Valve Hammer Editor, formerly known as Worldcraft and now commonly called Hammer, is Valve Software's map creation program for their first-person shooter computer game Half-Life and for all of its mods, sequels, and expansions, as well as all games using the Source engine. Old versions of Worldcraft also supported Quake and Quake II. There are currently two versions- version 3.5, a beta version (no longer available to the public), which supports only Half-Life and its mods, but can be run without Steam. The current version, version 4.1, supports Half-Life 2 for the Source engine as well as Half-Life, but requires Steam to be operating. It is accessed via a download of the Source SDK. Download high resolution version (1280x1024, 175 KB)Screenshot of the Valve Hammmer Editor. ... Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. ... Valve Corporation is an American video game developer based in Bellevue, Washington, USA, made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ... A software release is the distribution, whether public or private, of an initial or new and upgraded version of a computer software product. ... An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Look up genre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Sandbox Editor for Crysis UnrealEd is the level editor for Epics Unreal series of first-person shooters. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Proprietary software is software with restrictions on using, copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietor. ... Valve Software is a Bellevue, Washington-based video game developer made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ... Level design or game mapping is the creation of levels—locales, stages, or missions—for a video game (such as a console game or computer game). ... Doom is considered a landmark in the first-person shooter genre. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... An expansion pack is an addition to an existing game. ... Source engine logo A Half-Life 2: Episode One scene running on the Source engine, demonstrating High Dynamic Range, Rim lighting, Phong shading, facial expressions, realtime cameras and VGUI. In-engine Team Fortress 2 character line-up, demonstrating a cartoon-oriented set of basic shaders, depth of field, facial animation... Zombies attacking the player at the starting of Episode 1, Mission 3: The Necropolis. ... Quake II, released on December 6, 1997, is a first person shooter computer game developed by id Software and distributed by Activision. ... Steam is a content delivery, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service and platform developed by Valve Corporation for digital entertainment. ... Half-Life 2 (HL2) is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game that is the sequel to Half-Life. ... Source engine logo A Half-Life 2: Episode One scene running on the Source engine, demonstrating High Dynamic Range, Rim lighting, Phong shading, facial expressions, realtime cameras and VGUI. In-engine Team Fortress 2 character line-up, demonstrating a cartoon-oriented set of basic shaders, depth of field, facial animation... The Source SDK (or Source software development kit) is a collection of tools compiled by Valve Software that is used to create levels or full-on Half-Life 2 modifications (or mods). ...

Level design with Hammer

Prior to the release of the Source engine, the Editor used only brushes (blocks) called primitives sets of simpler primitives, they can be used in older games that are not based on the Source engine. However, some features of version 4.0, such as displacement maps, are not compatible with older games. Many level designers who work with both pre and post-Source engine games usually keep an install of 3.5 to avoid using unsupported features in a pre-Source engine game. Source engine logo A Half-Life 2: Episode One scene running on the Source engine, demonstrating High Dynamic Range, Rim lighting, Phong shading, facial expressions, realtime cameras and VGUI. In-engine Team Fortress 2 character line-up, demonstrating a cartoon-oriented set of basic shaders, depth of field, facial animation... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Displacement map. ...

Files and compiling

Valve Hammer Editor version 4.0 saves a level file in .vmf format by default. Before this, it saved a level file in the binary, proprietary .rmf or text-based, human-readable .map format. The .vmf format is a simple file that contains all the information about a level in a format vaguely similar to an XML file. It originated because of Half-Life's reliance on the Quake engine, and has remained as a result. Valve includes compiling tools with the Source SDK - vbsp, vvis, and vrad. The following list is largely true for both formats, but is intended as a reference for Source engine levels. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ... The Quake engine is the game engine that was written to power 1996s Quake, written by id Software. ... Valve Software is a Bellevue, Washington-based video game developer made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ... The Source SDK (or Source software development kit) is a collection of tools compiled by Valve Software that is used to create levels or full-on Half-Life 2 modifications (or mods). ... Source engine logo A Half-Life 2: Episode One scene running on the Source engine, demonstrating High Dynamic Range, Rim lighting, Phong shading, facial expressions, realtime cameras and VGUI. In-engine Team Fortress 2 character line-up, demonstrating a cartoon-oriented set of basic shaders, depth of field, facial animation...

• First, a level is passed through the bsp program. This program uses the brushes to create the architecture of the level. It also places all entities where they should go based on the level design. This program writes the initial .bsp (Binary space partitioning) file.
• Second, the level passes through the vis (Visible Information Set) processor, which determines what polygons are rendered and what lights appear where. Since Half-Life 2 uses portal based rendering to determine what is visible at any given time, this program creates the portals by dividing the map into convex regions with visibility data, like Quake-based engines do at a per-polygon level.
• Finally, the level passes through the rad program. This program computes the lighting of the map, including pseudo-radiosity for Source maps, resulting in more natural-looking lighting. If there is a leak in the level, only standard lighting will be computed - radiosity will not be simulated, resulting in faker/harsher lighting. If the mapper doesn't run the rad application, the level will appear as full-bright (without static shadows or lighting of any kind, with every texture being fully lit). It is possible to re-create this effect on all maps, even if the vrad program has been run or if there is not a leak on the map, by typing sv_cheats 1 at the console screen and mat_fullbright 1 after that. (These are Source-specific CVARs, and the whole procedure is considered cheating on multiplayer games.)

• With earlier versions of VHE (up to 3.5) and games for the GoldSource engine, there were four steps in the compilation. BSP is preceded by CSG (constructive solid geometry), which parses the brushes, places entities, and sets up the general framework of the level for the BSP pass which generally only performed space partitioning. In the Source engine and VHE 4.0, Hammer stores the files in a CSG format, rather than vertex based, and lets the BSP tool handle all the entity placement tasks, so the CSG process has effectively been merged into BSP.

Binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for recursively subdividing a space into convex sets by hyperplanes. ... Half-Life 2 (HL2) is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game that is the sequel to Half-Life. ... Zombies attacking the player at the starting of Episode 1, Mission 3: The Necropolis. ... An Internet leak occurs when a partys confidential intellectual property is released to the public on the Internet. ... Console may be: An organ term for the area of an organ including the keys, stops, and foot pedals manipulated by the organist. ... CVAR is an abbreviation for Console Variable. ... Cheating is defined as an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. ...

See also

• Source SDK

The Source SDK (or Source software development kit) is a collection of tools compiled by Valve Software that is used to create levels or full-on Half-Life 2 modifications (or mods). ...

External links

• VERC Collective, information on editing Valve games
• Valve Developer Community, a wiki dedicated to editing the Source engine
• AMMAHLS, alternatives to the compiling tools included with the Source SDK
• ValveMappers.com, forum dedicated to mapping for Valve games