Quote from Vagrantone0 on July 29, 2008, 11:10 pm

Thanks for the links.

I have progressed with Hammer enough to know how to make a basic room and I am starting to add things to it, including buttons and whatnot. This stuff takes a lot of work!
I used the Valve Developer Community Wiki tutorials to learn how to use Hammer:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Your_First_Map
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Portal_Level_Creation

All of this seems a bit overwhelming after playing with it for the past couple of hours, though. Hopefully I won't give up. All I need to do is keep playing around and learning the basics, then I can actually start designing.

Quote from Hober on July 30, 2008, 12:03 am

You might not have skills, but you have the right attitude.

And, really, that's the harder of the two.

Quote from Faldir on July 30, 2008, 12:28 am

Wow there is an introduction thread too Did not notice from playing all those awesome maps you all created .

My name is Faldir, and I play Portal (well isn't that obvious? ). What drew me here? Well, when I went to download the FV mappack on the wemakestuff (I think that is the name? sorry hehe) website, I saw your name down at the bottom so I thought I would check it out. The website looked pretty good, and the maps I played through were excellent!

Unfortunately I cannot play on many of the maps, and I do not know the reason why. I do not think the error is with the download, since this is happening in many cases. You might be wondering what is exactly happening...well [url=http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb235/faldir/portale1.jpg[/url] is the problem. This image is coming up for many of the maps, and on top of this, when I press the -Load- button in the Bonus Maps area, nothing happens. The map does not load, the screen does not change, absolutely nothing happens.

Here is what I do to put the maps into the maps area. Please tell me if something in this procedure is wrong (about 20% of the maps I tried so far accepted this way to get the maps in the file):

1: Load the file via FireFox.
2: Open the file via the program WinRAR.
3: Extract the file via the program WinRAR into Steam/Steamapps/Faldir/Portal/Portal/maps/ (this is from memory, but it does end up in /maps/)
4: Launch Portal, go to Bonus Maps, locate the Map, click Load.

Should I be doing something else? Do some maps require a special thing to do before actually going ingame and trying to load it?

Some maps that do not work:

-the Cube v0.3.0
-portal FV mappack (but I do not have halflife2, so that may be the problem)
-The Watcher Chambers (which is actually interesting because it does not show the checkerboard image as in the screenshot above, it just wont load when I press load)
-GearPortal v2.0

Does someone see some problem or need more information to troubleshoot it? It just frustrates me a little that I cannot play some of those maps which people commented were awesome.

I will also start trying to make some maps soon (and from what I see, it is not so straightforward at first ). Ill check out those guides up a few posts up .

Quote from pestchamber on July 30, 2008, 4:38 am

Hi, Faldir and welcome to Thinkingwithportals.com.

Have you tried opening the maps using the console?
If not you should try it. Open the console by pressing the.. i think its the ~ key? what i do to make it come up when i start Portal is i mark Portal in Steam and press "Properties" and then i click "Set launching options..." and i write: "-console". When you have the console you write: "map MAPNAME" but without ".bsp" it should be loading the map - if its a map pack (including more than one map) type the name of the first map.

Hope this helps

Quote from appunxintator on July 30, 2008, 8:40 am

Faldir wrote:

Extract the file via the program WinRAR into Steam/Steamapps/Faldir/Portal/Portal/maps/

Try extracting it to portal/portal/ folder instead of portal/portal/maps/

Quote from rellikpd on July 30, 2008, 10:26 am

also please direct questions or problems to
First) Google
Second) here (in a new thread)

so that we don't crap up this thread
so back on topic Hi Faldar, and welcome to TWP

Quote from Faldir on July 30, 2008, 12:45 pm

rellikpd wrote:

also please direct questions or problems to
First) Google
Second) here (in a new thread)

so that we don't crap up this thread
so back on topic Hi Faldar, and welcome to TWP

What is this google of which you speak? Hah, just kidding Ok, I will go ask the mighty Google questions before here .

And ya ill try that out.

Quote from Sythes on August 11, 2008, 3:39 pm

Sup, I'm Sythes. I'll be making maps here if I can get my stuff set up.
And I know this is a silly question, but if you buy Orange Box PC from a store, does it come preset with Hammer Editor?

Quote from rellikpd on August 11, 2008, 4:36 pm

no. install the game you want to edit for, then goto the tools tab on your steam (may need to restart steam and/or windows) then right click-install "Source SDK"