Mapping Questions Megathread V6 - Developers

You might look at Havok's Custom Map Compiler thread. However its worth noting that a limit in hammer is also sometimes a limit in engine, meaning even if it compiles properly using a hacked compiler the game may still refuse to load it because that limit is coded into the engine.

Anybody know how to pack materials and models to .vpk for more comfortable use in hammer ?

run through vpk.exe

I tried this, but its not apper in hammer (Yes, i included all needed paths in cfg file) I mean how exactly file system inside of the vpk must look like ?

does anyone have a model of a singles bed? im making a college themed map

Probably a better question for the modeling subforum. You could try one of the workshop beds but its a pain in the ass to make a map use people's workshop items as required files.

Nmrih has decent college props but propper is always an option if you're out of luck.

Nmrih seems to be extremely aggressive with protecting their assets. I found some models on workshop tgat should be ok placeholders until I get closer to completing the map

Is it possible to use entities from garrysmod addons in hammer ? If yes, how to do that?

garrys mod has an entity called Lua_run Using the lua_run entity in my map check this thread out also do some other searches for lua_run

For some reason my brush got unlocked from the grid. so instead of aligning to the nearest grid point of my selected grid size. it aligns to almost exactly where i select at the tiniest grid size.

Try pressing shift+w

thanks

There's a certain texture in my map that has an error texture for a cubemap even though all the other textures are working fine. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/146362/dc56512e-a9d0-48cc-a178-d4056b409ef0/bigcity2wipv3tunnel0023.jpg The texture in question is a L4D texture called cinderwall03b.

Some materials have their cubemap defined manually in the VMT instead of using the ones defined by hammer.

Is there anything I can do to alleviate this bad lighting in my skybox without changing the light direction? https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2440264453846176036/C98D3D83A22FCD31929563AD38A61320917D2309/

See if you can get the lightmaps in the skybox to match up with the lightmaps in the main area.

It definitely helps in some spots, but that same spot in the picture is basically unchanged. I thought it was because I needed the play area inside of the skybox to cast shadows onto the surrounding surfaces, but that wasn't it either.

Can you post pictures of both the main area and the 3D skybox in the lightmap viewport in Hammer? What I meant was that that from within the main area, the 3D skybox needs to have lightmaps that appear to have the same size as the lightmaps in the main area. That would mean that the lightmaps would need to be the original size times the inverse of how big the 3D skybox entity is supposed to render the skybox.

If I read that right, I need a really small lightmap grid in the skybox to properly match it right? I tried 128 in the main playable area, and 8 in the skybox. Playable area https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107193/bbc67b0d-4ccf-425b-ae8b-a371005ffd7c/playable.PNG https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107193/38036b1d-1928-4977-8e77-01a19b23e4bb/skybox.PNG Playable area scaled down and aligned next to the skybox

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Displacements use a different system than lightmaps, Even if you set a really low lightmap scale it is limited by the actual density of the grid making up the displacement. They are cheaper to render than brush faces because of this though so splitting them up will not have nearly the adverse effect as doing the same with brushes. Check this page for more info

After trial and error, i got it to work but when i compile a map that contains models from l4d2 or csgo, it says it failed to load studio model

This method doesn't work for newer engine versions (l4d2, csgo, insurgency...) for those games you have to extract the models from the games archives (gcf scape is the program you need) and place them either in gmods directory (or any other directory that you can later mount with mount.cfg) and run them through a model converter. How to Port Left 4 Dead 2 / Portal 2 Maps to Orange Box / Garry'.. Or you could use some of the updated map compilers, those maybe support newer model versions, but they don't support garrysmods mount.cfg structure, so you'd have to use this workaround: (HCC) HAVOK's Custom Map Compilers Also this is a tricky subject so stay cool and don't freak. Its possible, but you will get a headache.

I think the errors at the top of this page may be of interest particularly this bug Bug:Additionally, .mdl files that have the IDST1 header will fail to load for VBSP, and will give a error message stating the prop failed to load; this can be fixed by changing the header to IDST0 in a Hex Editor, or by recompiling the prop in a non-L4D branch Studiomdl application such as Source 2013. So to get rid of the errors it would be far easier to simply mount hl2/CSS/gmod into csgo or L4D2 hammer to complile than it would be to extract all the models you plan to use in a map and change their header. If that seems like far too much effort you may even try opening the options for hammer and redirecting the vbsp compiler to a newer version, from L4D2, CSGO, or even with SourceSDK 2013.

Are there any Warhammer models usable for mapping?

update so far installed custom VBSP, VVIS and VRAD edited the gameinfo to include the ep1 and ep2 search paths After changing those listed things, i now no longer get studio model errors when compiling. Incase others come across something like this, i will have my configuration bellow GameInfo" { game "Garry's Mod" title "" title2 "" type multiplayer_only "developer" "Facepunch Studios" "developer_url" "http://www.garrysmod.com/" "manual" "http://wiki.garrysmod.com/" FileSystem { SteamAppId 4000 ToolsAppId 211 SearchPaths { // None of this matters really // Game content mounting is controlled by cfg/mount.cfg, and not here! game+mod garrysmod/addons/* game+mod garrysmod/garrysmod.vpk game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\ep2\ep2_pak.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\episodic\ep1_pak.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Source\cstrike\cstrike_pak.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2\pak01.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc1\pak01.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc2\pak01.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc3\pak01.vpk" game "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo\pak01.vpk" game |all_source_engine_paths|sourceengine/hl2_textures.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|sourceengine/hl2_sound_vo_english.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|sourceengine/hl2_sound_misc.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|sourceengine/hl2_misc.vpk platform |all_source_engine_paths|platform/platform_misc.vpk mod+mod_write+default_write_path |gameinfo_path|. game+game_write garrysmod gamebin garrysmod/bin game |all_source_engine_paths|sourceengine platform |all_source_engine_paths|platform game+download garrysmod/download } } } "mountcfg" { "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Source\cstrike" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\ep2" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\episodic" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc1" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc2" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2_dlc3" "E:\steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2" } Thanks Grenade Man for all your help

I noticed that whenever I have a second cubemap, it somehow gets applied to surfaces that I don't want it on even when I specify the faces that the cubemap is applied to. Is there a way to get around this problem?

Could you provide a screenshot? How close is the second cubemap to the first?

Cubemaps are re-directed but not exclusive. Specifying which surfaces it applies to will not prevent others from using it, so you need to make sure any surface outside of it gets their own specified.