Hammer Feature Requests

Features

• Drag and drop of map files onto Hammer, to open
• Implementation of variable falloff on displacement tools
• Simple lighting preview in 3D view
• Hammer <-> HL2 compatibility (able to run both simultaneously without any problems)
• On this line of thought - Fix up the wc_ commands and developer environment ingame for HL2 <-> Hammer compatibility?
• Updated HL2 FGD (some entities that are used in the sample maps aren't in the HL2 FGD, info_light_relative for example)
• Option for compile window to retain last known screen position and size.
• Icon in Texture browser to indicate custom material.
• Ability to view the different channels of a material seperately. (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha, it's normal/bump, and specular map)
• Ability to Copy material name and path from Texture browser.
• Ability to 'play' the map while in hammer.
• Ability to see func_monitor previews.
• Ability to see prop wireframes in the 2D views, not just bounding boxes.
• A 'model browser' containing a search field to search for models. If not, at least a 'model search' feature in the model viewer would be nice.
• Proper material folder filtering exclusion.
• Displacement verticies editable or viewable in orthographic views.
• This goes into the 'going beyond hammer' but make hammer more like UED, in that hammer could be turned into more of an IDE than just a level editor.
• Windows Scripting Host support with Hammer functions and objects addressable. Macro menu to host shortcuts to script files.
• Run the compile tools in seperate processes or threads than the hammer GUI, and add a "Cancel" button to cancel the compilation process.
• Automatically hide and show items placed or deleted from and in VisGroups
• Ability to move tool handles in the 3D view. In particular, resize brushes, move entities, etc. (Maybe with axis constraints, to deal with 2D => 3D spatial translation?)
• Bookmarks bound to keys (e.g. numberpad) to jump to different areas of a map.
• A ruler feature to measure the distance (in units and real world units) and angle between two or more points.
• More intuative on-the-fly visgrouping. i.e. Ability to select multiple brushes and entities, right-click, select "Show only selected entities and brushes", then when you're done working, right-click again and select "Show all entities and brushes".

Bugs

• Long file names can't be seen in Face Edit dialog.
• Face Edit dialog loses focus when cursor moves off the dialog.
• Hammer crashes if you startup a game without minimizing it and then reopening it before the game opens.
• Point At... button for angle keyvalues only set "angles" keyvalue.
• Occasionally the editor closes without warning or error.
• Editor becomes unstable and/or crashes on a fairly regular basis, often when adjusting overlays, deleting or working with move or keyframe ropes, when moving large amounts of brushes or entities, or doing large amounts of displacement modification.
• 3D view black models issue fix (failing to draw model textures because of video card limitations)
• Painting alpha values across multiple terrain brushes sometimes will not paint one of the selected brushes even though the points are lined up and sewn.

Dialog redesign proposals

• 

  Model Dialog by Cryovat

I think thumbnails would still be good—ts2do ^(talk) 18:09, 12 Oct 2005 (PDT)

Me too, but they should be for every model then (I'm looking at CS:S and DOD here), or have a more automated process for taking them, as I suspect VALVe has. Any way to take shots automatically with MV in a batch file or something? --RabidMonkey 18:57, 12 Oct 2005 (PDT)

The thumbnails fail to give a fair representation of what the model looks like, or the scale. Some kind of integration with HLMV would seem to be the best proposal here. --PiMuRho 08:00, 13 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• 

  Model Dialog by Cryovat

Upon further consideration, the thumbnail view is nice and it's not something I'd want to lose. I made this alternative to marry my old proposal with it, applying a three-pane approach. Thank you for the feedback! --Cryovat 16:13, 13 Oct 2005 (GMT+1)

Yes...what's this skin size thing though?? a model can use multiple materials—ts2do ^(talk) 11:27, 13 Oct 2005 (PDT)