Making TF2 maps for the first time

[shoopfox]

I'm dicking around with Hammer and making ghetto practice maps. Are there any tips/useful stuff I should know in general?

Also what's up with the purple checkerboard shit on reflective surfaces? I know it's something to do with cubemaps but I read that tf2 is weird about those.

[CaffeinePowered]

Heres a helpful wiki

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/...l_Creation


Cube maps are entities that take a 360 picture, applies it t o reflective surfaces, the purple is a filler if none is found

[shoopfox]

Heres a helpful wiki

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/...l_Creation


Cube maps are entities that take a 360 picture, applies it t o reflective surfaces, the purple is a filler if none is found

Yeah, I've been reading through the wiki and it's pretty helpful.

If I have brushes inside of other brushes does it make my map buggier/harder to load? Or do they just not get rendered?

[Mission Difficult]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=2960.msg85918#msg85918 date=1243302463]
Heres a helpful wiki

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/...l_Creation


Cube maps are entities that take a 360 picture, applies it t o reflective surfaces, the purple is a filler if none is found

Yeah, I've been reading through the wiki and it's pretty helpful.

If I have brushes inside of other brushes does it make my map buggier/harder to load? Or do they just not get rendered?
[/quote]

Brushes inside of brushes get rendered and impact map performance. Do your best to change brushes that won't be seen to No Draw.

[Geoff]

Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

[Honest]

Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

To make brush babies of course.

[Geoff]

[quote author=Geoff link=topic=2960.msg86073#msg86073 date=1243366520]
Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

To make brush babies of course.
[/quote]

[Mission Difficult]

Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

Perhaps where two pieces of geometry intersect?

[Geoff]

[quote author=Geoff link=topic=2960.msg86073#msg86073 date=1243366520]
Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

Perhaps where two pieces of geometry intersect?
[/quote]
You aren't supposed to make brushes inside of each other regardless.  Just have the brushes touch each other, never inside of each other.

[CaffeinePowered]

[quote author=Mission Difficult link=topic=2960.msg86082#msg86082 date=1243367983]
[quote author=Geoff link=topic=2960.msg86073#msg86073 date=1243366520]
Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

Perhaps where two pieces of geometry intersect?
[/quote]
You aren't supposed to make brushes inside of each other regardless.  Just have the brushes touch each other, never inside of each other.
[/quote]

People starting out tend to not know that

The thing is that you might build something complex as a substitute for a model using brushes. If you set the whole thing to func_detail its not expensive at all, but yea, what I do is, I always make the whole brush have the nodraw texture by default, then start by texturing the sides that you would be able to 'see' inside the map, that way if a side gets "lost" butting up against another side in say, a building....then I dont have to do extra work finding the side and make it nodraw.

[shoopfox]

[quote author=Geoff link=topic=2960.msg86083#msg86083 date=1243368178]
[quote author=Mission Difficult link=topic=2960.msg86082#msg86082 date=1243367983]
[quote author=Geoff link=topic=2960.msg86073#msg86073 date=1243366520]
Why would you have brushes inside of other brushes?

Perhaps where two pieces of geometry intersect?
[/quote]
You aren't supposed to make brushes inside of each other regardless.  Just have the brushes touch each other, never inside of each other.
[/quote]

People starting out tend to not know that

The thing is that you might build something complex as a substitute for a model using brushes. If you set the whole thing to func_detail its not expensive at all, but yea, what I do is, I always make the whole brush have the nodraw texture by default, then start by texturing the sides that you would be able to 'see' inside the map, that way if a side gets "lost" butting up against another side in say, a building....then I dont have to do extra work finding the side and make it nodraw.
[/quote]
Good to know.

[ZargonX]

And when you have overlapping geometry, you tend to get texture errors anyway, so it's good to avoid from a visual standpoint as well.

[CaffeinePowered]

Oh also, Map -> Load Point File, if you get portal errors, its a fucking god send

[venguard]

Oh also, Map -> Load Point File, if you get portal errors, its a fucking god send

best thing ever right here^^