Hammer, in what order to create a map?
Hi all, I naively thought I could enter the competition we just had, all I needed to do was to quickly learn Hammer and put the PeTi maps I created into one big map. Alas things are a bit more difficult than that...
My question regarding Hammer - I've seen tons of Tutorials and I have got quite a bit of stuff working, what I miss though is a description of a proper workflow. What is the best (recommended) way to create a level?
Should I treat point 0,0 as a special point (e.g. center of the room, or corner of the level?)
I assume I create the room first, put some generic texture on the walls and lay out the puzzle elements and test?
Only then start worrying about details, 3d skybox, lights etc?
any methods, sturcture you use, please post em, cause with all those "loose" tutorials I am missing the bigger picture to put it all logically together...
I remember there was a really helpful topic posted a while ago regarding this. Lets see if I can find it.
EDIT: here was the one I was thinking of: mapping-help/puzzle-producing-process-t5983.html
also another one here for tips: mapping-help/first-time-modder-looking-for-starting-advice-t4162.html
However I also found this from a couple years back if you want a quick browse: mapping-help/designing-maps-t275.html
For me, I always make the room first, place the arrival elevator and the transition box so the player can spawn, then I make the puzzles. I then test my map by using light entities replacing initial lighting. After I'm satisfied, I then only delete the light entities and use real lighting from lights and observatory rooms. After that I place indicator lights, play background music and also align the textures of the walls, floors and ceilings. Finally, I playtest my map to find any bugs or uninteded solutions. 
wow, quick reply gents!
Thanks Chicken, I will look though those links of yours.
Question about entry and exit elevators, my gut feeling tells me to do those at the very end?
Yeah, do those at the end.
If you wanna test your map and you don't want to place the entry/exit elevators yet, just place an info_player_start and a weapon_portalgun at the same position.
I would leave everything mapping till you have planned what you want your chamber to be like.
Generally you should be using a design process. This is the sort of thing companies expect professionals to use because it usually gets the work done. Thoughout senior years of school for IT and Software, they had their little design process diagrams. For mapping it should be something similar to the prototyping approach for software:
Instances however make it very easy to have place holders for the start and/or exit of your map - but what if you don't want to start with an elevator? What if you wanted to start coming out of a stasis chamber or you fall out of blackness? HRMM? Planning people!
That diagram is very similar to what my day to day job is like, developing SCADA applications for oil rigs and chemical plants... There is a set way to do things, doing it in a different order always means you are creating more work for yourself, and that is the bit I want to try and avoid, I would like to do the Hammer work the right way because I am lazy by nature 
It is the "editing" balloon in your diagram I really want to get right, I feel like I want to focus too much on the puzzle element from the start, and will make life harder for myself when the esthetics come into play...
I found your post in that link Chicken, very good reading
Generally, it's best to first focus on the puzzle exclusively, and have the visual design result from that, instead of designing a detailed environment first and shoehorning a puzzle in it afterwards.
Things like the layout of the room, where the entrance and exit are, and which parts are visible from where, can all be used to guide the player's thought process during the game. In my experience, a map frequently requires some drastic layout changes before it 'plays right', so you should make it easy to do that.
I almost always start with this method, explained by lpfreaky:
Clean mapping guide
Only when the gameplay works right and any obvious shortcuts are taken care of, should you start with the detailing. For your first map, you may even consider giving it to some other people to playtest the puzzle before doing this. It's easier to fix gameplay-related things found by others, while the map is still in its simple non-detailed form.
Other Portal 2 maps: Medusa Glare
Portal 1 maps: Try Anything Twice | Manic Mechanic
Hello, i'm not a very profesional mapper, and for me the most important part of making a map is designing it. When making a map my best friend is the paper, I draw the stuff I want to get done.
But i'm also like you, i'm still learning so I can't help much 
.
- Somewhere Underground Complete
Workshop:
- http://steamcommunity.com/id/eladiozro/myworkshopfiles/
My very very first attempt at Hammer was retexturing a PTI map. Just added props here and there, changed textures...
And then I started messing with Hammer for game I/O. I fiddled with a very specific entity: trigger_teleport. That's what got me started on delving deeper into the software.
Then I wanted to seek a bigger challenge and made a map from scratch. I started with a blank room, added puzzle elements (Googling along the way), fixed lights, textured it good, optimized, and bam.
Oh and my first from-scratch map wasn't made the PTI way (you know, staring at a blank file and adding elements along the way)... I actually had a paper blueprint laid out.
Have fun, and Google is your friend. Search first before asking questions because everyone will think you're a lazy-ass noob who refuses to learn and just messes with the PTI instances (and crying when the instances ruin your life)
