Topic: Map Creation

[Smackintosh]

no problem. lady shadow.

meph... you may not have the texture bar open in hammer,
go to> view>screen elements>texture bar, and make sure its checked.
when you have that displayed... browse all the textures... I cheat by using the filter.
if you want metal textures.. type "metal", and so on. double-click the texure you want.
it won't apply it until you select a wall and hit the "apply texture" icon
(left side, brick textured cube) or when you create a new brush (it will have the texture
you selected). To select just one side of a wall, hit ctrl-A, and select a wal,
hold ctrl and a second and third wall
if you want to do more than one. make sure to browse for the new texture, and apply.

I'm used to radiant \ graydiant for Call of Duty and the unreal engine for ut2003\2004,
like you said, they couldn't be any more different. so far i like hammer better, but i can't
get a handle on terrain and some other things... it took me many many months to get this far...
I went through hundreds of tutorials trying to figure out stuff. so if you have any questions,
i "might" know the answer... i can even send you vmf files to better "show' you how
things are supposed to be done, this is easier than reading about it. hammer is
pretty difficult on some things and very easy on others... theres always a trade off.
I'm no expert by any means, but I have tried alot of techniques in hammer, and i sometimes
know what works and what doesn't.

[mephisto_kur]

Hehe, unfortunately, I have the texture bar open and I know how to use it.  The issue is the way textures are aligned.  The way it worked in the old Worldcraft, you would apply the texture, then open the texture tool.  The texture tool had a small widnow showing the object you were manipulating, and some directional arrows.  You would click the arrows the way you needed to get the texture lined up the way you wanted it.  The new texture tool seems to go by coordinates, and doesn't have a vew pane in the tool itself.  It looks like it wants you to rely on the 3d view - which I have always hated.  Just like adding entities is dumb now because it requires you to place it using the 3d view.  I'm used to placing the entity, then just dragging it in the grid boxes to the position I want.

You may like Hammer, but it really is a shade of it's former, Quake 1 and 2 days.  Bloated and unintuitive, now.  The original author that Valve bought it from is on record for how angry he is at the changes that were made to the interface...

[Smackintosh]

ok, i see what you mean... aligning textures is kind of a pain...
i just learned that myself....

just try this... make a wall... and a wall next to it
only work on one wall for now
what you have to do is use ctrl-A, just like if you were doing one side of a wall.
select one wall and set the texture how you like it
by default, a texture is set to 0.25 texture scale X & Y, change both to say 0.30 or more,
try hitting the "fit" button, maybe texture shift X & Y, play around with all these features...
once you have that one wall aligned exactly the way you like it...
write down exactly what texture scale and texture shift ( X & Y) you made for that wall.
now texture the second wall, and change its properties with ctrl-A
to match the properties on the first wall.
does that make sense? its not easy to explain.

[mephisto_kur]

I think I get it.  I'll try that tonight.

[PvtSavage]

yeah cool....can we make maps have KI test them.  Ive been mapping since halflife 1.

Ill submit one if Admin says its okie

[mephisto_kur]

Yeah, send them to either me or Dj.  We'll give them a runthough and if they do not suck, they will be put in rotation.

[Trlgg]

um *raises hand* I'm not dead YET. 

[mephisto_kur]

Hehe, I didn't mean it like that and you know it, punk.

If you want to add the file, put it in the webshare, edit the files to add it to the list, have at you!

[PvtSavage]

No flippn way im going to make anymore maps. I seen Agora. Damn thats cool.

My imagination has left me ever since I viewed that map.

[dj]

Agora?  Kinda boring if you ask me.

[Smackintosh]

I know this is probably a long shot, but...
does anyone know hot to export MAYA models to source SDK?

I used to make maya models and import them into the unreal engine
for ut2003. I want to do the same thing with hl2dm, but i cannot figure
out how to do it, i've "googled" this subject plenty of times to no avail.
All i've seen so far is comments from people on forums saying,
"yes it is possible"... If not MAYA, then maybe 3d studio max....
beggars can't be choosers I guess.

any info would be appreciated...

[dj]

Sorry dude, I've never used Maya.

[LadyShadow]

Im not sure if this is what you are looking for, but tried to help.

http://ii.hl2files.com/sdk/export_maya.php

I have Maya, but have yet to find the time to mess with it. Maybe I'll have to ask for some pointers sometime.

I should add, that when searching it was using exporting as the definition to export from maya to halflife 2. But this link might be the opposite. Like I said, Im not totally familiar with creating models like you are.

[Smackintosh]

Thanks, I'll have to try this. It's very much appreciated. I have to wait until I'm on a PC that i can download to to try it. i'll let you know if it works.

Maya is like anything, you can learn as long as you have the patience to sit down and learn it... finding the time is also an issue. The tutorials really help.
I've been playing with it for 2 years now and have only brushed the surface of whats possible with it. I make alot of things with it besides weird little heads and text (illustrated in the sprays i made) animations, buildings etc... i can't wait to add models to the game if its possible, but i have a feeling it might be really complicated.

[PvtSavage]

Alrigthy, big question here. Whenever I use the SDK, as i am adding to the map im working on. I notice that its getting slower in the 3d view, laggy. So I bring up the task manager thingy and according to what it says the SDK is using about 150Mb to a max of 362Mb. I mean I never noticed a slowdown before. Why now all of a sudden, and why so much flippn usage. Then I compile and run the map, and when im done checking everything out in the game, i quit and Windows gives me a error report, that it must shutdown the SDK. what gives. I have 1Gb of pc 3200 here.