So far I have two cube droppers in my map and I've used the func_instance to get these (from a youtube tutorial). However, I think I've seen a tutorial somewhere when I started mapping that showed how to create your own cube dropper instance and not using the ones from Valve.

Are the ones that I can build better? Perhaps cheaper? Because I've seen a lot of "home made" cube droppers in different community maps (and not to mention some Valve maps).

Valves Cube droppers aren't perfect, but besides one or two little flaws they are absolutely ok. It's not necessary to create an own one just because others did.

But when I compile the map I get a lot of yellow error messages about the too many lights. I guess that it would be easier to correct if it wasn't a instance.

Yellow errors are usually not important, and they happen all the time. I doubt you have too many lights.

Valve's Cube droppers don't have lights (I think). So I am really not sure why it should be their fault.

Skotty wrote:
Valve's Cube droppers don't have lights (I think). So I am really not sure why it should be their fault.

They do I think have orange and blue lights, but it shouldn't matter.

I'm pretty sure the yellow warnings came up when I implemented the Valve cube dropper instances. When I tried to block the light with the blocklight texture I got fewer yellow messages at the compile... But the result didn't look too good so I skipped it.

So, what you all are telling me is to stay with the Valve instances and ignore the yellow messages? Thanks!

The VALVe instances include orange and blue lights, which tend to cause "too many light styles on a face" errors. In many cases this won't cause noticeable problems, but occasionally it will. When that happened I duplicated the instance and deleted the problematic lights, which fixed it (it helped that it was a destroyed model which could reasonably have broken lights).

Konke wrote:
Perhaps cheaper?

You shouldn't really be worrying about your budget while you are still learning Hammer. The budget is quite a bit larger then you think.

Creating your own dropper is good training and getting known to basic things you can do with hammer. I created pretty much every element as an instance from scratch (various sizes of fizzlers/laser fields, w/e they're called. Stackables and single 128x heights) and it makes blocking- and puzzle phase ALOT faster, when you know what you have and how it works.

About the Valve instance: Their dropper instance do have lights and they'll turn on/off when dropper is active. Lights that have on/off setting will be calculated twice as on "on" and "off" state, which may cause errors in compile log, because of large amount of different light settings compiler has to go through on a single face. Also this consumes more time in compiling process. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is just basic understanding what I've had.

iWork925 wrote:
Konke wrote:

Perhaps cheaper?

You shouldn't really be worrying about your budget while you are still learning Hammer. The budget is quite a bit larger then you think.

Id say its good to get known on this stuff even you're just learning. If you're recklessly progressing through your map not paying attention to optimization or expensive/cheap things, it will shoot you down at some point and it is really discouraging. On my every map, yes just two of them. Some people has complained about its optimization and performance issues they might've had. So its not just a simple thing you can work out later.

I'd like to also suggest building your own cube dropper instance. It was the second thing I did whilst learning (the first being to design my own elevator - which has been through many many changes). I learned alot about how to manipulate prop_dymnamics, env_entity_makers, point_templates, "skinning" a prop through relays, I/O logics, drop distances/timings, the effect of a well placed cubemap and filters and triggers and func_instance_proxy 's and relays etc. The "simple" cube dropper is a great learning experience. Later because you know EXACTLY how it works (you built it) you can turn it into a "multiple style" cube dropper. Have it open with nothing coming out. Make it a paint dropper. Add in a standard length of vactube - with a bend (and push triggers if you must! ).

Also mapping with optimising in mind from the start is a good idea. There is a really good tutorial for this on interlopers here). Having just hit the wonderful "too many edicts" problem/bug in a map I'm making I'm glad I had already been following/thinking about optimisation and that I built most of my instances for "everyday" things myself, from scratch. I knew exactly where to cut the fat (with a gentle push in the right direction from LPFreaky90 ) You will benefit from it in the long run when your projects get ambitious !

Interesting! I will try to build my own cube dropper then, perhaps. I've been trying to find a good tutorial on how to build your own cube dropper but without success. Do any of you have a direct link to share? Thanks again!

I was going to type a whole thing here about not getting bogged down with details so early on, but if you're the kind of person who likes to experiment and take things apart, then perhaps this is what you should be doing

IMO the best way to create a variation of a standard instance, is to just open up that standard instance and see how it works, then base your own version on that. You will also learn a lot about entity logic and I/O in the process, which is very valuable.

I've been trying to but I don't understand all the entities, such as proxies for instance. How did you guys learn to create cube droppers? Youtube?

Konke wrote:
I've been trying to but I don't understand all the entities, such as proxies for instance. How did you guys learn to create cube droppers? Youtube?

You'll learn the entitys by time. Nobody understands all entitys when hes starting with hammer.
Reading sites on the VDC, watching some tutorials, or asking on twp (which i would do at last), helps understanding entitys and how that all works.

Oh, and a Func_instance_io_proxy is used for Instances