News | Forum | People | FAQ | Links | Search | Register | Log in
Busting Out The (Valve) Hammer?
I like Worldcraft 1.6a quite a bit, but the lack of quality rotation is a real time killer. I did some experiments creating a cube and copying it and rotating it 180 degrees and recording everything I had to do to make it a mirror image and it was too much work.

I've done some reading on aguirRe's site on all of the features his map compile tools support and basically I am wondering this ...

1. Does anyone know from A to Z everything it takes to setup Valve Hammer for doing a Quake map? I've tried but get very intimidated by the configuration screens.

2. Is there any major disadvantage in Valve Hammer that is a reason to not switch to it from Worldcraft?

3. Not quite related, but at Func_Msgboard some ppl talk about using Wally over TexMex. Is there any reason to do that, I've not heard that tool talked about here.

4. What texture manager is a good fit with the WAD3 format Hammer uses and how do you convert it.

5. Currently I use CZG's fgd for Worldcraft. Will that still work?

If I can get the answers to these questions, I'll aggregate all of this into a tutorial, post it here and anyone can do with it what they wish -- mirror it, modify it to make a better one, whatever -- I'd just like for this information to be available as it seems like it requires a great deal of learning/setup to get things started with mapping and maybe with the information more readily available that would change.
First | Previous | Next | Last
Ankh 
Those screens were very confusing to me compared to 1.6a. Thanks for that.

(Yeah, VisGroups are incredibly helpful. Helps focus on a specific part of the map.)

Well ... if the differences between Worldcraft 3.3 and Hammer (3.4 and beyond) are trivial I'll just setup a "guide" for Worldcraft 3.3 since it doesn't matter for Quake purposes. 
 
One feature of the Valve versions of Worldcraft I like, is the "ignore groups" function. When you turn it on you can fiddle about with the individual brushes that make up your groups. This enables you to keep large chunks of map nicely grouped together for tidyness, while still enabling you to go in and tweak without having to ungroup everything. 
"mapversion Is Not A Field" ???? 
I get "mapversion is not a field" when compiling and running a map using Worldcraft 3.3

Do those of you that use Hammer have to manually edit that out of the .map file before compile or any clues on how to avoid this annoying thing that appears to get added into the final bsp? 
You Can Safely 
ignore it. 
This Could Have 
been asked in the mapping thread.

Anyway, no worries. A map made in Worldcraft or Hammer whould contain nothing that would betray what editor you used. So, the EULA is mainly so other dev studios can't use Hammer for their games (correct me if I am wrong). It's smoother and much speedier than WC1.6(a or b). 
Wc 1.6 
has the ignore groups function too, press g.
I originally found this when I named vis groups and places like "flag room" made the editor go weird. :) 
Never Knew That! 
does it work with entities? I'd love to be able to delete brushes from entities without having to copy properties, move to world, edit, then make back into func and paste properties.

copy and paste entity properties is something else I noticed recently - another feature lacking in many other editors. Doesn't copy flags though :( 
Copy And Paste Entity Properties ??? 
"copy and paste entity properties"
What do you mean exactly? Is it possible to copy all properties from one entity to another in one step? How? 
Like This... 
Go into the entity properties dialogue and click the copy button :)

When you select another entity, you press paste, and the properties are copied across.

As I mentioned, it doesn't copy flags, just the basic properties. I haven't experimented with it enough to know whether it adds/deletes keys/values or overwrites entity types etc. but If I want to copy the properties of a func door that makes machine sound, is named door1, has speed 50, damage 5, lip 8... then that all works fine. This is in 1.6a 
Hammer 
Well I'm totally sold on using Hammer for Q1 maps! With Aguire's tools there's no problems. Super smooth 3d preview, along with those great texture alignment tools. I recommend it to everyone! 
Could Someone Mirror Wc 3.3 In Non-planetcrap 
The old password doesn't work anymore and I won't bother to workaround.

Even with the Worldcraft name, I still have to change my wads to some stupid HL format? What about the old brightness bug? 
Ok 
found this
http://www.dhlp.de/world.php3

and Vigil told me it doesn't load quake wads. 
 
The texture brightness in Hammer 3.4 seems absolutely fine to me! 
Bambuz .... Not Anymore - Quake Adapter For Worldcraft 3.3 
I created a companion package for Worldcraft 3.3 that installs aguirRe's compile tools, a couple of open source .map and a couple of WADs.

For lack of a better name that wasn't taken by something else, I called this the QuakeAdapter for Worldcraft 3.3.

Merely install Worldcraft 3.3 and then install the QuakeAdapter and every hassle of using Worldcraft 3.3 (same issues as Hammer) are eliminated.

Upon starting Worldcraft 3.3 - AFTER installing the adapter - all of your Quake WADs in c:\program files\worldcraft\textures will automatically be converted to the HLWAD format any time you start Worldcraft.

Additionally, the "Mapversion is not a field" error is eliminated (it gets stripped from the .map).

And ... it is pre-broken in. There is no setup involved to set the tools, it is done for you.

I spent a lot of time on it and tested it about 80 times.

To install Worldcraft 3.3:

http://www.quake-1.com/files/developer/worldcraft3.exe

Then install the QuakeAdapter for Worldcraft 3.3:

http://www.quake-1.com/files/developer/wc3adapter.exe

Upon installation, you are ready to go. The ONLY catch is that you must use c:\program files\worldcraft as your Worldcraft folder.

Does this affect Hammer?

It doesn't. Hammer uses not only a separate folder from Worldcraft 3.3, but separate registry entries as well. You can have Worldcraft 3.3 and Hammer on the same machine with no issues.

Does this affect Worldcraft 1.6a?

Unless you use c:\program files\worldcraft folder for Worldcraft 1.6a, the answer is no. Worldcraft 1.6's default install folder was c:\wc2 and it uses different registry entries than either Worldcraft 3.3 or Hammer.

Why Worldcraft 3.3 and not Hammer?

Mainly because Hammer isn't permitted to be used for Quake. Additionally, I don't see any features in Hammer 3.4 that matter to Quake that Worldcraft 3.3 doesn't have. Why go afoul of a license agreement, especially if you can use a version where Quake usage is permitted (but unsupported.).

The perfect rotation and OpenGL acceleration are both in Worldcraft 3.3 and those were the only things I didn't like about Worldcraft 1.6a.

---

Btw, if anyone who takes a look at the setup has any suggestions or comments, let me know. This was at first just an idea. I included 2 .map sources, one from Trinca and one from Zwiffle because the readme.txt files for those 2 maps were very liberal, I would have included more but I'd rather follow what the readme.txt says than make assumptions.

If you discover something that doesn't work, let me know. There shouldn't be anything because I did tons of tests on it and used it several times myself, but live usage > testing, in my experience. 
Thanks 
^^^

Enourmously helpful and saved a lot of time...

That QuakeAdaptor should be put somewhere prominent so that n00bs like me would find it easier :D 
Hehe Thanks 
I want to get more feedback first. Yeah, it's pretty sweet and should be solid as a rock.

But I want to see what others have to say, they may have changes or some other sort of feedback I didn't take into consideration. 
Sounds Great 
like sliced etc.

I'd been thinking about going through that process, but I'm a lazy, lazy man. I don't even properly vis my maps, so you can see my predicament. First thing i'ma do when I get home is set up WC3.3 on my comp with your programs...
Obviously can't provide real feedback, but the idea sounds fucking sick. 
Baker 
Does it include the fgd? 
Of Course 
It has even has skippy ;)

In fact, in the c:\program files\worldcraft\quaketools folder, it has several utilities. 
Works Fine But.. 
Error creating HLWAD: c:\program files\worldcraft\textures\dkte2.hlwad ... details ...

WadConv Texture Toolbox by Eric 'Riot' Lasota.
Syntax: wadconv [-wad2wal] [-wad2tga] [-wad2hl] filename
Loading palette... Done.
Converting wad textures...

Loading directory... Done. Loaded 969 entries.

Converting miptexes...
0: +0lavarock1
1: +1lavarock1
2: +2lavarock1
3: +3lavarock1....... blah blah blah

138: cycped1
************ ERROR ************
Texture too big, shrink it.

Everything else appears to work perfectly, Im guessing I got a texture too big in one of my texture wads to convert properly. 
The Textures Are Convert By Qonverge ... 
... which says in the readme "Don't use WADs with over 1024 textures. Don't use textures bigger than 512x512."

If someone knows of a utility that converts WAD2s to WAD3s that doesn't have this limitation, let me know and I'll change it.

I might write a workaround that extracts the textures from the WAD and checks each lmp's dimensions and removes them from the WAD, but that would be a lot of work.

If the texture dimension limit an inherent weakness of the WAD3 format or just of the Qonverge utility?

(I don't know of a WAD3 texture manager to check this out myself.) 
Align: World And Face 
From Hammer help:
"Align: World and Face
These checkboxes allow you to set the texture alignment style for the selected faces. World alignment causes textures to be aligned according to world coordinates (if you're familiar with versions of the editor before 3.3, this was the standard behavior). Face alignment uses the coordinates of the face as a basis for alignment."


I have made much mess using this feature. It changes the texture alignment in a way I don't understand quite right (maybe I'm dumb).
Could anyone explain how it works? 
I Think... 
You generally want to stick to world alignment. The only time I think you'd ever have to use face alignment is on a rotated crate or something of that nature. But I could be wrong as I haven't used the old Hammer in some time. 
Hammer 4.3 
Anyone ever have resource problems after applying a texture? I get a Windows message stating my system resources are low. Sure enough, Hammer is using 400MB of my 1GB. My pagefile is on a drive with at least 65GB free, the other 2 partitions have at least 6GB free.

Any idea what to do? 
Simple Solution 
Reduce the levels of undo from 50 to 10 and tell it not to show the warning. It should be fine after that.

same with all versions of worldcraft and hammer... 
First | Previous | Next | Last
You must be logged in to post in this thread.
Website copyright © 2002-2024 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors.