Creating a HL2 map?

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Soldato
Joined
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Have to create a 3D enviroment for a uni module... thought I'd kill 2 birds with one stone and learn how to use Hammer!

Question is, what do I have to use on steam? I see 2 things, 'Source SDK' and 'Source SDK Base'...? Why is there 2, and which one do I need?

Many thanks! :)
 
Thanks guys, I'll download both then :)
Also thanks for the link, but a bit pricey for me.. Hopefully I'll find a quick and easy online tutorial somewhere!
 
You need both Source SDK and base installed but Source SDK is the one you need to run.

The firt time you run it it will take a minute to copy over some files, one it start you can run hammer from the top of the menu. At the bottom of the menu you can choose a game to make a map for, HL2DM or CS:S would be best, if you chose CS:S you will get more textures to use as this uses the HL2 textures and CS:S. If you choose HL2DM you wont have access to any of the CS:S texture.

There are many tutorial web sites out there, this one links to most good tutorials to get you going.

What type of enviroment are you doing ?
 
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Download Source SDK, open up hammer. It will come up with a message saying you have to configure, click on, close hammer and go to the SDK page again. It will have two options there along the lines of reset config's and refresh content, do them both and load up hammer again (the 'you should config hammer' message shouldn't appear). Go to www.snarkpit.net , they have some good tutorials and a good forum.

Oh, and I cannot emphasise enough the importance of planning a map. Do you have ideas of how large the areas are going to be, as this is usually a big deciding point, due to the engines restrictions.
 
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Thanks guys, those links look promising!

I'm just going to try and make a series of rooms that are connected by doors to start with. Might try an outdoors area if it's not too hard...
For the unit I just have to make something interactive, so hopefully I'll be able to move some boxes and go up a ladder and turn a light on or something...
I guess that will be with the HLDM files, rather than CSS...? Although at the moment I only have EP2, TF2, Portal installed, so I guess I'll have to download HL2 as well?
 
I would think if you have EP2 installed it would have all HL2 caches downloaded already as it uses a lot of content from it. Even if not, you would have enough textures & models i would think.

Outdoor terrain was made quite simple in HL2 with the texture displacement tool.

Whe you say move some boxes, do you mean pick up ? if so then I would go HL2 if you want to use hand or HL2 or HL2DM if you want to use the mavity gun. The ladder and lights can be used in HL2/CS:S.

Sounds like a nice UNI course though :)
 
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If you have EP2, TF2 and Portal then you should already have HL1 and EP1 in which case you should have all you need... unless you were silly enough to buy them seperately.
 
Devious said:
I would think if you have EP2 installed it would have all HL2 caches downloaded already as it uses a lot of content from it. Even if not, you would have enough textures & models i would think.

Outdoor terrain was made quite simple in HL2 with the texture displacement tool.

Whe you say move some boxes, do you mean pick up ? if so then I would go HL2 if you want to use hand or HL2 or HL2DM if you want to use the mavity gun. The ladder and lights can be used in HL2/CS:S.
Click to expand...

So if I want to be able to pick up a box with the players hands, using HL2 is the only option? (it's been a while since I used HL2:DM so I'm not sure if that 'pickng up' feature is available there..) From what I can work out, using HL2:DM is the better option over using HL2...?
 
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