace" or something like that, to 128 units (or 128 units higher than a player can reach at any given spot on the map). I assume this is why he chose 128. Hope that helps!
@@depholade it varies. 10 feet was historically standard for various reasons. Depends on type of building too. 8 feet is more common inside of a house than anywhere else. For games, it’s common to build rooms that break real world scale for better “player feel”. See the interiors of Last of Us for example. Door frames are extended to give room for the camera. The scale of rooms inside of houses are ginormous compared to real life. It varies. I am in college for game design, formerly architecture.
When I use the bevel tool after selecting the two edges, for me it doesn't work like how it does in the video. For me it creates a hexagon out of that side of the cube and messes things up. Is there something I'm missing? Is there some setting I need to change or maybe the tools have gotten an update since this video came out or something?
Make sure you are using the same grid size as in the video. Also double check to make sure that your edges that are selected are correctly merged and not open / split
I know this is probably a dumb question, but how do you even get/how do you open Hammer for the first time? Is it just a something in the files of HLA or do I have to go somewhere to download it?
if you have HLA you will need to download the tools from the workshop. Right click on PLAY on your HLA library and you should be able to download workshop tools from there
Why not connect diagonally from the edges of the doorway to the corners of the room? You'd get rid of the n-gons on the door wall and the two connecting walls. You'd end up with something kinda like a parallelogram not a rectangle, but that's fine for most things. How do you even easily make an edge across a face to two vertices like that? Source started relying on mesh editing but didn't make things nearly as easy as 3D modeling software... in Blender just select the two vertices and hit J.
I know good workflow is building the map outward from one mesh. But is it going to ruin my project if, let's say, i build a couple blocks to make a shelter and delete the faces that the player won't see?
Can I not use source 2 building tools but just model say a modular building in 3DS max, import the pieces, assemble them and have it work without any problems ?
Yes, you could! Source 2 works like any modern modeling tool and allows 3d objects in fbx and obj format to be imported via model doc and then used in a map. It's prefered to model enviroment and such in Hammer. - Moonded
go to properties in half life alyx then go to dlc, click the checkmark box and when you launch half life alyx you will have an option to open the dev tools
In this video, it is using the Half Life: Alyx tools. However you can get started by using Dota 2's or Steam VR's version of Hammer. Just be careful since those might not be up to date or include all the features showcased in this tutorial series.
I figured it out! You forgot to change your scale from 64 to 16. He does it around 2:50 in the video. I thought it was unneeded, but it worked when i did his scale
@@eagleonedevelopmentteam849 When i went to go try this out i tried to run the map and it just shows its loading and then shows the valve logo and does nothing
Hi, New to hammer completely. slowed the video down to learn but anytime I tried to do the door bit It created a hexagon any ideas on why? I couldn't figure it out.
Make sure that when you create the quad faces after CTRL D, that you select both the vertical edges and then press F to bevel them and move both of the new edges together. Otherwise you will create weird shapes
@@eagleonedevelopmentteam849 This happens to me also. I did shift D then had both edges selected but pressing F just turned the face into a hexagon shape. What should I do? I don't know if this is related but when i double click the edges, the symbols that let you extrude and so on aren't there
@@eagleonedevelopmentteam849 yes I meant to type Ctrl not shift. Getting to the quad faces isn't the problem its that after selecting the two edges bevelling it turns in into a hexagon
@@RiyadKash can you change the grid size on your bevel to make sure that when you select the entire edge line, and then press bevel, it isn't too big of a grid?
@@eagleonedevelopmentteam849 You actually created additional ngons (5 vertices on sides, 6 on ceiling and floor) by how you added the extra edges to that one face, if you do not wish for continious edge loops, extract the face before inserting the edges.
Does anyone know if Source 2 will ever feature more games, multiplayer FPS and so on ? Is it possible to use source 2 as game engine for any kind of game I want to create ?
not sure of this but you can look into S&Box, by the creator of garry's mod, you can basically do any gamemode you want, fps parkour.. i even saw minigolf and pool, and all of the games inside s&box are based on source 2
