Hammer Editor - What NOT to do and WHY!

A list of some common mistakes when mapping in Hammer, how to fix them, and why they're bad!
I know this is a bit of an unusual video to show up on this channel, but after STILL seeing these mistakes being made in people's maps, I felt compelled to make this, as I haven't seen a similar video out there.
Timestamps:
Intro - 0:00
Scale - 0:17
Skybox - 1:12
func_detail - 05:54
Grid size - 08:44
Displacements - 10:17
Summary + Final Words - 12:15

[@creativeusername17]

Jeez, almost all KZbin vids about hammer look like made in 2011, even the newer ones. Good job

[@Trivvy]

Wellll except for the Windows 10 taskbar and more modern looking hammer layout due to Slammin Tools. Otherwise sure ;)

[@leaky2642]

It’s because hammer hasn’t been updated in years

[@stormstudios1]

@@leaky2642 it has they just dont bother to update the looks

[@nihalmalakiya4270]

@@Trivvy I closed the texture and entity tool bar at the right hand side. I cant apply any texture or entity what should i do

[@phalanxHH]

Because hammer editor looks like it's from 1996. They didn't really update the interface alot, the symbols and font still look like Windows 95.

[@rmanMMVII]

4:35 - There's an obligatory visleaf cut by the engine at every 1024 units. Highlighted in 2D viewports as dark orange grid lines, dark cyan in the origin.

[@lukamtc9188]

funny how this gets recommended to me as I'm trying to find a way to fix some glitchy lighting shit.. didn't expect my diaper skybox to be the problem

[@Trivvy]

Nice! I'm glad you've managed to fix your problem via my video. :)

[@joebidengaming5525]

Diaper skybox

[@The1Wolfcast]

Joe Biden gaming

[@marv372]

Thanks for the video, this will make me never do mistakes again!!

[@NoahtheEpicGuy]

1. Carve 2. Carve 3. Carve 4. Carve 5. Carve 6. Carve 7. Carve 8. Carve 9. Carve. 10. Did I mention carve?

[@SirKolass]

Carve should be the first thing in this list LMAO

[@Nallieheai]

Google ”making terrain in hammer using carve tool”, thank me later, no more need for displacements.

[@reptiliannoizezz.413]

B-But how will I make public bathroom sinks? :(

[@NoahtheEpicGuy]

@@reptiliannoizezz.413 Use a prop. I can't ever remember which prop class to use, but I can assure you, this will lead to a better life in the long run if you don't use the carve tool. This is the first step to recovery. Accept the fact that carve is not good for you. Go to a carve rehab center if you need, they're very helpful. Props to Hammer for... uhhh... this is a stupid pun.

[@technicolorskies5432]

Step 1, build a solid block big enough to cover your entire level Step 2, carve out the hallways and rooms from the solid block Step 3, 😎😎😎

[@samuels1123]

another tip for getting scale is to use the dev measuring textures on a 128x128 panel, 128x128 is the standard wall dimensions given by valve

[@gladbr7629]

seeing the off grid map give me anxiety

[@Trivvy]

GOOD!

[@Machinima_Cinema]

Thanks for this!, I’ll keep this in mind, with future maps!

[@LinkiePup]

Imma make a map filled with these mistakes, just to piss you off.

[@RC568]

Did you finish it?

[@nodrognameerf]

Did you finish it yet?

[@Gmodfan750]

Did you finish it?

[@SirKolass]

Did you start it?

[@ArchChrono]

Did you start it?

[@6rathe]

that moment when you are 99% done with your first css surf map and you load portal file for the first time and see A LOT of blue...

[@snarkbaited]

Cool video, very concise and good examples and reasoning. Keep it up!

[@SodaBlack]

Dude I’m so excited for what s&box is gonna be capable of when it’s fully finished, I really wanna try and learn to make maps for it :3

[@gumpum8760]

Misstake 6., have the Manifest bar seperated from the others to take away more screenspace.

[@Trivvy]

Yeeees I'm aware :D

[@ethanbear360]

The worst part about the skybox issue is that inexperienced mappers will recommend that solution to other inexperienced mappers.

[@mort4825]

Just started mapping today, and that's how I learned to do it! Big ups and thank yous in order to both you and Trivvy for showing me better

[@vb2995]

i dumped my final club map because the brushes were fkd and there was no one able to help on fpsbanana and youtube at the time.. now i know why, wish i knew 10 years ago. back into it i go 😁 thank you ❤️

[@technicolorskies5432]

Fantastic video. Can you make another one about optimizing outdoor areas? For example, using fog/fade distances, areaportals, creating custom visgroups, etc. I think it would he really useful.

[@terrariaOfficial]

Very helpful. even to an amatuer mapper like me!

[@Hello09294]

Thanks bro!

[@Hen787]

good tips thanks

[@Re-lx1md]

the biggest mistake in this video is you not moving your manifest window underneath the other docks and using ctrl+a to resize your views. same with the flip horizontal/vertical buttons at the top

[@Trivvy]

Bah! I know, I've since adjusted my workspace lol. I sized the view that way deliberately for the video though ;)

[@Povilaz]

Very interesting

[@awyeagames]

Thanks, this was great!

[@Trivvy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@canoafurada1105]

Vc aqui? :/

[@awyeagames]

@@canoafurada1105 sim :D

[@alexterh20]

thank you

[@777SFINN777]

I glitch out the editor and the game (L4D2) one time by making a map and then selecting the whole thing and rotated it upside down. Talk about a glitchy mess LOL!

[@BruceKira]

lmao, you fixed it?

[@777SFINN777]

@@BruceKira no I had to scrap it. It was just a apartment building with a couple rooms and stuff. But it was really weird. It glitches the editor and the game when I ran it.

[@BruceKira]

@@777SFINN777 ah, i see.

[@Lexiosity]

If your room square map has 4 visleaves, put the bottom left corner of the room at (0,0), it'll then detect the room as one room and not 4 different rooms. For some reason Hammer doesn't like centered rooms, whatsoever.

[@HumanGrunt]

carve

[@asdvzcz3191]

How can i get an updated Hammer for source sdk 2013 singleplayer because it's still at built 6440

[@gabeworks_]

Bro, I have a question My player entity is just a green rectangle and I can't really have an idea about the scale of things Is there a way for me to render a cs 1.6 character or some other character like in your video??

[@iteeto]

You probably already found an answere, but if not, this might help you: Select the Player entity, right click > Properties And in the Class Info where it says Class: call it "info_player_start" or "info_player_deathmatch" both of these Classes are the "normal cs character". I just started learning the Hammer Tool 1 Week ago, but this helped me :)

[@gabeworks_]

I did found out by myself, but thank you, king!@@iteeto

[@tomcaniff6437]

Looking for help fixing an issue not mentioned in the video, My maps geometry is finished but when I run the map. Only the brushes within a radius of my cameras current position in hammer actually show up, meaning even if I go to the center of my map, any walls at the edges of the map will be missing when I test the map. Any solutions?

[@Trivvy]

Is your map a huge, open area? If so, it might be that the edges of your map are on a visleaf that's so far away it's being culled, even if you can see it. Try using a (or multiple) func_viscluster to combine visleafs.

[@progaming5555]

can u help when i spawn in the character it is stuck in the floor

[@notsofan9740]

Good video but I’m looking at trying to remove these “obsolete” markers from a map without having to rebuild the brush objects it seems that multiple objects is obsolete to hammer editor

[@Trivvy]

Sounds like you aren't loading the correct FGDs, be sure to check your hammer config!

[@notsofan9740]

@@Trivvy idk how to change FGDs

[@demogaming8895]

I make Team Fortress 2 maps and you pretty much don't have any other choice but to box your map, cuz it has to be high for rocket jumping and stuff. I even loaded up some maps, made by valve themselves, just to check, and 2fort, dustbowl, all these maps were boxed

[@Trivvy]

Valve themselves aren't perfect. Sometimes map makers just get lazy, or they use other methods to optimize their visleafs, you can tell hammer to do things like combine all visleafs in one area into one big visleaf in order to cut down on compile time etc.

[@apchistuz]

NOO DONT BOX

[@reptiliannoizezz.413]

@@Trivvy True. I checked the c1m1_hotel map in L4D2 and doors and windows have both hints and areaportals on them

[@gaugea]

@@Trivvy how do they manually combine visleafs like that? i know how to manually split them but i never knew you could combine at will

[@MattIsFine]

You could do with some view space optimisation.

[@Trivvy]

I made the 3D viewport bigger for the video. :P I could get rid of the manifest as well, though.

[@ayham302]

Nice vid But my main broplem is the map just doesnt load its for cs 16 just basic small test map before digging in this world hope you answer.

[@somehotmeal8823]

Hey i have a problem you see the tools on the left the diden't appeared do you know what i should do ?

[@Trivvy]

Load up your map, then go to View -> Screen Elements, and click on Maptools Bar. You can also turn off/on other screen elements from there!

[@bylitgames2321]

my hammer is always moving thing off grid, how do i fix that?

[@untrust2033]

Look at bottom right. It should tell you your current grid snap, and whether it is on or off. You can use shift + w to enable / disable snap

[@bluelambda]

i closed my tools how do i get them back

[@iteeto]

i wish i wouldve found this video earlier. I just made my first GarrysMod map (which was quiet large) did the shitty Skybox as in your first example, fully detail the whole map without func_detail details (just used the normal blocks, textured it and so on. Everytime i wanted to compile it, my Hammer-Tool crashed. Then when i finally got it to Compile i wasn't able to upload it to the workshop, because the map was having alot of issues. Thanks alot :D

[@FatKatSkits]

Curious, for what reasons would someone not want to use Carve like half the comments are saying? Is it a more convenient tool that just has issues no one's discussing? Most experienced mappers refuse to talk about the tool in any of the tutorials I've seen so far.

[@joao34386]

It’s very unreliable. It can often cut up brushes in ways that create tons of unecessary cuts, and depending on the complexity of the shapes, it can cut things so badly that hammer straight up crashes. Manually cutting stuff is both more reliable/safer and just as fast.

[@chiefuzuki]

Is their a tutorial if you are stuck in wireframe

[@quantumuniversetvinc.6117]

im making my first map now. it is very very tedious lol. i am using GoldSrc. my portal file isnt showing anything i'm starting to run low on map memory i think.. sometimes my doors and windows disappear and reappear. im trying to null as many textures as possible

[@Trivvy]

I'm afraid I've never used GoldSrc so I'm not sure what the differences may be. Things disappearing and reappearing sounds like VIS. I'm not sure why your PortalFile isn't working.

[@tobios89p13]

What do i do when i habe "Bad detail brush side"

[@Trivvy]

You have incompatible tool textures on the same brush. (hint, skip, nodraw etc.)

[@Kitty-----]

Can u answer why the map I'm editing in hammer is not rendering right? I'm editing a map in gmod called gm_bigmaze and I'm just editing a few things and half of the objects aren't loading...

[@Trivvy]

You probably have the objects set to the wrong type. If the prop's info tab shows physics AND static ticked, it HAS to be a physics object. It's misleading I know, and this info pane is often not very truthful. In short, if your prop_static isn't showing up, it probably needs to be prop_physics, still not showing? Then prop_dynamic.

[@V-95K]

I’m making a box skybox only to speed up the process, because my level changing shapes the whole time, really don’t want to waste time adjusting it the way it needs to be done, only when I’m really done with my map, I’m making skybox the way it should be made

[@joao34386]

Use a cordon instead, it’s much easier to adjust and toggle

[@V-95K]

@@joao34386 oh damn thanks a lot! Gonna try it out asap, I recently got back to mapping and saw your comment :)

[@Bordie3D]

good

[@natalie6496]

sir how can i message you?, I made map and it's completed but i have low fps

[@themanhacc]

what version of hammer do you use? this does not look like regular hammer

[@Trivvy]

I believe I'm using Slammin' Mapping Tools Hammer. Also known as Slaarti's Hammer. Basically it was _the_ Hammer to use before Hammer++ came along.

[@declanrice357]

You could say these Mistakes could really take a sledgeHAMMER to your map

[@TP51O]

My first map is literally a grass simple map

[@intellectualpotato]

You should make source 2 hammer tutorials with HL:A

[@Trivvy]

I'm doing pretty good with Source 2 at the moment, but I don't really have the time to make regular tutorials like this, and a bigger KZbinr like topHATTwaffle will probably take that mantle anyway.

[@NotX-Mantor]

My blocks wont gridlock how do i turn it back on

[@Trivvy]

I believe the shortcut is Ctrl+W, but otherwise I believe you can go to Map -> Snap to Grid. I'm not on the computer that has hammer at the moment so I can't check!

[@Guywithacow]

i learned how to make maps and ive even made something like gm_deeppit

[@kenshir00]

Can this work with GoldSource?

[@Trivvy]

I haven't worked in GoldSrc, I imagine it shares quick a lot of the principles shown here.

[@itscraft2241yt]

what version of hammer is that

[@Trivvy]

It's the Slammin' Tools version. Google should be able to find it!

[@eeanditto9156]

I only build using carve soooooooo

[@tylerreason2spongebobgamin497]

if i place a object in a map and i run the map the object is not there

[@kinnzie5601]

I Am having the same problem...

[@Trivvy]

Hi! KZbin wasn't informing me of comments, so hopefully this gets to you. If you're placing a prop, you will need to be sure it is the correct type (physics, static, dynamic), as some props can only be placed as a specific type, or they won't show up. In the prop browser if you hit "Info" it should tell you, though this is not always accurate! (Super useful I know). Often it may need to be a prop_physics.

[@kinnzie5601]

@@Trivvy Thank you!

[@linx2713]

none of the viewports show up when i open hammer for sfm

[@linx2713]

@Suna Sunaru I've fixed it lol

[@h-hhh]

I use grid size 64. Happy now?

[@VerbDoesStuff]

h

[@apchistuz]

Yes

[@theaxolotlgod1204]

I was half expecting the first mistake to be using hammer.

[@seanstrizak3654]

Make a pipe inside the box? I'm new to this stuff.

[@Trivvy]

Pipe's gonna cut up visleafs like crazy, so it needs to be func_detail. If it's not already inside a room, you'll need to build a box around it that's a world brush so that your func_detail pipe doesn't leak.

[@thebkeepercc4422]

What spawn of Satan dislikes these videos?

[@K3TAL]

-common hammer mistakes -has manifest window open

[@bido64]

Is it really needed to make your map this optimized? It's 2024 and I'd assume most machines can run your map even if you don't make everything perfect. Love the video though!!

[@UncleBoss-cr1cb]

Brute force is no replacement for good practices and standards. If you're going to spend this time and effort creating a map, why would you half-ass it? There's no hurry, just take your time and do it right. When it is released to the public, the quality of the map will speak for itself, so have some respect for yourself and the efforts you dedicate your time to.

[@bido64]

@@UncleBoss-cr1cb Yeah, ur right

[@Trivvy]

The engine is old as heck and will actually kill your frame rate if it's too unoptimized, not to mention your compile times.

[@DomiXen_Zvaczer]

When i make a huge map, one of the floors and walls dissapear ;/

[@Trivvy]

That sounds like a visleafs issue. Check for leaks, and if you have a truly massive open area, it may be turning off visleafs that you _should_ be able to see, they're just far away. You may need to use func_viscluster to bunch them all together so that they render at once.

[@DomiXen_Zvaczer]

@@Trivvy Actually, it was the big red circle in the 2d view, it was annoying but now i fixed it

[@s_callahan]

omg bad cop hammer tutorial LETS GO

[@TheOpacue]

I'd say the vis stuff isn't super important anymore. I mean, most maps you can almost run without vish calculations on modern computers anyway 😝

[@Trivvy]

I wouldn't be so sure. It doesn't matter how beefy your computer is if the engine is hitting certain limitations. You can still chug and lag terrible in a Source game that's unoptimized.

[@drn0_]

#SOURCEMODSMATTER #HALFLIFEFORLIFE

[@the_motherfucker]

"Not" and "Why" aren't acronyms

[@alphenex8974]

8:45 I really get pissed off when I see people always use gridsize 1 to make maps, it just makes it pain in the ass to edit and add more stuff to the map. - Also, you forgot about nodraw stuff, some people RARELY use nodraw. Idk if you know about HL2RP but the most popular HL2RP map (I17) is so unoptimized and the makers of I17 didn't use nodraw at all.

[@Trivvy]

NoDraw isn't the be-all-end-all of optimization. BSP will actually cull faces that face the void, so if you skybox your map correctly, you only really need to ue NoDraw on faces that are inside the map, but the player cannot see. So for example if there's a closed off room that the player can only see through one plane, all the faces that the player cannot see should be NoDraw. What I imagine may have happened with the HL2RP map is that the creator(s) did a big hollow skybox, and then didn't nodraw the outer faces that would otherwise be facing the void. It's also possible that the map is simply very big with very long sight-lines with lots of props and details being rendered at once. This can drive down performance no matter what you do. Also, RP scripts are heavy af and put in a load of overhead.

[@alphenex8974]

@@Trivvy true

[@samuels1123]

@@Trivvy Another important thing about nodraw is it allows a better perspective, you can select to hide all faces that are textured with nodraw allowing you a clear perspective, if the faces are not nodraw you might be trying to navigate the map interiors to see areas with the 3d camera

[@Hunter-ib9ks]

how tfff do areaportals work. I cannot get them to work for the life of me..

[@Tmob]

You can let an area portal space not be fully enclosed from the other side, for example if you put an area portal in a door that has a window next to it, that wouldn’t work because one side could get to the other through the window. You need to either put another area portal there or seal the window. This is what area portal leaks are, and I’m assuming that’s what you are asking about

[@Tmob]

You can’t*

[@Trivvy]

A way to think of them perhaps is like they're a plug to stop water leaking out. If you place an area portal brush down, and there's a way for the water it's containing to leak onto the other side of the portal, then it won't work.

[@TheFellerHasAChannelGodDamnIt]

Mistakes people make using HAMMER. 1. Actually using HAMMER

[@martinseitune3787]

Beautifull video 🥺 im argentino and my english.. well.. i try my best 🫣 but i learn so much! You know how i can move a trian or a car in one direction?