Source Frustration Created 18 years ago2005-12-04 22:38:34 UTC by HeAdCrAb KILLA

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been playing around with the Source editor and I've been getting a little frustrated with it. It seems to me like the editor is a lot harder to work with and that (obviously) there are a lot more components. My main problem is that I am having a LOT of difficulty with the textures/materials that are layed out. I cannot find any textures that seem to well, fit with what I'm trying to construct. Is there a program like BSP to MAP for HL2? I don't intend to steal ideas I just want to see where all the textures fit. I don't really need any tutorials, I just need better grouping and organization of textures. What are the best texture groups in HL2? It was much easier in HL1 because the textures were in organized groups like "lab, c1, c2, c3, generic, out, wall, fifties, sign, crete," etc. I just can't seem to get the textures in HL2. Can anybody help me with this? Maybe give me some good texture groups? Is there some kind of MAP viewer that I could use? I just need to see where certain textures fit and how to make my maps look really good. I have the architecture down because it's basically the same in 3.4 and it's the easiest for me. I'm naturally good at that part! I'm only confused with the texture part.

For the right textures, play through the level that contains them, and type 'impulse 107' in the console to get the texture name of the surface you're looking at (at least, I believe it's 107, though I'm not 100% sure atm). Using keywords like 'wall' or 'metal' helps, too.

Thanks, I found a good deal of textures and categories. I found, and was surprised, that most of the maps were built upon 3 common texture categories. These included "concrete, metal, and plaster." I only have a few questions though. I found that some textures were named "studio" and "displacement." What is that all about? Anyway, thanks for the method of texture finding. I guess I just have to get used to the new layouts and categories. I still think it was a lot easier in the HL1 editor though.

There were a lot less textures in HL, and we've worked with it for a much longer time than with HL2, so it's obviously harder than HL now.

Besides, the HL1 textures aren't as broad (in terms of themes) compared to HL2.

But the easy to use Wally solved that problem. I want an official texture editor. Textures are images, I dont know why I have to use notepad to make them. : I think there's a vtf editor out there, but nowhere near the simplicity of Wally.

Wally was supposedly in development for a Source release. Dunno when the hell that'll be, they haven't updated the site since 2003.

Textures are images, I dont know why I have to use notepad to make them.

Welcome to today, Kasperg.
There's much more to textures now than just an image. How would you do alpha transparancy, reflective parts, bumpmapping, options like changing the appearance based on outside actions?

I'd say, check out VTFexplorer. Usefull tool.

I'd add a prefix to the textures like I do i Wally.
I'd use a program that would do the coding for me, the way Wally does. Making a normal texture (no bumpmapping, shaders or anything) is incredibly much more tedious today. We need an official editor. We need a -textureinclude command for the compilers. etc

If your curious about the Valve textures then try decompiling their maps and checking them out, I learnt from experience what textures to use so don't be so hasty...
Mess around and you tell me if they look right....

Anyway try Vtex or was it vmex? Search in google...

The hl2 textures are pretty shit since the most of them are "war streets" based if you get what I mean..

Impulse 107 will help you get sets of textures.
When facing Studio, it's a model.
When facing Displacement, it's a displacements.

Displacements make your grass gets hills and stuff.

For custom textures, this tutorial here at TWHL helped me a lot.
It's easy to understand.
Sadly, it isn't finished really since he doesn't explain all of the needed info. But then there's always other tutorials about making custom textures.

http://www.twhl.co.za/tutorial.php?id=89

vmtCREATE and VTFexplorer are nice replacements for vtex. That creating materials is harder than in HL times is no surprize to me - they take much more time to be painted anyway, so converting them to the right format doesn't take significantly more time.

A -textureinclude command would be easy, yeah, and a batch compiler for simple textures, but besides that, it is just going to take more time. That's the cost of the better looks, imho. Not that I'm against easier, faster tools, I think better ones will be released eventually by the community (the community has already done a great job), but for now, this is what we got. Besides, I don't think it's even that complex or time-consuming if you invest some time in it.

EDIT: Pakrat does a good job including custom stuff bytheway, you can scan for custom content and autoinclude it with that tool. Sortof what you want with -textureinclude, but better.

How do you decompile HL2 maps? BSP to MAP?

No idea... But there's no need to decompile anything if you follow some of the suggestions above.

yeah, I just try keywords, like:
Concrete
Floor
Wall
Ceiling
combine
monitor
ect..

Alright thanks, I wrote a bunch of the stuff down.

CONCRETE
METAL
PLASTER
TILE
WOOD

That should keep me busy mapping for a while.

dev...
nature...
ssk...
water...
blend...
roof...
ceiling...
wall...
floor...
metal...
tile...

Hmm, i kept note and those are the texture filters i used (in order) making the map i'm messing around with now.

VMEX decompiles is bsp's to vmf's (need java runtime)
http://www.geocities.com/cofrdrbob/

it doesnt have to go to map because source introduces something that gives the brushes a 'memory' or something so its not as near as buggy as carving the whole map from a giant cube

of course you need gcfscape to get to the bsp's

to make your own textures, a nice program called VTFEdit can be used
http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=38
its included with a larger program called VTFLib, but you can get it separately.

also if your new to source mapping:
displacements:
http://www.akilling.org/akg/tutorials/wiseDisplacement01.asp
http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=1768
http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=2119
3d skyboxes:
http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=1839
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Making_3D_Skyboxes
overlays:
http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?t=1775

hope these help

You don't need GCFScape anymore, VTF Explorer can also browse and extract from the .gcf files (and you can view .vtf's with it as a nice extra, plus it can also browse normal folders and show the .vtf's in them).

Hmm, I'll take a look at that VTF Lib, so far I've used vmtCREATE but this looks interesting as well.

nice, ill take a look at VTF Explorer too

Hehe your too slow, already PM'd him about VMEX 3 days ago

lol oh well it could help others