Those Little Tips and Tricks Created 9 years ago2015-02-12 17:56:03 UTC by Archie

Sometimes we discover things whilst mapping that we can't believe we ever lived without. These barely-documented featurettes of design software can completely change a workflow, so if you think you know a cool tip for modders, share it here.

To make the thread easy to read at a glance, mark your tips with this arrow symbol: http://hunter.weebitmagic.com/gfx/linkies/greenarrow.png (using simg tags) to separate discussion from tips.

I'll start us off with an unbelievably handy photoshop tip that, mind blowingly, most people don't seem to know about:

To select a layer in photoshop perfectly; that is with its exact alpha values and little pernickity stray pixels, simply ctrl+click the layer's thumbnail in your layer list. Ctrl+shift to select multiple layers.

If while using Hammer you select the option to compile your map, this will allow you to actually load it into the game Half-Life and actually explore it as if you were a person, rather than an incorporeal flying camera.

But seriously, this is a good idea for a thread. When I'm not on my phone I'll see if I can post one or two here. Perhaps it should also be stickied so it's always visible to newer mappers.

If your mouse/keyboard has the option to make keybinds or macros, do it. Esp. handy with Hammer, binding brackets to the keypad, delete,enter, rotation macros. They seem like small changes,but they are incredibly useful.

Sketch the layout. Test the layout with people. "Can host a server for cheap". Make alterations. Name each area. Assign areas to people or let them call them. Begin work. Continue making alterations and discuss in server and other media. Now the fun part, turn your fleshed out rough brush map into something beautiful area by area. Think of each area as an individual 3D canvas. Search the internet for inspiration, collect ideas, brainstorm, so on.

Yea this is a really general tip, but it's working really well.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We have board meetings with AWPS and AK's

It's an incredibly rewarding way to map.

^ It's always knife to have meetings on the server =P

Great thread idea Archie! All the tips I can think of are pretty general/fundamental, so I'll wait until I have a good one.

Alberto
I think TJB is being ironical

If you're creating a texture for some cylindrical brushwork and want to detail it with a photo (for example from CGTextures), you can use Polar Coordinates in your image editing software to quickly align the scratches to your cylinder.

Awesome tip. I actually could use this for something.

I'm not sure I get that one.

Have you ever encountered the problem of not being satisfied with the position of a texture (Texture Shift) because if you move it just ONE number it's actually too much? If the answer is "yes", know that you can add from ".1" to ".9" after each number to move the texture slightly.

Example of texture shifting: X: 38.4 - Y: 56.7

Speaking of the face-edit sheet,
you can use negative values in the scale box to invert a texture along that axis.

What don't you get, DiscoStu?

How to rotate a world brush perfectly: haven't tested throughoutly but think should work. First find vluzacn's modified 3.5 hammer which converts .rmf to .map retaining "float" precision coordinates (like what 32-bit or something allows, one millionth of a hammer unit i guess), then u turn the texture lock and rotate it manually in the grid viewport with those circles that appear when you click a few times on a brush. Not with ctrl+m because that snaps coords to 1 grid (useful too), if u hold shift it rotates in 15deg steps, i think you can change this in hammer options if u wanna a specific angle. Also you might want to manually subdivide intersecting brushes, turn certain surfaces into triangles (like terrain) to avoid flashing pixels and stuff when compiled. btw I think Jackhammer, the hammer clone, can rotate with ctrl+m without snapping to grid. U might wanna turn the whole mess into a func_detail. Oh and.. whats that ... hm.. theres some kinda parameter to bsp.exe?.. or csg?.. damn. like -tiny or something, like tiny 0.01?.. that removes faces smaller than that.. you should make it smaller if u get tiny see-through faces after compiling. Oh this was for another topic.. for scaling objects down. Basically same way you can scale world geometry to thousands of a unit, probably to the precision of models.. original hammer's scale fuction doesnt snap to grid tho yey! blabla

I can see the image and I still don't understanding it. You have a flat texture, you slap it on the sides of the cylinder. You make a polar texture... for the caps? Or what do you do with it? I don't really get it.

Look at the image!
In the example texture I made (a circular steel door) you can see I used polar coordinates to align the scratches with the shape of the door.

The scratches of the original photo (leftmost of my image) are all horizontal. The Polar Coordinates version of the photo (middle of my image) bends all the scratches in a circle. You then apply that to your circular texture - in this case a door - and it looks like the detailing and scratches follow the shape of the texture. (rightmost of my image)

Can anyone else help me here? I can't figure out how to make this clearer.

Oh, I think I get it now. If the texture in the middle was a door that somehow rolls out of the way, it would visually make more sense because the markings look like the door rotated into its place rather than slid there. Right?

Pretty much.
It's a pretty easy way to get circular scratches and such from a base photo that has horizontal scratches.
I can think of a few different things that would be handy for, now that I know that's a function - for instance, making a scratch decal for detailing under a door's rotation area to make it look like it rubs against the floor when it opens would be a heck of a lot easier with this.