Tutorial: Teleporters Last edited 5 years ago2019-04-23 06:56:46 UTC

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"Beam me up Scotty!"

Teleportation, wouldn't that be cool. No more driving, just enter your destination and away you go. It is not available in real life, but it is in game development. Adding teleportation is an easy accomplishment in Half-Life, which has many uses. Things get more complex when adding triggers, multisource's, and multi_manager's for effects.

This tutorial assumes you know the basics of Hammer or World Craft. Making
brushes, assigning them to an entity, and creating entities. Other than that, I am attempting to be as detailed as possible, so new Mappers can follow along.

Its Simplest Form:

Teleporting requires a minimum of two entities, trigger_teleport and info_teleport_destination. The trigger_teleport entity is a brushed based entity, which is where the player is being teleported from; info_teleport_destination is the player's destination.

As stated before, trigger_teleport is a brush-based entity. So, make a brush where the teleporter is to be and tie it to the trigger_teleport entity. The only thing that must be set is the Target, which is the name you plan on giving info_teleport_destination; I used tele_dest1.

Now, use the Entity Tool to place the info_teleport_destination where you want the player to end up. Be careful not to place the entity too close to any brushes. It would be a shame to stick the player into a wall, desk, or other solid form. Set its name to match the Target you gave to trigger_teleport; again, I used tele_dest1. Now you have a working teleporter.

Note: The player cannot see a trigger_teleport, which is handy if you want him to be teleported without forewarning. But, if you want the player to know he is going to be teleported you will have to create a visible teleporter. Try adding a sprite, by checking out Tutorial: Using Sprites.

Switch Activated:

Now to add a little bit of complexity to teleportation, by controlling the teleporter through a switch. Here we will turn the "machine" on and give the player five seconds to use it before it deactivates.

Create your entities as above and add a multisource and func_button to your map. Set the values as follows:

trigger-teleport
Name: tele_trig1
Target: tele_dest2
Master: tele_master

info_teleport_destination
Name: tele_dest2

func_button
Target: tele_master
Delay Before Reset: 5
Flags: Don't Move

multisource
Name: tele_master
Target: tele_trig1

The names used above are those I used in the example map, like everything else you can use your own; just be sure they correspond with one another. Compile the map and you have a triggered teleporter.

Final Words:

Half-Life gives you the tools to come up with creative ways to initialize your teleporters. With some experimentation and imagination, how your machine is initialized and where your player goes has unlimited possibilities. Ambience, lasers, sparks, and other features can be added and manipulated with the use of multisource and muti_managers. Eventually, I will update the example map to demonstrate this, but till then combine other tutorials and play around.

Happy Mapping!