User:Angry Beaver/Sandbox

I get short breaks and occasional times to work on this at work and school, you'll probably see a lot of tiny updates to this but this is my way of transproting documents under development between work, school, and home. TH wiki syntax gets difficult to read and understand without the preview button :). I'd appricate any advice or suggestions you have go in talk section and that you do not modify or move any content on/from/to this page, its a constant WIP untill it gets moved to another location, then feel free to edit the article. I just wanna keep my sandbox my work page.

Hammer in Depth

(this section will be the Hammer in Depth article once compelte)

Template:Int lvl design

Introduction

This section aims to go through Valve Hammer Editor and show you whats availble, the tools and the processes you follow to get things done including what the tools are being used for, and the best ways to use them. While all the possible views, tools, and options are documented elsewhere this is the guide of where to look for them and how and when to use them. This is more than just how to use Hammer, its why your using it and what its doing when you take each step. This is important to know as understanding the reason is the best way to reach the goal.

Level Design

Hammer is a tool for level design, it allows the creation, design, and building of entire levels for the player to explore; thus, a deeper understanding of the level design process would allow the use of Hammer in the most effective way. Theres lots to learn about Hammer, but theres almost as much to learn about why your using it and the process using it takes, what other programs help and where Hammer sits in level design.

Todo:  Fill in all the rest about work flow, designing concepts before begining, file formats and reason, the point fo compiling, running your map in a game, all the utility stuff relevant to mapping not in hammer or stuff referenced by hammer

Start to Finish

<Insert good comments and advice on processing a map idea start to finish or find relevant article to upgrade>

Hammer

Now the why has been covered lets get deeper into the how. While all the menus and buttons and functions are well documented its not often clear what tool you'll need. You want a slope, should you carve, vertex manipulate, split, or even use a primitive? All will work but it becomes a trick to know which tools to use where and why.

Todo:  guide the user through the toolbar documentation, recomend tools and procedures

Conclusion

<something deep and meaningfull>