Releasing a Map

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(This page intends to cover information about releasing a map for other people to play)

• Examine the compile log to ensure there are no compile errors or warnings
• When you load the map into the game, check the console to ensure there are no errors or warnings
• Make sure you have compiled the map with Normal VIS and RAD, not Fast. Do not release a map compiled with Fast VIS or RAD.
• If you have created any custom materials, models, sounds, etc. see "Distributing Custom Content" below
• For Counter-Strike, create a ".txt" file with the same name as the map. This text will be displayed to players when the map starts. Lines are wrapped.
• Consider editing the bot nav file to paint place names. Also, examine bot behaviour in your map and edit the nav file to remove the more stupid elements.
• Consider creating a map overview image.
• For Counter-Stike, run the map with only bots playing, 10 a side, and see whether either side has an outright advantage. There is no substitute for human players, but bots will typically show up the obvious design flaws in a map (poorly positioned meeting points, not enough entrances/exits in critical areas, and so on)
• Remember to run "buildcubemaps" in the console.

• Uploading: When your map is all done, You can upload it at some useful website, so that other people can download and play them.

Here is a few sites that you can upload to: http://www.yousendit.com/ Though YouSendIt let you upload very big size file(1GB), but it only keeps your file for a week. http://rapidshare.de/ While rapidshare is good, the downside is on the downloader's side, Lots of ads and waiting... http://csm2.net/ Many Counter-Strike Source maps there and free to upload your own. No caps on map files sizes, no ads as well.

On the other hand, if you do have a website of your own that you could store your BSP file on, you could use the sv_allowupload and sv_downloadurl commands.

For example if you create a sub domain on your website mymaps.mywebsite.com then set the following commands on your server.

sv_downloadurl mymaps.mywebsite.com sv_allowupload 0

This would tell clients connecting to your server to directly download the BSP file from that url.

Distributing Custom Content

If you have custom models, sounds, textures or materials, you must either:

• bundle them into the map BSP file. See Using Bspzip to Embed Custom Content, or
• add a ".res" Map Resource File to your map release to let the server know there's files that should accompany the BSP when it's downloaded.

If you don't do this, then anyone downloading the map through a server whilst playing will not get your custom content!