Step Three

Lights

Lighting is one of the most important feature of your map. It’s necessary whether you’re making an indoor or outdoor location, and knowing what to use for either of those will make a big difference in your map. Lighting provides color as well as brightness, and these two features will definitely add or subtract from your map’s atmosphere depending on how you use them.

Interview with a Layman; Colby Dawson

Colby Dawson is a sophomore student at UTD, and like me, is an ATEC major. We’ve known each other for some time and both share an interest in developing our own games. I’ve decided to ask him a few questions about my blog, the Source Engine and Hammer World Editor.

Press Release: New Blog on the Hammer Basics

Garland, Texas February 27, 2011 — Emily Pich has created a blog for tips and instruction for the map editor tool Hammer: World Editor. A Source Engine enthusiast, Pich had a large interest in the game engine, but not a lot of knowledge, especially with Hammer. However, she stated that by creating this blog and teaching others, she would also be able to teach herself.
Her knowledge comes from a variety of sources, such as Valve developer commentary, Source SDK wikis, and even from amateur tutorials found on the forum community Facepunch. Her current posts include both overviews and step by step instructions with both text and screenshots. The instructions reportedly match Pich’s own progress in learning the program.
Hammer: World Editor has been used by Valve and modders alike since the era of Half Life, and these days is used mainly for Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 mods and custom maps.

Step Two

In this step, we will begin with our first creation in Hammer, the basis for many future buildings. By this, I mean, the most basic room; four walls, one floor and one ceiling, without any other details.

Step One

When opening Hammer for the first time, my reaction was pretty much bewilderment, confusion and a slight bit of revulsion. The thing just looked complicated, even double so when opening up an actual map for the first time. Not knowing the controls, nothing I usually did for other 3D programs was working for me. The drop down menus were also quite cryptic and mysterious. So, to anyone else opening Hammer for the first time. I know how you feel. So let’s begin from the top, with the very basic basics.

The History of Hammer

The program currently known as Hammer actually has a long, long history in the video game industry, stretching all the way back to the period of the first Quake game. At the time, it was actually known as The Forge, before it soon changed names to Worldcraft. It was created by Ben Morris, who worked on the Quake games and used it to design the levels. From there, it eventually ended up under Valve and progressed into the form we know.

1996
The Forge Beta was created by Ben Morris.
It was renamed to Worldcraft, it was sold in its full version for $34.95 later that year.

1997
Valve hires Ben Morris and acquires Worldcraft for use in Half Life.

1998
Ben Morris leaves Valve, and Worldcraft gains Quake II support.

1999
In true Valve fashion, a free Worldcraft version is released, but only for use with Half Life.

2002
Worldcraft proceeds to advance, with new GSL rendering options. It is now renamed to the Hammer Editor.

2003
The Hammer tool now has compatibility with Valve’s Goldsrc Engine.

2004
Hammer is the official mapping tool for the Source Engine, and is released with the SDK. Half Life 2 is released.


2006
Hammer is last updated by Valve.


2009
Left 4 Dead 2 is released, and a more advanced version of the Source SDK is required to modify and create for the game, known as the Left 4 Dead 2 Authoring Tools.

Various Authors (2010). Valve Developer Comnunity Retrieved from

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hammer_Editor_version_history.