Half-Life 2 Mods FOR by Erik Guilfoyle 1 8 O 7 WILEY 2 O O 7 Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Contents at a Glance Introduction 7 Part 1: The ABCs of Modding 7 Chapter 1: Modifying the Game 9 Chapter 2: Getting Familiar with Modding Tools and Techniques 17 Chapter 3: Breaking Down the Game 23 Part 11: Making l/our Ou/n Maps. 29 Chapter 4: Getting Set Up for Mapping 31 Chapter 5: Creating Your First Game Map 59 Chapter 6: Decorating the Scene 73 Chapter 7: Adding Lights and a Player 81 Chapter 8: Putting the Pieces Together 91 Part HI: Expanding on l/our Creation 107 Chapter 9: Expanding Your Map with Additions 109 Chapter 10: Building with Optimization in Mind 127 Chapter 11: Heading to the Great Outdoors 153 Chapter 12: Adding a Few Details 185 PartlV: Going Beuond the Basics...219 Chapter 13: Creating Custom Textures 221 Chapter 14: Finishing Up Your Map 261 Chapter 15: Showing the World 273 Part V: The Part of Tens 295 Chapter 16: Ten Great Tips and Tricks 297 Chapter 17: Ten Great Mods to Learn From 307 Appendix: CD Installation Instructions 317 Index... 321
Table of Contents a a «o o a o o o a o <:; o o a?a tj o o» o o i> s o o o o >3 o o cs o o e SJ a G o o o o o o o Introduction / About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book Foolish Assumptions 2 3 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part I: The ABCs of Modding 4 Part II: Making Your Own Maps 4 Part III: Expanding on Your Creation 5 Part IV: Going Beyond the Basics 5 Part V: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 6 Part 1: The ABCs of Modding 7 Chapter 1: Modifying the Game 9 Checking Out Half-Life 2 11 Adding to or Changing the Game 12 Finding out what you can mod 12 Knowing what tools you need 13 The Modding Process Goes Something Like This 14 Sharing the Game with Others 15 Chapter 2: Getting Familiar with Modding Tools and Techniques...17 Gathering the Tools Involved Writing plain text 17 18 Drawing, painting, and taking pictures 18 "* Packing up your work 19 Using Best Modding Practices 20 Following standard naming conventions 20 Instructing the end user 20 ' Including all the files required 21 Avoiding the overwriting headache 21 Saving and saving again 21 Differences between Half-Life and Other Games 22 Chapter 3: Breaking Down the Game 23 Making Maps and Playing Levels 23 Making Your Own Maps 24 Building blocks of a map 25 Setting boundaries 25
Half-Life 2 Mods For Dummies Seeing in three dimensions 26 Measuring in units 27 Toying with Textures 27 Painting the walls 27 Building interest 27 Evoking Entities 28 Part 11: Making l/our Own Maps 29 Chapter 4: Getting Set Up for Mapping 31 Installing the Hammer Editor 31 Launching for the First Time 34 Dealing with configuration errors 37 Manually configuring Hammer Editor 39 Exploring the Interface 46 Looking in 2D and 3D 47 Pressing buttons and working menus 49 Reading messages 54 Using Shortcuts for Success 56 Troubleshooting Issues 57 Chapter 5: Creating Your First Game Map 59 Selecting a Texture 59 Deciding on a base texture 60 Filtering textures 60 Drawing the First Brush 63 Maneuvering in the Viewports 65 Zooming and moving the view 65 Counting in the power of two 66 Resizing and Moving Brushes 67 Taking Cues 68 A Hollowing Out the Room 69 Breaking Things Apart 71 Leaking Is Not an Option 71 Saving Your Map 72 ' Chapter 6: Decorating the Scene 73 Selecting Faces on the Wall Exploring the Face Edit Sheet Window 73 74 Putting on Some Paint: Applying Textures 76 Adding texture to a wall 77 Adding texture to the floor 78 Adding texture to the ceiling 79
Table of Contents Chapter 7: Adding Lights and a Player 81 Lighting the Way 81 Positioning the entity Adding a bit of color 83 84 Adding a Place to Start Positioning and Providing Some Direction 86 87 Adjusting the rotation from the Object Properties window 88 Adjusting the rotation from within the 2D viewport 89 Chapter'8: Putting the Pieces Together 91 Leveling the Playing Field Building the BSP 91 92 Seeing what can be seen 92 Lighting the scene 94 Playing with the results 94 Processing the Pieces 94 Listening to the console Spotting an error 98 103 Playing the Result 105 Part HI: Expanding on l/our Creation... 107 Chapter 9: Expanding Your Map with Additions 109 Making Copies 109 Joining Rooms Ill Drawing your halls Making room to play 112 114 Cutting in some doors 119 Retexturing the Hallway Walls Lighting the Path 123 124 Running in the Halls 125 Chapter 10: Building with Optimization in Mind 127 Seeing What the Game Can See 128 Accessing your commands 128 Outlining your world 130 Mitering for Mappers 133 Fixing those corners 134 Combining multiple brushes 138 Automatic optimization 139 Creating portals 142 Can You See Me? 151
Half-Life 2 Mods For Dummies Chapter 11: Heading to the Great Outdoors 153 Building an Outdoor Addition 153 Multiplying the ground 155 Filling in the useless corner 157 Defining your boundaries 158 Making a Scene 159 Throwing dirt on the ground 159 Fitting the outer building 160 Climbing the roof Walling in the yard and adding sky 161 162 Mitering the Outer Walls 163 Getting Outside 164 Clipping out some doors, 164 Touching up the textures 167 Fixing a Bottleneck 172 Sliding Open the Door 173 Making that door move 174 Sealing your area Lighting from Above 176 179 Adding virtual sunlight 179 Adding a virtual sun 181 Testing Your Progress 183 Chapter 12: Adding a Few Details 185 Doing Some Decorating 185 Pulling a ledge Lighting the porch 186 189 Defining the indoor lights 195 Pairing the Doors 200 Adding Some Crates 203 Placing crates for strategy Making crates for other environments 206 208 Picking Up on Pickups A Adding armor 211 211 Restoring health 212 Finding weapons 214 Grabbing ammo Testing and Having Fun 215 217 Part IV: Going Beuondthe Basics 219 Chapter 13: Creating Custom Textures 221 Slicing Up the Texture 222 Installing Some Tools 222 Bricking Up the Joint 224
Table of Contents }C(/H Finding the Right Size 225 Tiling on Forever 228 Shifting the image to expose the seam 228 Stamping out your seams 231 Shifting back to ground zero 234 Mapping Your Images 235 Splashing on some color: The diffuse map 236 Picking out the highlights: The specular map 238 Bumping polygons in and out: The normal map 243 "* - 'Creating a normal map without the filter 249 Building the VTF 250 Making Everything Work Together 253 Building a material 253 Applying your material 257 Chapter 14: Finishing Up Your Map 261 Multiple Spawns for Multiplayer Games 261 Reflecting on Your Surroundings 265 Dropping in cubemaps 265 Generating reflections 271 Chapter 15: Showing the World 273 Packing Up for Release 273 Explaining yourself 273 The origins of README 274 Picturing your level 277 Packaging additions to the game 279 Zipping It Up 291 Distributing the Goods 293 Part V: The Part of Tens 295 A Chapter 16: Ten Great Tips and Tricks 297 Coming Up with Original Ideas 297 Planning Your Build 298 Designing Minimally 298 Following Examples 299 Using Prefabs 301 Meshing Objects 301 Putting on a New Skin 303 Measuring the Player 303 Finding More to Mod 304 Listening in 304 Modeling and animating 304 Looking for Help 305
Half-Life 2 Mods For Dummies Chapter 17: Ten Great Mods to Learn From 307 Crossfire 2 b3 Urbanes Deathmatch 2 307 308 Dystopia 309 High-Resolution Skins 309 Razor's Weapon Sound Package Source Racer 310 311 BlockStorm 312 StriderMod Garry's Mod 313 314 Portal Challenge 315 Appendix: CD Insta ttation Instructions 317 Index 321