Ok, I am new to the Hammer editor (having just got HL2). I have been building levels and things with Unrealed through Unreal, UT and UT2k3. This editor is ALOT different, and frankly im finding a few things confusing. I will try not to ask the same newb questions that tend to get repeated alot in forums. I have tried many many tutorials up to this point and can not find these answers anywhere.
First ~ when making a level, i see alot of references in tutorials to "sealing" your level properly. Some say do / dont use a big cube and hollow it, etc. All I want to know is there something special that needs to be done to "seal" a level? Or is it properly "sealed" when the box sides are all touching each other? Also, if you use a cube and "hollow" it out to make the base "playground" for your level, to keep the engine from rendering the outside of the box cant you simply use some of the dev textures designed to keep that from happening?
Second ~ Is there any way to "intersect" a group of brushes and convert them into a single brush using the Hammer editor? Example, Say I make a doorframe out of 2 kazillion cubes, is there a way to "merge", "weld", "intersect", or otherwise "combine" all of those brushes into a single brush?
Third ~ Alot of Tutorials are referring to "func_XXX" particularly when talking about "decorations" and things like pillars, pipes, ducts, etc. Is this something I have to manually put in to a console? (if so how do i get the console up in the Hammer editor). Or is it a setting or property that I can change? (if so, where is it).
Thanking you in advance for any help.