Category talk:Level Design

Discussion Archives for "Category talk:Level Design" Please don't edit the archives. Archive 1 -- 29 June 2005 to 5 February 2008

Setting up Hammer

After downloading the sourcesdk through steam, I attempted to use hammer, and when I double-clicked on it, it brought up a window w/ several tabs and forms to fill. The window's title is: Configure Hammer, and I must not have done something right (I hit cancel because I wasn't expecting to see this window and frankly didn't know what to put in the blanks.) because after going through a tutorial (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Your_First_Map) I began to notice that I don't have all the options that this tutorial says I should. One example is that I don't have a dev devwall filter for textures. Has anyone else encountered something similar to this and can you help me? --Raiden 11:32, 18 Jun 2008 (CST)

Have you launched the game you're trying to map for recently? --TomEdwards 13:15, 18 Jun 2008 (PDT)

Reorganizing the Level Design page?

I'd like to reorganize the layout of this page, I think the current layout is a bit too cluttered and may be confusing for the new user to navigate. I've seen a lot of the questions on the help pages here and in the Steam forums about topics already covered here on the VDC. I know part of this may likely be due to ignorance or plain laziness, but another part is due to users simply being unable to find what they are looking for. I've had trouble finding articles myself and there have been several duplicate articles created for this reason as well.

My proposals:

1. remove the "Half-Life 2", "TF2" titles that link to the general game info pages, these can be linked to from within the design page of the game (ie: This page lists mapping articles which are specific to Left 4 Dead) (done)
2. pull all the mapping articles from here that only apply to 1 or 2 specific games and instead place them in the level design pages for those games. It doesn't make sense to leave these articles listed on the main page as they don't help users who don't own those specific games.
3. remove the "intermediate / difficult" classifications and instead relocate these links into more specific subsections (eg: lighting, sound, environment, etc).
4. De-link (orphan) the "Abstract Mapping" section and relocate the useful information from there into the subtopics mentioned above. As it is now, most of the links in that section simply redirect other pages, if not to the same pages. Very few of them actually contain useful content themselves and I see no reason to leave the section listed as it is.

I've done a rough mock-up for my redesign idea here for those interested. Anyways, other ideas and suggestions are welcome. --brandished 01:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

CleanUp\Reorganize:

Well, as it's been close to a month and there have been no replies to my proposal, I'm guessing either no one has any problems with my suggestions or they have been completely overlooked. To make sure the later isn't true, I've placed a notice on the level design page. If no one brings up any objections or other options to my suggestions within the next week, I'll go ahead and start restructuring the category along the guidelines I listed above. --brandished 02:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I never noticed this... But I'd agree with you to go ahead. I was looking at that mockup page on the recent edits page and thought it looked much better, I didn't check what it was for though. But you've always done good edits on the VDC, so you have my vote :) --DannyS 03:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh, you caught me in the middle of an edit. I would have put a notice up earlier, but I wasn't to happy with how the initial mockup looked, so I've been messing around with that page the past few weeks to find something a bit more structured. I still want to make a few more changes to it, but I think it's at least workable.