Slammin' Source Map Tools

Note:This page is basically a copy of the original facepunch thread.

Slammin' Source Map Tools are updated and more feature rich mapping/compile tools for Source (Compared to Source's default ones, such as VVIS ,VRAD ,VBSP ,and Hammer)

Slammin' Source comes with an upgraded Hammer editor named Hammer 5.2 (not to be confused with Source 2's Hammer 5.x), and improved VVIS, VRAD and VBSP.

Note:You don't have to use Slammin' Source Map Tools's Hammer to use its compile tools.(AKA you can use Hammer++ with Slammin' VRAD,VVIS,VBSP).

Slammin' Source Map Tools are created by Slartibarty

Common improvements:

•  SSE2 support
• Higher limits
  Todo: Of what?
• Max CPU threads bumped to 32
• Cleaned up common code
• Large Address Awareness (Can handle addresses larger than 2 gigabytes)

Slammin' Hammer 5.2

• Enabled Visual Styles 6.0
• Performance upgrades
• Entire program now uses your default system font, instead of the dated win9x standard font
• Revamped entire user interface, made the options menu cleaner, and removed obsolete options
• Added new graphical options to the 3D View tab, including picmip, MSAA level, etc
• Added an option to change the 3D viewport background colour: default is 128,128,128
• Removed huge amounts of deprecated icons, cursors and bitmaps
• Modernised large chunks of code, doesn't really affect the end user experience, but it should make you happier to know
• Increased the distance that vertex positions are rounded to integers to 0.01 from 0.05, this fixes some gross vertex rounding issues (or lack thereof)
• Say goodbye to the process window, Hammer's built in compiler now feeds compile information to a new exe, meaning no more freezes, and instant compile information on the fly. You can still use Hammer while a map is compiling
• New toolbar, transform tools. Same as the options available in the "tools" menu option, just brought out for ease of access
• Texture application window is now more concise, added X and Y buttons that randomise texture coordinates for their appropriate boxes
• Texture application window is now host to an experimental "reset" texture button, which resets the texture's scale, shift coordinates, lightmap scale and rotation
• Reworked the entire right-hand UI bar to be easier to use
• Removed Radial Culling, it crossed me for the last time
• Removed Quake, Hexen 2, Quake II and Half-Life support
• Added support for func_instance_origin, set the in-editor origin point for instances (no keyvalues needed)
• Removed support for WAD files
• Clamped framerate to 60hz from 100hz (will make this an option)
• Extended available automatic visgroup types
• The "default animation" keyvalue for dynamic props is now registered and will now automatically play in the viewport
• func_detail_blocker entities are displayed accurately in Hammer, with detail objects inside the entities' volume not being drawn
• Added "open source" and "explore to source" buttons in the texture browser, selecting a material and using either of these buttons will bring you to the material's folder
• Certain UI elements such as the entity report dialogue now support resizing
• Models no longer share animations with all other model instances present
• Multiple precision and accuracy fixes in general, brushes are less likely to crap up, texture coordinates are displayed correctly, etc
• Paste & Paste Special shortcuts now properly displayed in the edit menu
• Added support for the "boolean" FGD data type

Slammin' VBSP

Note: Mapbase's VBSP has most of Slammin' Source Map Tools VBSP improvements.

• Proper support for power of 4 displacements
• Detail brushes now preserve their smoothing group
• Any prop with $staticprop can now be a static prop
• Improved brush precision
• Added missing content types to csg.cpp
• New %compile command for VMTs, "%compileNoShadows", makes a material not receive shadows, only direct light. This is used on water usually
• Translucent brushes should no longer cut visleaves if they are world brushes
• Any prop with $staticprop can now be a static prop (IE physics props)
• Increased detail sprites limit
• Custom lightmappedgeneric shaders are supported now
• Implemented support for func_detail_blocker
• Leaktest is now enabled by default

Commands

• Note:This only lists new commands or ones that have been changed.
  • -noleaktest disable leaktest
  • -maxluxelscale, lets you limit the maximum luxel scale in your map
  • -nodefaultcubemap, disables automatic skybox cubemap generation
  • -blocksize, lets you customise the size of visleaf splitting "blocks", default is every 1024 units
  • -visgranularity, lets you automatically place hint brushes in your map, syntax is "-visgranularity X Y Z"
  • -infoladder, converts all func_ladder entities to info_ladder

Slammin' VRAD

enabling -worldtextureshadows

-ambientocclusion enabled vs disabled

• HDR is enabled by default
• Improved displacement lightmap quality
• -staticproplighting, -staticproppolys and -textureshadows enabled by default
• Transparent textures loaded by VRAD are now bilinear filtered, for more accurate shadows

Commands

• Note:This only lists new commands or ones that have been changed.
  • -ambientocclusion, adds ambient occlusion to your map
  • -aosamples to decide how many samples you want
  • -aoscale scale ambientocclusion's strength.
  • -softencosine, softens coloured lighting so it blends more accurately
  • -coring, scale the light threshold before a luxel is completely unlit, used to save lightmap data, default is 0.5
  • -dispchop, adjust the amount of patches generated for displacement faces, default is 8
  • -ambient, when supplied with three RGB values, will apply a constant light value to every luxel in your map
  • -reflectivityscale, multiplier for the reflectivity of textures in your map
  • -extrapasses, lets you scale how many extra passes you want your map to go through, default is 4, differences above this value are extremely minimal
  • -worldtextureshadows, allows world polys to cast texture shadows, much like models can
  • -translucentshadows to enable the effect on $translucent surfaces
• -final has been completely reworked, -aosamples is set to 32, -extrasky is set to 16, extrapasses is set to 8 and large disp sample radius is enabled

Slammin' VVIS

• Minor code cleanup

Commands

• Note:This only lists new commands or ones that have been changed.
  • None?

Compatibility

Branch:	Compatible:	Note:
Mapbase	YES	Use Mapbase's VBSP
Source 2013 Singleplayer	YES	NONE
Source 2013 Multiplayer	YES	NONE
Team Fortress 2	YES	You need to install for it to work.
Garry's Mod	YES	You need to install for it to work.
Counter-Strike: Source	YES	You need to install for it to work.
Day of Defeat: Source	YES	You need to install for it to work.
Source Filmmaker	YES	You probably need to install for it to work.
Left 4 Dead	NO	NONE
Left 4 Dead 2	NO	NONE
Portal 2	NO	NONE
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	NO	NONE

External links

• knockout (Download)

See Also

• Map Compiling Theory
• VVIS
• VRAD
• VBSP