Viewport reference picture

Is there ANY way to make a reference picture appear in any of the 2D
viewports in hammer? For example, if I make a map based on a blueprint,
is there any way to put it in the background of the Top (x/y) viewport
so that I clearly can see how well I'm following it?

I'm following this blueprint:



And this is what I've created:



Is there any way to put the blueprint picture as a reference in the hammer viewport? Something like this:



When 3D modelling a reference picture is often used like this. It would
be easier to follow the blueprint if this could be done in hammer.

Thanks in advance.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

God, if someone could make an overlay, like they used to use in the school science classes, someone would solve many a woe.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Unfortunately no, hammer doesn't have this ability. It's something you might expect to see in this sort of program, but no luck. To be honest, I don't know if it would be all that useful anyway, given that the source engine doesn't really work with real world scale units, and - if working in smart unit intervals (ie. multiples of 16, or 4, or whatever is suitable for the object in question) - you'd probably quickly get quite far from the reference blueprint anyway. Modelling packages are suited to modelling directly from good reference pics as it's less important (generally) to stick rigidly to units and grids, but I'm not convinced mapping would work quite so readily.

Your best bet is probably to rough out the layout in hammer using the blueprint as a rough guide, but be more careful to use reasonable scale to things than being fully accurate to the source.

If you are really set on working from the source blueprints, one potential route could be to make a pretty giant texture out of the blueprint, get it into hammer, and put it onto a base "plane" (a big brush covering the area the blueprint covers). Scale it up so it is the right sort of size (being sure to maintain a 1:1 relationship in the X/Y axis) and you could then build your walls and stuff and check things are in roughly the right place by looking in the 3D window.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Thanks for your answer. :smile:

I didn't think about that 3D view trick with the giant texture on a brush.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

1 pixel in photoshop/paintbrush etc = 1 unit in hammer(scaled to 1) = 1 inch.

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i eat paint

I can just imagine it. Someone makes it possible to import overlays for Hammer. They would replace the box. Even stupid people could whip out a map in a few hours. :heee:

No more would we be able to judge brain cells by the amount of total solids contained within a map.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I posted this question over at interlopers as well (
http://interlopers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8350 ) and got another
interesting suggestion:

<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">? quoting <span class="mainmenu"><b>zombie@computer</span></b></div><div class="quotetext"> <span class="mainmenu">theres another way to hack your way in this thing

simply create a huge model (the size of your blueprint) with the
blueprint as texture on top. Textures of models are visible in teh 2d
windows

</span></div></div>

Thought I'd post it here in case it might help someone else sometimes. :smile:

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!