Mapping for Half-Life: Source Created 14 years ago2010-11-06 12:28:15 UTC by Boomer

So, hello people.

I've been meaning to move up to the Source engine for many years aaaand I figured that the time has come. But, I don't want to 'go all the way' yet, so going with Half-Life: Source seems sensible. However, I have no idea how to set it up with Hammer. Anyone have any experience with this and could help me?

Thanks.

[Boomer]

Sure, open up the Source SDK and select hammer.

HL:S is source, you dont use 3.4(5) any more.

Mapping for source is the same as mapping for hammer. You don't have to use any of the new features. I know it can be overwhelming at 1st, but it really isn't that different.

Just make a map in Source just like you would in 3.5, then start doing some tutorials out of here. I recommend starting with the displacment tut's, since that is, in my opinion, the best part for a mapper comming from goldscr.

Hm, I've always been wondering how that game worked. Do people even play it? I mean I know there are dedicated communities for goldsource, and there are many who play source mods and games, but I haven't really heard of any hl1 source mods or communities.

Half-Life: Source is pretty much just a mod for Source. There's nothing special about it whatsoever. More so, I don't think it's been updated since it's release, so it's still running on ancient Source.

Hey.

Thanks for the help, but I'm afraid there's some miscommunication going on in this thread. I'm aware of what the SDK is, I've actually used it before, but it just never felt right. Anyway, back to z? point. When starting up the SDK you get a choice of which Source version and which game to 'mod'. That's where the problem occurs, as there's no option for Half-Life: Source. Which is troublesome as I've seen a few dozens of maps made just for HLS over at FPSB.

Naturally I figured that I could just use the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch setup, as they are both just as outdated. But HL2DM doesn't even work with Hammer for some reason. It just tells me that something is corrupt and then shuts down. Beautiful.

Well, maybe I should just stick with Goldsrc for a while longer, and then maybe take the extreme leap to modern Source. Thanks anyway.

[Boomer]

Welcome to the SDK. I heard Source SDK is chock full of problems (too many updates that screw it up or something).

do u know how to change that yellow break line when a brush is selected? i want to change to look like in hammer 3.5

Welcome to the SDK. I heard Source SDK is chock full of problems (too many updates that screw it up or something).

Lies.

I'm aware of what the SDK is, I've actually used it before, but it just never felt right.

You're used to Hammer 3.5; it's not going to feel 'right' until you start using it It's really not as extreme of a technology leap as you're making it out to be; if you want to experience something like that then maybe you should try making a Doom3 or Unreal mod or something.

Really, it's easy to setup a configuration for HL:S. Open up Hammer in any configuration (HL2, HL2DM, whatever), go to options, game configurations. Click on 'edit' and then 'add' and type in HL:S or whatever you want your configuration to be called. Under 'game data files' you need to 'add' and browse to the location of the HL:S FGD file. You can leave the next several fields alone although you may want to change default texture to 1 (because HL:S textures are low-resolution compared to HL2/other source games and don't need to be scaled to 1/4). Then you need to find the correct game paths in your \steamapps directory and point Hammer to them - Game executable directory should point to the directory containing hl2.exe (so it's probably steamapps\yourusername\half-life source), Game directory needs to point to the directory that contains a gameinfo.txt for HL:S (it's probably in steamapps\yourusername\half-life source\valve or something). You can leave the default VMF directory alone, it's just where it will prompt you to save maps by default.

Really, you don't have to do any back-breaking work; the gameinfo will tell Hammer which .gcf files it needs to load content from, so you can work with all the HL:S assets.

If you receive an error while opening up Hammer with any config to create a new one (like with HL2DM as you mentioned) then you need to do a 'refresh game content' and 'reset game configurations' through the Source SDK first.

Ninja defuse, you really shouldn't hijack other people's threads, but there's no way to change UI elements like that without modifying hammer itself.