Level Design

These are the standard Measurements, taken from cs_mansion which is practically older than CS

A dialogue about getting horror into your map

func_wall - how to make {blue transparrent

A guide for new mappers on adding detail to basic designs.

A more low-poly solution for triangle terrain

The tutorial demonstrates how to make a lift whose button (seemingly) moves along with it.

A quick and simple guide on how to make glass for your maps.

HALOS ON LIGHTS

This tutorial shows you how to set up the entities for an attack-defend map where the teams swap after each round.

Simple tut. for create teleportations

Common and rare error

This FAQ is designed to help you get WorldCraft setup

The Tools

What is HLDM?

Mapping Guide for HL using QEradiant

Covers locating and fixing many mapping mistakes.

Fixing Fullbright and Black Void Glitches - How to fix Leaks

This is used to make blocks fit and be different shapes, all you do is click on the object you want to shape and click on the 3d wireframe style icon on the left, now lots of dots appear on the object.

This article describes the process used for creating a door that can be locked and unlocked through the use of the func_button, trigger_relay, and multisource entities.

An issue constantly surrounded in questions is that of level changes. They remain a mystery to many designers, and for no real reason as their concept is rather simple.

This tutorial helps you understand how the engine renders your map and how to improve the performance

There are a number of textures that come with Half-Life that apply special properties.

Rain for Half-Life

Texture Application Tool What is it?Where is it?What's it do? Here a picture of it and it's location.

This tutorial covers how to make an elevator that can move between more than two floors.

Vertex Manipulation - Taming The Beast

A lives system in your maps makes it so that players can not respawn after they died.

In this tutorial KungFuSquirrel tells us how he created the electrical arc in his map ns_eclipse.

Making an active tank turret that can be destroyed with explosive weapons.

How to create Awesome Lamps/Lights

the two-stage pipe, as I like to call it, looks quite nice.

This tutorial shows you how to make a func_vehicle and use a model for a car!

I had a massive headache trying to get this working, and after two days of trying various methods, I finally figured it out.

A tutorial that explains how to set up a sky, as well as how to light outdoor areas.

General Level Building Tips and Suggestions

Making Light Beams

This tutorials shows how to create a simple rock wall by using different kinds of vertex manipulation

Part 1: Doors

Entities

This tutorial demonstrates how to make a moving cargo crate (a func_train) turn into a hollow crate containing a squad of grunts. When the crate is placed on the ground, doors at one end open revealing the grunts.

Put slippin' slidin' action into your levels. Or don't. In any case, it wouldn't hurt to know how this is done

This article goes over the sort of attitude you should adopt if you want to enjoy mapping and become good at it.

How to make a breakable wall

So you want an area to be visible but you dont want peeps getting there?

This small tutorial explains how to make an ammo pack for a TFC map.

The Opposing Force Opening Sequence

There are a few ways to make random looking cliffs;the three ways are listed here

this will instruct you how to make your own custom messages appear on the screen during the game

This is a Visual Guide of the different sky textures included in Half-Life and how to add them to your map.

version 3.3

Setting up VHLT for mapping

How to make a ladder

Configuring the Editor

Tutorial 11: Seamless Level Transitions

pipes done your way...

Get Learned! Step 6 - Sprinkles

How to create a mortar

An introduction to the env_global and how to use it to do cool inter-level stuff.

Tutorial 10: Func_tank - Making a Controllable Turret

Tutorial 6: 'I have seen the light!!'

This guide is going to show you how to setup hammer for making cs 1.6 maps

This tutorial will explain to you how to insert and use ambient_generic entites to put ambient sounds in your level.

Turn those demos into avi, gif, or other movie formats

See-through and Shoot-through Brush - the CLIP Brush

The clipping tool can be found on the left hand side of the screen, its the brown wood style block with a yellow cut out bit on.

The multisource entity is very useful in map-making.

Get rid of those boring

PilPax has sent this great tutorial our way that outlines just how to use the lights.rad file for texture lighting.

Make arches and curves the correct way

Create your own turret-mounted weapons. In this case, a rocket-launcher.

If you ever played DOOM, you probably saw that the sprites can sort of rotate, but not lean, or look like they're on the floor.

I will demonstrate one of the possible ways to create a Collapsing Walkway.

Rope, Water and Waterfalls

This is a simple tutorial on making rotating doors.

A beginners guide to mapping: Part 2

All too often, new mappers are told that mitering (or angling) the corners of brushes together will help to reduce r_speeds and is a general sign of good construction.

A map is typically composed of 2 things; brushes and entities. But there are other things which make a map. These include models, sprites, sounds, etc.

To show a sky map around parts or all of your
level

Making a 'hunted' map is no small undertaking. The hardest part of making a 'hunted' map is the design.

Arches 101

Terms and tips for more succesfull mapping.

Although VIS blockers are the most important way to keep your r_speeds under control, there are a variety of other tweaks and tricks you can do to lower your r_speeds within each area of your map.

This is a brief descriptive article on the process of setting up rotating entities.

Cheating provides the mapper with some useful tools to test and debug levels

How to make ladders

Between 2 floors

Lighting

You may make the greatest map in the world but if nobody plays it, its not much good to anybody? Find out what is required to make sure your map gets lots of downloads.

A tutorial for add toggled explosions!

Locks and keys are so boring so lets shoot the lock off!

I will now show how to use the vertex manipulation tool

Okay, considering that you've read Brian's basic doors tutorial, you should know how a door works.

A brief overview of the HL enemies to give mappers an idea of how they should be used.

TEXTURE SCALE ON LARGE OBJECTS, TEXTURE SCALE ON SMALL OBJECTS, TEXTURE ALIGNMENT, MITERED BRUSH JOINTS, BRUSH CONTACT

Many new mappers often come to forums just to ask how to create brushes, entities, or a whole first room. This tutorial is designed to answer those basic questions.

TWHL's great collection of Entity Guides

How to use the vertex editing button

Most DoD maps use CTF or Control The Flags as the primary mission objective.

Elevators, Moving Platforms and Trains - Moving Level Parts

General level design theory

How to modify one monster's health without coding, directly from within the map editor.

This tutorial shows how to use the origin texture

Believe it or not, you make ladders with the func_ladder entity

In this short tutorial, you will learn to create a simple room and light entity that will demonstrate a normal white light.

How to make a tip over pylon

The trigger_changetarget simply changes entities' targets and it is easily configured.

What I'm going to do is ram mapping etiquette into your skulls

How to copy-paste things (grass, trees etc.)

If your level doesn't compile because it has a leak, then you need to find the leak and delete. This tutorial helps define methods to find and eliminate leaks

This tutorial will show you how to display messages and play sounds fromwithin the TF entities

Lighting can be tricky sometimes, but there's usually a way out

glass is extremly easy to make when you know how

This article describes the process of creating a random event generator. Idea originally by mazemaster.

R_Speeds

Mountains, Hills, Lakes and Cliffs

Creating a dark environment.

Adding Models to action hl and other mods

Making and Using Clip Brushes

How to make realistic water

Create a rotating sign with a volumetric light effect.

Creating a streetlight with light cone

Learn how I do dynamic brushwork with minimal errors in VHE.

This tutorial file explains how you can easily add rain in your levels.

Create a working vending machine

Capture The Flag Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to make an old-school de_aztec bridge. (shoot through, but walk-over)

TEAM FORTRESS

When you don't have a map, the server will check for a .res file to see what it should send to the client

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR DEATHMATCH MAPPING
Part 2

Advanced Shadows

Build a simple teleporter

Creating a streetlight with light cone.

This tutorial will explain how to create a spiral staircase with the 'arch' tool, eliminating the need to use the vertex manipulation tool.

Part 3: building a better boulder

The basics of worldcraft. This tutorial is broken up in to sections based on what tool its showing how to use.

Archie explains in detail his process for producing the popular 'Evolution of a Map' videos he's created in promotion of SnC's mod The Core.

CTF map

You can create all sorts of buttons, activated by triggers, or simply by touching or using it.

Trigger things at roundstart

This tutorial will cover the basic of getting WorldCraft started. Like how to setup your 'game configuration', 'build programs', and 'textures'. We will also recommend what programs you should use, like what compile frontend and what compile tools (build programs).

Creating skyboxes around your map.

A very cool and advanced idea here. How to make a map be different between rounds.

Making look-through able water

Learn anything and everything about compiling, from the tools themselves, to parameters, and different methods to compile.

Compiling Terms You Should Know

A func_train is a brush-based entity that you can get to move around in some interesting ways.

Basicly, it is as it says, it is to include custom wads in the bsp file

Sewers are quite easy to put together and can be explained fairly quickly.

Basic scripted sequences/sentences tutorial

Enemy AI

so in this video ill show you guys how to make it correctly and place the landmark and the trigger

About Invalid Brushes

This is an advanced tutorial showing how you can combine buttons, beams and a multi_manager for some interesting effects!

Really basic tutorial on building a cube and compiling it.

This list shows tricks which can boost your mapping workflow.

Making rooms look better

This tutorial will explain how to use the env_rain entity for making rain in Counter-Strike like in de_aztec and de_slap

Compiling tips (note the text and bg are White ^^)

Once you have familiarised yourself with all the tools, then you can begin your map making.

Ladders, like glass, are brush based, but aren't as simple.

WorldCraft 3.3: func_plat

Brief tutorial on how to create proper curves

Customizing the lights.rad File

Make complex rocks without the errors!

Security Cameras

How to make ammo bags in TFC

Have you ever wondered how to make a rotating propel on an airplane or simply a fan in a ventilation system?

Let's start with the monster_generic entity. To tell you the truth, this entity is not very hard to use. However, I've only seen it being used in very advanced levels made by very proficient level designers.

Of the breakable kind

How to Jump Over a Building In 3 Easy Steps

This entsystem lets you have a 'pressure pad' which toggles a light ON and OFF

LCD Display (with custom values!)

Level transitions (using the trigger_changelevel) are an often misunderstood aspect of Half-Life editing.

This tutorial will explain to you how to reduce lag caused by r_speeds (polygon counts) in a Half-Life level.

Create a breakable, translucent glasshouse.

A great introduction to vertex manipulation, including how to not get into trouble with bad brushes.

This tutorial describes the process of making an elevator that can move between more than two floors.

A ladder in Half-Life is a combination of two things: the physical ladder which you see, and the invisible field which you can climb.

Learn howto use custom textures

Basic detail

Covers usage of the trigger_changetarget.

Everyone experiences them. Everyone hates them

How to make ladder

The main TF entity with which you should be familiar is INFO_TFGOAL

Half-Life Editing Tips

This small tutorial explains how to make an ammo pack for a TFC map. It's basically an excerpt from my Respawn room tutorial.

Frequently asked Questions and Tips

BSP to MAP | WinBSPC

This tutorial covers how to remove ammo and grenades from spawning players.

This tutorial covers how to make an elevator that can move between more than two floors.

Rotating Doors - the ORIGIN Brush

ZHLT and Vluzacn's Compile Tools guide. Light, shadow and brush control. Clip types. Mirror.

This tutorial demonstrates how to make a door with a handle that must be turned to open.

This shows the construction of a basic teleporter with sounds and sprites.

This tutorial will show you how to make a map like 'Canal Zone 2'

This tutorial shows in easy steps how to create a simple triggered elevator by using the func_door entity

I've always hated that problem when Jackhammer would export the RMF incorrectly. This mostly applies for porting to VHE, and maybe other things?

How to make great looking natural terrain by using gensurf

How to make professional-ish stairs...

Compiling using batch files.

list of gibs available in goldsrc

SCROLLING Textures

ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN

Creating a simple camera

This is a good method to have a reflective surface in Half-Life

Within this tutorial, I will show how to setup the entites needed to create a working camera system for use in TFC maps.

Getting started with worldcraft by Wills

TFC: Capture The Flag

So want to make a Lift that travels over multiple floors?

Adding Holes for Doors, Windows .... etc - Clipping Tool

This page explains how to make a ladder in a Counter-Strike map with Hammer.

How to make a curve

Furniture: Add some furniture prefabs to enhance realism.

Want to make your player feel uneasy on the feet?

This tutorial shows in easy steps how to make a single room

Describes the various uses for sprites, including halo effects and the steam trick. Also compares variousrendering modes.

This tutorial shows in easy steps how to make a basic camera system, with a camera and a monitor

How to make a beach

Adding and Loading Textures and Custom Textures

healing pool as encountered in xen with full effects

Buzzybots Mapping Tutorial

I have been asked to explain how to make a map which uses rounds.

This tutorial shows how to get any doors , how awkward they may be , to close and open at the same time as each other.

Vertex scaling

I was testing some other stuff and suprisingly I achieved an affect I didn't know was possible

Put a little night in your map.

Want to make arches in your map? Stuck on that pesky old vertex tool?

How to make a sphere in worldcraft using the 'cone slicing' method.

Making water

what to know when setting up a Half-Life Teamplay Map

It seems this is a big stumbling block many people encounter - how to connect two rooms with a hallway.

To make breakable glass, just make a block with a glass texture

This is a very basic tutorial about how to read a compile log

Gamedesign theory for HLDM

This tutorial shows you how to fit textures

A decal is like the spraypaint the players place. The difference is that we as mappers may set those when we create the map.

Detpackable Walls in Team Fortress Classic

Tutorial 5: Lifts, and more lifts...

Masked Textures can be highly useful in many aspects for making ladders, grates and so forth

Finding and fixing them

Style Guide #1, Lab 1

In the Half-Life: Uplink demo, at one point you see a group of grunts cut open a steel door

Map Making Basics - Part 3

Texturing Techniques

This tutorial will cover how to make a typical respawn/re-supply room.

How to curve,bend,arc almost everything

How to set up an Osprey and make it fly properly.

There are many ways to create arches in the goldsrc engine. But the method which saves the most polygons wins.

Pitch Yaw Roll Demystified

Making Your First Hostage Rescue Map With Hammer AKA Worldcraft by Guy Montag

Moving elevator doors. A complex look at path_corner interaction

Open the texture selection tool. Noticed the different options?

Learn how to use lights.rad to make your textures emit light.

Tutorial 8: Controllable trams: The Func_tracktrain entity

This Tutorial shows how to make basic water

This is going to be an introduction to adding lighting effects to your level.

How to make a mirror floor

Any experienced mapper will tell you that carving and hollowing are bad ideas.

Scripted Sequence's for Newbies part 1

The relic of a program

This tutorial explains how the X-Ray machine effect was accomplished in Half-Life: Opposing Force.

Create a button that needs to be welded before being used

Making realistic Trees

Comparing two keyvalues

If you are new to HL level designing and want to know how to make trigger, read this!

valve hammer multimanager

Please note that this workshop is designed for Sven coop mod or single player based theme maps

Welcome to the Valve Hammer Editor (hammer /wc) overview and tutorial.

Vertex manipulation - basics, tricks and common errors

Welcome to the Valve Hammer Editor (hammer /wc) overview and tutorial.

Adding and Changing Sky - 2D Skybox and Global Lighting

Worldcraft make it fairly easy to add decals to your map

Doors are moving brushes that can move into chosen direction

Using The Clip Tool

Goldsource Engine Manually Displacement Terrain Tutorial

A quick tutorial explaining how to create a slightly more advanced sprite-based flame effect, using a multimanager.

A brief description of the commands and uses of the advanced compiling screen in Hammer.

It's the nightmare scenario. You have been captured by the enemy, disarmed and left for dead in a cell.

This tutorial will teach you how to use Steam with Hammer

Levels with a bad framerates are the biggest problem for mappers.A level with a poor framerate often makes such a level unplayable.

This small tutorial explains how to override the default settings running on a game server.

What they are and how to control them

How to use some more advanced game entity behaviour to trigger things upon the death of a player.

Implementing multiple difficulty levels in a map with a vote in your map is easier than you think.

Backpacks are one of the most common things you'll be putting into a TFC map

Sam expands on the original 'one way glass' tutorial and shows us how to make it breakable! Woot!

The old-fashioned way

How to place & control horizontally flowing bubbles in a map.

Gamedesign theory for HLDM

Leaks and how to fix them

This article discusses what leaks are caused by and provides several methods of finding and fixing them

apply images to brushes with no seams

Curved Corners and Sloping Passages

A simple tutorial for the entity 'armoury_entity'

Basic tutorial on using the command line or console to run a map.

Hint brushes are somewhat hard to understand.

MaxNodeSize, NULL, etc.

Making water that looks good

Introduction to QERadiant

What a Sequential Control map actually is

Map-Making Basics - Part 2

This article discusses the use of angular velocity to create rotating func_trains.

Learn how to trigger events between levels using the logic_auto and env_global entities.

The multi_manager is a point-based entity used to time-activate other entities in your map.

how to make a button

This tutorial is designed to give you some general information on the sky properties in Half-Life.

Trigger_setorigin can be used to sync a waterfall that is flowing into a pool of water

How to make glass

A tutorial in using the Clipping tool

Between a rock and a hard place: using vertical stacking to achieve realistic effects and low r_speeds in rocks and cliffs.

Destroyable Cameras

Random Event Generator

Sky Tutorial: Skies/Environment maps in Half-Life

This tutorial gives you an overview of the official crate prefabs.

Most mappers know that the more they see from a certain angle ingame the more lag will appear. But plane is sometimes devided into smaller chunks which also causes lag.

Hey. This tutorial will show you how to make a teleport device, using sprites, beams and sounds.

Advanced Camera Tricks

How to make an Airstrike

This tutorial will teach you how to make a spiral staircase with Hammer

Adding a Spiral Staircase for effect

Ladders are a very essential part of any map, let alone cs maps.

This tutorial will show you how to make a set of perfect spiral stairs faster than the lifespan of a snark. We'll be using our friend, the arch tool, to build the stairs.

A trick using projective shadows in trinity render to produce a good looking shadows

Introduction to Triggers in Entities

back again guy with another video wil be making simple triger

Clipping Brushes

A trick that allows you to skew textures in Hammer instead of just rotating them

C-S Bots are stupid as hell, and that's exactly why I've written this tutorial.

Using the texture Application Tool

DoD Class Limits

Just a cheap trick to make cool looking dripping water. Simple, fast, and easy.

This tutorial shows how to create terrain environments by splitting your brushes into triangles and doing safe vertex manipulation.

How to create your map type

Some more on triggers and ideas on how to use them

Blur in Half-life? Is that possible? Yes!

Resetting Entitys At The Start Of Every Round

Pretty Effects with Spirit of Half-Life

Deathmatch can be found in many games so its important to understand the issues involved with this gamestyle. In this article I cover such issues as weapon placement and gameflow.

This one tells you how to build doors

Some common FAQ based on hammer

Using a multi_manager

Tutorial 9: The new Game_xxxx Entities

This article discusses how to create the effect of a door bending and bulging before it finally breaks open

DoD Object Objectives

There are a few basic rules on naming your map.

Water Trickle

About trains and how to use them

Lighting your level

The env_beam entity enables you to do many cool effects with sprites, such as make them not always face flat at the screen, scrolling sprites, and fading the end

This is a tutorial to make a func_pendulum. It is similar to a func_rotating and func_rotaing_door.

Find those annoying leaks the easy way!

Connectivity and flow

This tutorial shows in easy steps how to make a basic moving door

101 Mapping tips and tricks #1

QUAKE vs HALFLIFE MAPPING

I will now show you how to make a defusal map. This is one of the most simplest tutorials here.

Elaborate Elevators, Part #1

The multi_manager entity replaces the aging trigger_relay entity. The multi_manager can trigger up to 16 different entities at set time lengths

High R_SPEEDS got you down? Check out Mr Deth's tutorial on how to reduce them.

How to make out door sky areas for Half-life

This tutorial shows in easy steps how to make a glass
window

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make a train in cs.

This lists some brief explanations of the different rendering properties available to you in most of Half-Life's visible entities.

I have invented about nice trick like you don't need to worry about changing skyboxes.

this tutorial will assume you already have basic mapping skills and know what a Aiscripted_sequences entity is

Lighting

These dimensions apply to levels created with most editors, as long as the code for the player entities has not been modified.

This tutorial will show you how to create a map like rock2

Another Mazymatic short & sweet tutorial on making sliding doors.

The Rustmill Effect refers to the effect created in the Rustmill map

T- and X- junctions

An alternative way to find map leaks easily

This tutorial will lead you through the creation of an air strike table. What's an air strike table? you ask? It will allow you to target a specific point in your level and send an airstrike raining down on the targetted position.

Rotating door with glass pane

Hello and welcome to my guide for achieving mapping nirvana.

Getting scientist bums on seats, so to speak, is a common query among mappers new to Half-Life

Using Half-Life Skies in Worldcraf

This article outlines how to setup Worldcraft 2.x to allow you to make TFC maps.

ITEM BALANCE

Custom skies

This tutorial will explain to you how to create basic doors which can slide or rotate.

Explains how the Vertex Manipulation tool can be used to create advanced solids, and the various ways in which you can modify them using it.

The level change in this tutorial is only one way. Here is the basic setup. You walk into the elevator, push the button, the doors close and the level changes.

Well there are several techniques to make doors with passwords, but I think this is by far the easiest method.

Item/Weapon Placement

How to make those transparent things like fences, railings, etc. plus transparent brushes like windows!

In this guide I will show you how to build a small but still playable de_map (defuse map).

In this tutorial I will teach you about the most important SoHL-entities.

Seamless teleports are incredibly useful for connecting two maps that would otherwise overlap with each other

back with another video in this video i will show you how change target in hammer

Three Important things/rules

Video tutorial explaining how to use the Arch tool inside Hammer

What are they?

How to loop sounds