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.



Starting up a new file leaves us with… a lot of black windows.

The View Ports

To give you something to look at, select the View drop down and select Center 3D View on Selection (Figure A). Once you do, you should see red, blue and green lines in the upper left hand window (Figure B). This viewport is the Camera or perspective window. For those of you with 3D modeling experience, that colorful line collection should be a familiar concept. It is the map origin, the center where all values equal zero.

Figure C is the top or overhead view, where the camera looks down on the objects in your map.
Figure D is the front view, or along the z axis.
Figure E is the side view, or along the x axis.

In the perspective window, you can pan to the sides with the A and D keys, and forward and backwards with the W and S keys. You can also rotate the camera about by holding the spacebar and clicking and dragging the left mouse button.

In the other windows, you can pan about with the arrow keys.
Take some time to try and acquaint yourself with these navigation controls. These are the means that you’ll be able to navigate through the program and your creations.

The Tools

This is the default tool bar, and you’re likely going to be finding a good use out of all these items present.

1. The Selection Tool
The basic sort of thing you’d see in a 3D modeling program. Using this allows you to select things you’ve made in the map. It also allows you to resize, rotate and skew a selected item. Clicking on the object switches between modifying modes.

2. The Magnify Tool
Also known as the magnifying glass tool, this zooms in when you click and drag in a window.

3. The Camera Tool
The camera tool lets you have better control in the perspective/camera window.

4. The Entity Tool
This tool lets you place an entity onto the map. Entities are a lot more complicated. We will go over them further in a future post.

5. The Block Tool
Finally, something new and dramatic. The block tool lets you place a box into the map. By clicking and dragging on the sides of it, you can make it as big or small as you like. This is the most basic brush. It will be the building block of what we’ll make in the future.

6, 7, 8 and 9 are all texture related tools, which we will cover in the next post.

10. The Clipping Tool
By clicking and dragging, you can use the clipping tool to slice a brush into two different pieces. For example, you could use it to slice a cube into two wedges.

11. The Vertex Tool
Using this tool allows you to grab and manipulate the vertexes that comprise your brush. It’s essentially a simplified version of the vertex selection tool in most 3D modeling programs.

In our next step, we will make our first room.

All images above are from Valve corporation's Hammer Editor tool.