Talk:Valve Hammer Editor

Hmm, this seems to be a good way of getting some VALVe attention. Do you guys ever listen to the community about changes that could improve Hammer? Cause there are some serious things that can improve the editor ALOT. I have three things right on. /hipshot

Texture browser.

• How about making categories that one can browse through, still keeping the fast search function of course.
  • Solution: use keywords, filter for folders

Customization.

• Colors? Hey, this is 2005, why is it that I'm still bound to the black palette? I know I can invert the scheme in the options menu, still, no good.

• I'd like to be able to change the "void" background color again. I remember this feature was in VHE 3.5, so why was it taken out? :( --Campaignjunkie 13:06, 25 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Navigation.

• Why is it that you are bound to use either the scroll-buttons, or the arrows on the KB? Both these are slow and bad ways to scroll, how come I can't just click-hold down the right MB and scroll, like in most other editors and many (strategy) games?
  • Solution:
    • 3D: enter camera mode with the camera button or shift+C
    • 2D: Hold space and drag the mouse
• Add a ruler to the sides of each view so one can know where on the map he is? When I made my first WC/Hammer based map (ever) a couple weeks ago, I found that I was mapping far out the edge, I still find this annoying even if that never happens. Its very good for measurements of brush based structurs.
• A speed slider on the 3d-viewport? Like a smaller scrollbar, but it regulates the speed that the player flies through the world in 3D. Its way slow now, and annoying going into the editor-settings to change this every now and then. You can make huge maps with Source, still you need to move really slow when it comes down to local detail. Therefor some better flexibility here.
  • Workaround: scroll with mousewheel to move forwards/backwards, drag with both mouse buttons in camera mode
• A hotkey for centering an object in 3d view? I know there is ctrl-e for 2d centering and an option to center in 3d view off of one of the dropdown menus, but a hotkey for centering in 3d view would make navigation faster and easier. --Hyperion2010 09:11, 1 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Views

• Why is the Textured view not shaded? It seems odd that every other rastered view is, and even the Textured view in the old VHE was shaded, so why go back a step?

Actually, I prefer it unshaded. --Campaignjunkie 13:47, 20 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I think it should be a option, I like a shaded 3d-view also, much easier to see elevation differences --Hipshot 09:30, 24 Jul 2005 (PDT)

There is a solution if you want shaded previews, just use Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop and layer the Smoothing Groups view (Multiply Blend) over the textured view. I think the merit in no shading is to see the textures unaltered, since different shading can make textures look different. --Zevensoft 15:48, 2 Aug 2005 (PDT)

• How about a wireframe depth cue based on the camera's position in the 3D view? It could be controlled from the toolbar with on/off and a scrollable number for distance. Anything outside the max distance would fade out from 2D views. It's a lot more elegant than using visgroups. --TomEdwards 04:35, 25 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Functions

• Displacement maps, currently, their only usage is for terrain, everyone that says that they are good to use for arches are so wrong, why, because they are just way to advanced as for now. A power value of '.5' and also 1, would be much appreciated. I've tried making these stugff, with manual editing of the vmf file, this works, and it looks good in Hammer, but it's not possible to compile, since VBSP doesen't handle this. Please make us use simpler displacements.

Solution: make multiple displacement brushes

• Vertex editor of displacements, it sucks using the geometry editor if you are going in really detailed, please valve, please, make these changes. Q3 had a great mesh system, Source can also, if we get these two functions.

Solution: Use DispEd to make precise displacement geometry.

Solution: Uncheck Spatial, move the mouse over the vertex of choice and hold shift.

• using the clipping tool with the grid at 1 unit makes the tool snap 1 unit next to the one you click on. now i know this is not used many times, but there are people out there (like me) who use this pretty much so a fix for this would save us a lot of time.
• Carving Tool: carving has always been known as the "evil" in the editor and many people suggested to remove the tool.

however, in hammer 3.5 i took use of this tool when creating arches. when i created a 90 degree arch i would always create a block around it and then carve the arch out of it so that the outer portion gets filled up (deleting the inner brushes) now when i do this in the new hammer it totally f*cks it up. or even crashes my machine (and so i have heard im not the only one who has this) fixing this would again speed up work big time.

Selection Problems

• The selection handles and various other selection tools are extremely fickle when used in the 2D views. With HL1 Hammer/Worldcraft, I rarely encountered problems while resizing brushes and dragging selection boxes. Hammer for HL2 is very inaccurate in this respect. One can try to resize a brush and put the cursor on the selection handles (causing the mouse cursor to change into a double headed arrow to indicate it's accurately placed for resizing) and then drag, only to find that one is now dragging a selection box instead of actually resizing the brush (i.e. the selection "missed"). It's very irritating indeed, especially when one has auto-select enabled and consequently selects half of the map upon releasing the mouse button.

• Another curious bug occurs when selecting objects in a 2D window and being zoomed out a large(ish) amount. Attempting to drag a selection box that starts nowhere near a brush will result in the closest brush to the pointer being selected.

Misc Bugs and Issues

• Changing a prop's model to something else, then undoing the action will actually revert the prop's model back to its original state, but the 2d/3d views will display the model selected before undoing the action. If one saves the vmf and reloads the file, the correct model is displayed, so it definitely does revert properly -- it just doesn't update hammer's views. E.g. If one has a pipe model and changes it to a telephone pole, then hits ctrl-z to undo the property change, hammer will continue to display a telephone pole, but the model is actually a pipe once more.

• Some of the tool textures in Hammer are non-functional and should be removed for simplicity's sakes.

• The brightness of sprites in the 3D view is way, way too bright. I can only assume Valve employees wear sunglasses and have good eyecare plans :P Please reduce the brightness of sprites in the 3D view or give some kind of control to users. I get a headache. Some level designers (mod work) I work with actually have a sprites visgroup as they are so bothersome.

---

With this wiki, you (VALVe), have a great opportunity for collecting ideas and improvements suggested by the very (large) developing community that you helped creating since late '98. The professional developers, that every day comes and works at a office, might get a bit 'walled-in' (no offence) weather their editor is good or not. Their agenda spans over like 3-4 years, and they are so used to the work and the 8h workday phase that they might not notice and feel like changes in the GUI could speed and help thier work. Example, iDs Doom3Edit, that is built-in and comes with Doom 3, the editor sucks so incredibly much compared to GTKradiant when it comes down to everything, even speed, the only thing it does good is the realtime light and sound the editor features since its totaly native with the Doom 3 Engine. Everything else, from texture (and 'ing'), navigation, selections, render speed (large maps), shortcuts, menus and functions is far better in GTKr (1.5). If VALVe should release the source for the VHE to the community, I think we could see the same story for hammer, since more outside mappers and developers starts improving the editor 'beyond the year 2001'. Or, take suggestions and implant them, It can't be that hard to change improvements in the GUI, and you sure would make alot of us happy. /hipshot

Releasing the source for Hammer might cause a lot of different versions to pop up, each having a thing of it's own. Perhaps allowing a plugin system, adapting Hammer to accept plugins and giving some documentation about how to create these? --Captain P

I've E-mailed Valve before and gotten the response "A Plugin feature is one we would like to add but its not an easy feature to add". Its hopefull, like "When its done" is hopefull. --Angry Beaver