Mapping Tips and Useful Links

espen180 · Loves Cake Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 370

Post useful tips about mapping, or post links to threads on this forum which feature such tips.

msleeper · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:05 pm Post subject:

Valve Developer Wiki: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/
Invaluable site, full documentation on every entity. Be sure to read the Discussion pages as they have some pricesless info, too.

Halfwit-2.com: http://halfwit-2.com/?page=tutorials
A long time ago, Interlopers used to be the number one place for mapping tutorials, but this site has come a long way and has some really kick ass stuff. From the basics to the specific, advanced stuff.

Interlopers.net: http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=tutorials
Speaking of Interlopers, they are still a great site with a lot of tutorials and one of the oldest forums around.

GCFscape: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26
Awesome tool, allows you to view and extract the contents of GCF files.

VTFedit (VTFlib): http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=40
Another priceless tool, a GUI for creating images into VTF textures.

msleeper · Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:52 am Post subject:

HL2 Map Editing Optimization Guide: http://www.student.ru.nl/rvanhoorn/optimization.php
Everyone needs to read this from front to back atleast once. This is the most comprehensive, in-depth, and thorough explaination of how the Source engine works and how to optimize your map. Read this right now.

Hober · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject:

PakRat: "Pakrat is a graphical replacement for the BSPZIP program, that allows you to embed external files, such as textures (vtf), material (vmt) and model (mdl) files into a HL2 bsp file."

Using this, you don't have to have a lot of files spread out among many folders. It's tricky to use, but can be very effective when done well.