Category:Level Design/en

See the bottom of the page for alphabetically organized tutorials

Getting Started

• Installation
• Level Design Overview
• Your First Map
• Inputs and Outputs

Hammer Editor

• Reference Documentation
• Hammer Hotkey Reference
• Hammer Feature Requests ^{[ Deprecated]}
• Valve Hammer Editor Versions
• Hammer++, a modified hammer editor that includes bug fixes and quality of life improvements

General

• Dimensions
• Optimization
• The Face Edit Tool
• Displacement Surfaces (Terrain)
• Prop Types Overview
• 2D Skyboxes
• Grouping and VisGrouping
• Entity Hierarchy (parenting)
• Filter Applications
• List of entities
• Creating and Using Prefabs
• Instances
• Adding Water
• Trigger Events Between Levels

Lighting

• Lighting
• HDR Lighting Basics
• Intermediate Lighting
• Advanced Lighting

Connecting Areas

• Doors
• Working Ladders
• Elevators
• Teleporters
• Curved Hallways
• Angled Geometry

Detailing

• Environmental Lighting, Sun, Weather, & Outdoors
• Displacement Grass
• Glass & Windows
• Cables and Ropes
• Sound and Music
• Complex Brush Creation

Special Effects

• Physics
• Physics Entity Overview
• Trains
• Beams and Lasers
• Explosions
• Dust, Fog, & Smoke
• Color correction
• Sprites
• Lists of Special Effects

NPCs and AI

• Introduction to AI
• Nodegraph construction

Finishing Up

• 3D Skyboxes
• Cubemaps
• Optimization
• Expert compile mode
• Bspzip (Embedding Custom Content)
• Pre-publication evaluation
• Fixing lighting on a static prop
• Level Transitions

Other Engines

GoldSrc Level Design

Source 2 Level Design

Specific Games

Alien Swarm

Black Mesa

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike: Source

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

Day of Defeat: Source

Garry's Mod

Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2 Episodes

Half-Life 2 Deathmatch

Half-Life: Source

Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

INFRA

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead 2

Portal

Portal 2

SiN Episodes: Emergence

Team Fortress 2

The Ship

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Other Source Mods

Design Theory

• Single-Player Mapping Tips
• Bounce (level design)
• Loops (level design)
• Push Gameplay
• Map Compiling Theory
• How to Develop a Map That Works
• Adding More Detail to a map
• Color Theory in Level Design
• Decompiling Maps
• Creating High-Quality Maps in Source

Troubleshooting

Source SDK/Hammer Troubleshooting

• Troubleshooting Level Design
• Level Design FAQ
• Compile Errors
• Source SDK FAQ

In-game/Engine Troubleshooting

• Engine Hunk Overflow
• Using the Showbudget Panel

External links

• Level Design Video Tutorials - A list of video tutorials related to Source mapping.
• Mapping Sites - sites about mapping, including tutorials, articles
• General Sites - Sites covering a wide variety of topics including mapping
• Map Archive Sites - sites where you can download maps for Valve's games
• File Hosting Sites - A list of reliable websites for hosting user created maps
• Image Hosting Sites - A list of reliable websites to share screenshots of user created maps
• News Site List - A list of websites for hype/advertisement and discussion