recently, I've noticed there's been a lot of newbies here on TWP (yes, including me if you want to still consider me one). I was thinking of making this into a thread that lists out all the "general rules" to portal mapping, that are not in other tutorials, such as standardized brush sizes/powers of 2. I had never heard of that until someone on a message board told me about it. This list will mostly be of things to put in your map before releasing, such as lighting and cubemaps. It would not be a tutorial, just a sort of checklist for newbies so that they know when their map is at least a WIP.

I know that there are probably people on this site that don't like newbies coming here, and that they should use interlopers, etc. well, we can either deny that there are more and more newbies coming here, or we can start them off in the right direction, and hopefully stop them from spamming questions(like I did) . I hate seeing mappers make the same mistakes I did, and I cringe everytime I think "I could have told them not to do that."

I'm no expert, but the community here could add to the list and maybe we could get it stickied?

I wanted to ask before I wrote up a huge list. If you don't like the idea, then go ahead and lock the thread

List starts here

Lighting
1. Lighting is a must in final releases, and should probably be in the WIP
2. HDR lighting is optional, but it makes your map look much better

Brushes
1. Try to make them standardized sizes. this means that they need to be sizes of powers of 2. Link:

http://www.newdream.net/~sage/old/numbers/pow2.htm
if it is not an option, at least try to do what doomsday said, make them sizes of every 32 units

Misc.
1) Map be fun
2) Map not be surf map
3) Map have info_playerstart
4) Map have walls, ceiling, and floor
5) if it is a standard Chamber map, it should have a beginning elevator and an ending one

ricotez's tip: It is advised by me to have at least 1 gigabyte of RAM when mapping. 512 mb will soon make Hammer act weird, especially if your map grows bigger and your undo's are becoming more and bigger. Though it is possible to map with only 512 mb of RAM, it will be difficult and irritating. That is my finding with Hammer.

Even 1 gigabyte is slightly low, as Hammer will still act weird after some time. The lowest ammount I have found to work under any condition (for Portal) is 1.5 gigabyte.

With "weird" I mean constantly getting warning messages, and if you click on anything in the 3D-view, Hammer will start moving all your brushes around. That's a sign of low RAM, at least for me.

Please note that this only counts for Portal. I have no idea about Half-Life 2 and CS:S, since I have never mapped for them, and Team Fortress 2 acts weird after a while even with 1.5 gigabyte.

The best would be 2 gigabytes, probably. But certainly not less than 1 gigabyte. Of course I know that most mappers and gamers have powerhouse-pc's nowadays, but probably new and upcoming mappers don't, so it is usefull for them to know this. It has nothing to do with mapping itself, but more with Hammer's functionality.

I think this is a good idea for so many new mappers out there.

Ill start:

1. imo, A map NEEDS lighting

2. HDR is optional, but it makes the map look alot better

3. If your using portal textures, then make everything to a 32 grid when it comes to walls/floors/ceilings/blocks/other things so it aligns properly

I hope this is the kind of info you meant to be posted in this thread

yeah, thats a good start. i'll continue editing the first post as a long list

There's already a site for this.

http://www.interlopers.net

It's not like we talk about Interlopers very often here or anything.

Duffedwaffe wrote:
There's already a site for this.

interlopers.com

I already said... this is for stuff that is not covered in tutorials and other sites. I had never heard of standardized brush sizes from any tutorial or site for example

cornontheCoD wrote:
I already said... this is for stuff that is not covered in tutorials and other sites. I had never heard of standardized brush sizes from any tutorial or site for example

Read more carefully then.

Also no one reads the fucking stickies anyway, or they'd go to Interlopers without asking questions like "how i mak custum prtl map tell plss". Not that you do that... But quite a few people have.

Doomsday192 wrote:
I think this is a good idea for so many new mappers out there.

Ill start:

1. imo, A map NEEDS lighting

2. HDR is optional, but it makes the map look alot better

3. If your using portal textures, then make everything to a 32 grid when it comes to walls/floors/ceilings/blocks/other things so it aligns properly

I hope this is the kind of info you meant to be posted in this thread

I REALLY hope those first two are jokes.

If you are talking about a list for mapping newbies, then there are already loads of resources out there for them such as this and this, and there are plenty of forums posts about beginner's mapping. If they have not managed to grasp these concepts, they should not be trying to create any kind of full blown map, for Portal or any game.

If you are talking about a list for people who can already map, but who are newbies at mapping for Portal, then this is a good idea, as there are some Portal mapping concepts that are completly different to mapping for other games, such as defining portable surfaces and Doomsday192's suggestion at working to a 32 unit grid to make aligning textures easier, (I wish I knew that when I started mapping for Portal).

That was a long sentence

To add to the list I would say makes a wall's height be in 128 unit increments to start with, as it will make aligning the concrete wall textures easier.

I'm not supporting or opposing this list, but if it were to be created, it should be in the wiki. That's what it's there for: accumulating knowledge. Also, you wouldn't have to edit the OP ever.

It took me a while to come up with a reasonable and respectful response to this thread, mostly because I have said time and time again that ThinkingWithPortals has not, is not, will not be a site where people learn to use Hammer. Yeah yeah, I know, that severely limits the userbase and so on and so forth, but the fact of the matter is that there are a dozen other "Hammer newbie" sites out there that have already done a fantastic job of explaining the ground-level basics and I feel it is unnecessary to tread ground that has already been expertly handled before.

While I have no problem at all with people asking and/or answering simple questions such as how you modify basic entities, how you create simple logic setups, etc etc, I think it is completely out of place to ask how you create lights or what brushes are and how you are supposed to manipulate them. A tutorial on how to create HDR I would probably let pass if it was outstanding only because there aren't any good ones that I have seen before, but how to place lights and saying that "lighting is a must for a final release" is a little to kindergarten for what is frankly a somewhat complex subject such as - Mapping for Portal.

For the record, I don't care if people don't read the stickies, that's their fault for not being smart and reading what they are supposed to. But since I and the other mods have tried to play nice, I'm going to start locking a lot more threads with links to the Useful Mapping Tips and the New To Hammer sticky!

Also cornon, nobody hates newbies that I'm aware of. What people do hate is when people refuse to do the leg work on their own, do some reading, follow some links, and solve problems for themselves. It's not necessary to create a new thread for every single little speed bump that you hit, and reply every single time you get the smallest of errors. Instead of spending time posting your problems here, you could be reading the errors that Hammer and/or the compile tools are giving you and either figuring out the problem, or looking on one of the aforementioned sites where they have Error Guides and other handy shit, and your problem has already been solved 100 times before. That pisses me off - not reading.

msleeper wrote:
... What people do hate is when people refuse to do the leg work on their own, do some reading, follow some links, and solve problems for themselves.

i'm reminded of when i started mapping for quake. (who's most popular editor was WorldCraft (Hammers Grandfather)) and there were like no tutorials. and the word "Wiki" hadn't even been coined yet. you learned by getting in there and fucking around till either A) the bitch worked, or B) you got tired and started something new.. most people hit (B) and thus weren't cut out for mapping.

msleeper wrote:
... It's not necessary to create a new thread for every single little speed bump that you hit, and reply every single time you get the smallest of errors.

my favorite is the:
"I have this problem" 5 minutes later someone posts the solution or helpful information, then then instantly the orriginal poster hits back with "Oh i already figured it out"

in my opinion if a problem is so easy to solve that you figured it out in the 5 minutes it took for someone to post. then it wasn't a problem in the first place. don't be afraid to get in there and fuck around with hammer. its the only way to learn your own style.

Personally I fucking hate how easy-to-use the Source SDK has become. You are right, back in Quake/Quake 2/Half-Life 1 days you had to setup all of the settings in WorldCraft yourself. It was like an IQ Test before you were even allowed to map and it kept a lot of the people who probably went on to create surf maps out.

But I digress.

i hear ya... go drink some white wine it will help you relax.

msleeper, if you dont like this idea, then go ahead and lock the thread, thats fine with me. I just hate seeing people make the same mistakes I did and am still doing.

I was thinking more along the lines of what megadude suggested, portal specific stuff.

also, I was thinking it could be more along the lines of not necessarily the mechanics of it, but how you should make your map. here would be an example:

1. "a turret(s) placed in your map does not qualify as a puzzle. do something different with it, probably involving portals, dont just place one and say it is a puzzle."

or another:

1. "tell a story with your props. don't just place random bts props here and there, tell a story. what happened here? was there someone living in this bts area? etc.."

I can tell you probably dont like the idea. I agree with you, about stuff like lighting is a must is a little dumb to write down. thats way too simple. we can make the list more advanced.

I think the problem is that some people are coming into hammer thinking "oh cool, level editor", like you would see in a console game. I wish they would call it something else because I consider it "almost programming with pre-set tools without having to write code." if you want to work with hammer, you have to be dedicated and spend a LOT of time on it.

I really need to start doing #2...

lol

cornontheCoD wrote:
1. "a turret(s) placed in your map does not qualify as a puzzle. do something different with it, probably involving portals, dont just place one and say it is a puzzle."

The kind of person who would do this is the kind of person who doesn't read the stickies and therefore wouldn't be able to heed your warning.

@rpd: Oh snap! "Msleeper: Professional Classhole"

Hober wrote:
@rpd: Oh snap! "Msleeper: Professional Classhole"

lol wtf did i say? looks around confused its 4am

The white wine thing.

ok, i had a ~feelin~ but wasn't sure.

Some Official Rules For Newbies (that i thought of while at work today)

1) Map be fun
2) Map not be surf map
3) Map have info_playerstart
4) Map have walls, ceiling, and floor