Creating a working mini-map for CS:GO

Intro and Basics

Some mods (Counter-Strike:Source, Day of Defeat:Source) have a mini-map mode, that shows a level overview and projects players and objects on that map. An overview map is an image made from in-game screenshots and must be created once a new map is finished.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also has a mini-map feature. From the player's point of view, the mini-map behaves the same in game as in previous versions of Counter-Strike. But from a developer point of view quite a few things have changed from creating a level overview in Counter-Strike: Source.

The big differences are:

1. In CS:GO the map overview is referred to as the "radar."
2. CS:GO doesn't use VTFs and VMTs for the radar.
3. In CS:GO radar files are saved as a ".DDS" file.
4. There are only two necessary files to get a basic mini-map working the '.DDS" and a ".txt". The ".DDS" serves as the map overview image, and the ".txt" tells the Source engine how to display the overview.

To compare the differences in finer detail, read: Level_Overviews and see how to make a level overview for Counter-Strike: Source.