n00b mappers

1-Scrappy-1

I am currently in the process of "trying" to map...
Can't wait for this Irish Mappers Website to open.

It took me about 2 weeks straight to figure out how to make my first room believe it or not
I'm currently stuck at creating skys and what walls need to be hollow/don't need to be hollow etc - i suppose if i had any idea of how the Half-Life engine works, these problems wouldn't occour.
I can follow all of the tutorials pretty easily, it's just the HL engine that gets to me.
When connecting 2 rooms, you have to use 6 seperate solids, is this correct?
When making a room, the room HAS to be hollow to be able to run around in it?

I'm reading lots of tutorials atm. I can make rooms/hallways/more rooms, texture them, put entities in etc, but it's just the little things (maybe there important) that get to me, like not understanding hollowing etc...

Answers of above questions would be appreciated.
btw: how long does it take to get to Drakes standard, or Ropes?

DeadBankClerk

the half life engine is pants. it is based on the quake one engine and uses .wad files for textures. making maps for quake 3 is alot easier, and you can uses and image you want for a texture, you jsu make it a .jpg or .tga and make sure both it's width/height are a power of 2 (eg: 256x512)

in all the time i have been mapping i have used the "make hollow" tool once. to make a proper room get 6 brushes. make them flat and have 4 walls a roof and a floor. worldcraft is a bitch to use. get GTK radient and make quake 3 maps. there are plenty of cs-style mods out there for quake 3 (true combat / urban terror)


newbie lesson 1: make a room and compile it. run around in it and get a feel for the size of the grid in your editor versus the player size. most half-life/quake maps are made with the ceiling 2 players high (a standard. crate ~ 1 player high)


dont just sit at a pc and make a map. draw it out and plan it first. makinga map is actully quite quick if you know what you are planning to do.

Lyconix

Hey Scrappy, I heard of a program from Unreal Studios called Learn Worldcraft which actually talks you through the process... although I've never tried it myself you can find it here - http://www.angelfire.com/nf/unrealstudios/worldcraft.html - I hope that is some help to you

Hey DeadBankClerk I'm very much used to HL mapping now and I tried out Q3Radiant a few months ago, but I find it very different to adjust from one editor to another... hey you've still got to contact me about what you propose for the Q3 mapping section

DeadBankClerk

hrmm.....
my finding wordcraft hard to use and ur problems with qer sound very similar

lets just agree swapping from worldcraft to qer or vice-versa takes some getting used to

1-Scrappy-1

ta for the url Lyconix , but i already had that program, and it's pretty crap.
I basically already know all that stuff, it's just the stuff that can't be found in any of the tutorials that annoy me, like the above questions in my first post...
If i don't make a room hollow, when i compile and run it, i'm free falling into thin air, and i can't see anything around me...
so i just make EVERYTHING hollow, there HAS to be another way...

Lyconix

I agree with you DeadBankClerk

Scrappy, perhaps this will get you understanding the engine better - in WorldCraft the black area you see is known as the void. If the void is accessible from inside your level, then the level has a leak and you've got trouble. You should not be able to see the void from inside your level.

If you're having trouble understanding brushes in WC, just start making rooms out of seperate brushes (by using the Brush Tool) rather than making one big brush and hollowing it... and check out www.valve-erc.com for some excellent tutorials.