Quote from Lostprophetpunk on July 18, 2011, 12:26 pm

Heya there,

This is to any of your new members out there, or just members who are unsure what to do.

This guide will show you how to upload your map, onto Thinking With Portals, to be able to be accessed by the many members of this site, or even visitors.

First off, let me make a few points clear before I tell you how to upload a map...

NO PLAYGROUND/SANDBOX MAPS - Meaning that if you have a map that just contains items for testing purposes, even if it shows you how you can do a glitch...it's not allowed. We only want fully completed maps, or first versions of maps posted in the Work In Progress (WIP) section.

NO FULLBRIGHT MAPS - Meaning if you have no lighting whatsoever in your map, the game engine will render everything as bright as it can...making it an eyesore for players. I mean come on, be creative and put some lighting in your map, so that players want to look at your map for more than 2 seconds.

HAVE A GOAL OR OBJECTIVE WITHIN YOUR MAP - Meaning if your map has no intended goal or solution, in which it would most likely be a playground/sandbox game, then it will not be allowed to be uploaded. Simple as that.

If your map does not meet the criteria of the three points above, or the name contains 'playground' or 'sandbox'...don't upload it, as it's not a complete map. Thinking With Portals is known well for it's intellectual challenging maps, that are creative and fun to play, so don't ruin it with your fullbright/sandbox/playground/no objective files.

If you have read the above, and your map meets those standards, then continue reading on...

[1. COMPILE]

This is the most important factor of uploading a map. First of all you need to compile it in Hammer to allow it to be uploaded.

If you are unsure how to compile it, press 'F9', of go 'File > Run Map' in Hammer and a window will appear. Check 'Don't run map after compiling' if you simply just want to compile the map, or leave it unchecked if you want to test afterwards. Either option will still compile the map.

Note: If you are using custom textures or sounds, you will need to pack it into a '.vpk' file. Read how you can do it here

[2. FILE LOCATION]

So...where does the map get compiled to?

If you have a look in your maps folder, located 'C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Portal 2/portal2/maps/' then you will see many files that end with .bsp.

The file you are looking for, is the name of your map with the filename of '.bsp'. So it should look like '<MAPNAME>.bsp'

Drag it out onto your desktop.

[3. READ ME!]

I think that it is necessary to have a readme file within the download, as it's helpful to the player.

Create a text document on Notepad, or another similar word editing program. Here you want to be able to put information about your map, maybe info on bugs fixed, features of the map. You could also include details on how to contact you about the map, maybe linking to the thread of the posted map.

It's up to you. But some players would want to know some information regarding you or the map that they are playing.

[4. COMPRESSION]

Right...so you have your map file and your read me file...what next? You need to compress your files into a ZIP, RAR or 7zip format.

The programs that you can use to do this are WinRar, or even 7zip.

Once you have one of them installed, select your files for your map, including readme's etc. Then right click on it, and select 'Add to archive', or 'Compress', or something similar. I am not sure what 7zip uses for this.

If you are releasing a singleplayer map, add an 'SP_' to the beginning of the archive name. If it is a co-op map, then just add 'MP_' to the archive name.

[5. UPLOADING]

Yes, the time you've all been waiting for, time to upload.

Head to the category your map, prefab or other file fits into below...

SINGLE PLAYER MAPS
CO-OP MAPS
WORK IN PROGRESS MAPS
OTHER FILES (stuff like prefabs, tools etc)

Click on 'Upload a file' at the top of the page.

Here is a run down of the options...

Name - The name of your map...obviously.
Category - The category in which your map fits into. Released singeplayer for singeplayer maps, released co-op for co-op maps etc...
Description - Write something about your map, maybe bug fixes, what it contains. Post an interesting one liner to help people choose if they want to play it.
Upload - The compressed archive of your map, the one you compressed earlier.
External - This is for an external link to your map, if you have it uploaded anywhere else. This is not the place for screenshots or any other images. Only for external map links only!
File Release - This is the version of your map. You don't have to put a version, but any updates you do you might want to change it to '0.1' or '1.1', you get the idea.
Thumbnail - This is the thumbnail image of your map, that will appear when browsing one of the download categories mentioned above. You need to make it 178x134 pixels, and the file size must not exceed 2MB.

When you are happy with all that, click on 'Submit' at the bottom of the page.

Note: When you click the submit button, a topic is created in the 'Community Releases' forum for members to see. Your map will also take around 5 minutes to process, and then the download will be available to anyone who wants to play your map.

I hope you have found this guide useful for your uploading needs. Help support Thinking With Portals in being the best Portal 2 mapping community.