This tutorial will show you how to make a map using the Source SDK. Read the description,
it's got a link to another video you have to watch before this one to totally understand
it.
Okay, let's go! In the Source SDK, there are three different things you need to understand;
blocks, entities and triggers. BLOCKS you can make by clicking on the block tool here.
It's used to make levels, so you drag out a block by holding down the mouse button,
and when you're happy with where the block is, you press ENTER, and it will make it in
the level. To see your level so far, you click on the CAMERA tool, which is the third one
down. You then click on one of the 2D views so you can see that ball appear. That is where
your camera is in the level. As you can see it's currently inside the block, so to be
able to see your level, move your mouse over the camera part of the screen and press Z.
You can now move around your level and see what it looks like. If you're having trouble
making blocks you've probably got the Selection Tool selected and you're going OOOOH and it's
disappearing, so you've got to make sure the block tool is selected before you can make
bits of your level. I'm going to make more of this level, just so it looks a bit more
pretty. To choose the texture I click BROWSE on the right hand side of the screen and type
in the thing that I want the texture of.
So there's a nice grass texture... to make walls, you choose the block tool and you stretch
it up on the bottom two (view boxes) because these are the side views, so as you can see,
changing it on the bottom view will change the size of the wall. And that's about it.
You can now go and make your level.
There, now as you can see I have made the level. This is just done out of blocks, as
you can see here I have a slope. To make slopes, you just make a block, and then you click
on the cliipping tool which is this one here. You can then drag it out, and the bit that's
in white will be the bit that's left when you press enter. If you keep clicking on it,
you can toggle which bits are left. So there, that's how you make slopes, and if you want
to make steps, or other, more detailed things, you can change the detail of the grid by clicking
on these two buttons, or by pressing the buttons next to P on your keyboard [ and ]. 16 or
8 are good sizes for stairs, so here's a couple of stairs. But it doesn't really matter much
because this is a tutorial about everything, not just stairs. So there, stairs. Next, I'm
going to add a person in the level so you can play it. To do this you click on the ENTITY
tool. So this is the SECOND of 3 things you need to learn about in the Source SDK. Once
you've placed an entity in your level it'll load up. It'll look like a person. Using the
Selection Tool, you can double click on that and you can go down a MASSIVE list of things.
And this goes everywhere from special effects to game options, physics objects and weapons.
If you want a weapon on the ground, you place a weapon on the ground. So if you want something
in your level, it's in this list somewhere. I'm just going to place a person in the level.
And that will allow me to play the level. So i'll spawn where that person is in the
level, but ONLY if he's not touching anything. So, just to make sure, I'm going to make him
in the middle of an open area, off the ground.
And finally, I'm going to add a skybox. This is just the limitations of your level, because
your map won't work unless you have this, as people have learned the hard way. So here's
a big block, ENTER, it goes all the way around the entire map, I now choose the skybox texture
by typing in SKYBOX. It's the one at the bottom, TOOLSSKYBOX. To apply this to a block I've
already made, it's THIS button on the left hand side, 'Apply current texture'. Now this
is done, I need to make it hollow, otherwise you're going to be stuck inside a big block,
called skybox. So I press CTRL+H together and it make it -32. So there, this is my level.
To play it, you press this button OR F9. Set VIS to fast, keep the other 2 to normal, and
DON'T run the game to run after compiling. Click OK. It might tell you to save the game
when you press F9, if so, save it. You have to save and play your game regularly. If you
don't do that then you're likely to make some mistakes. It will take ages to fix the problem.
This will take a long time, probably 5 or 6 seconds.
Once it's done, load up Counter Strike Source, or which ever game you're making it for and
it will be in the maps list. Make sure there are no spaces in the map name, or it won't
work.
Okay, you've played your level but it's not very interesting. To fix it, I'm going to
add some light into the level, because light makes everything look better. Click on the
Entity tool again, click somewhere in your level, it doesn't matter where for this one.
I'm going to make it a light_environment. Click Apply, and now it doesn't matter where
you place it in the level. I tend to place it above everything else so it's in the sky
so it's easy to find, and I'm going to point it at somewhere in the level. And this is
the direction the light will go to. The light will come from the skybox and will be in this
sort of direction. So in this direction, there will be shadows here. And it just looks nicer.
So now we've got lighting, your level will look more professional than some of the maps
on the websites that you download maps from.
Let's add objects. Because objects make things much more interesting. Click somewhere in
the level, and choose PROP. If you want something static, like a tree, choose prop_static. If
you want something that moves around (like barrels), choose prop_physics. once you're
happy with your choice of what type of prop it is, click World Model and click BROWSE.
You can then type in things like oildrum, if you want an oildrum, or tree if you want
a tree. If it doesn't appear in your level, and you've placed it in, then the chances
are you've chosen the wrong type of entity. So instead of prop_physics try prop_static,
or instead of prop_static try prop_physics and it should appear.
So there, in this map I've got lighting, objects, spawn points and a map. That's all you need,
really, to make a good level. But now it's time to add some bombsites. To do this, I
choose the block tool again, I choose the area of the map that I would the bombsite
to be in, so I want it to be at the top of this area here, so I highlight ths area. When
people are inside this area, they'll be able to plant the bomb. Press enter, as you can
see, it looks like a bit of the map. To make it look different I just choose the Trigger
texture, because it's see-through and you can see that it's a bombsite. It's this texture.
Now this is done, I select it by pressing Ctrl+t. From here I can make it a door if
I wanted, so this would be a door that you can open but no, that would just be silly.
I'm going to choose func_bomb_target. Click apply, and there we go. It's a bomb zone.
To make an area of the map people can buy weapons in, it's exactly the same, only instead
of func_bomb_target, it is func_buyzone. So I choose this, and this will turn into a buyzone.
But I need to choose the team. So this will be a terrorist one. There, I have made a level.
I'll just place some more spawn points in, now to make this level playable I'll add in
some Counter terrorists. To make these entities Counter terrorists, I'm going to hold down
Ctrl so I can select more than one at once. Once they're all selected I go up to EDIT,
down to PROPERTIES and I change the entity name to Counter terrorist.
I can save some more time by copying the buyzone for the terrorists, pressing ctrl+C and ctrl+V
to paste it. This is just a copy of the buyzone. Double click on it with the selection tool
selected, and I change the team number to Counter Terrorist. And Apply. There, this
level will now work. But that's not good enough, let's add in some ladders. To do this, I select
the BLOCK tool, click BROWSE in the texture menu, type in LADDER. And I place it in the
level where I want to be able to climb up. So this bit of the wall will do here. Make
a block, click on the selection tool and once the block is selected I press ctrl+t and choose
func_ladder. And Apply. people can now climb up the wall at this bit here. It doesn't look
like a ladder. To do this, I add in another thing separately with the ladder texture,
so you'll see that ladder texture here, but you'll climb up this trigger here, which is
invisible. For more help on water, or glass windows, there are some links in the description
and in the annotations of this video. I hope this helps you make maps.