BSP Editing?

I've had a bit of a look around, and can't find how to do it. It's probably really easy, and I've just missed something.

How do you open HL2 bsps in Hammer?

I want to look at a certain map to see how something is done...any ideas?

I think this works

---

Boo f**king Hoo

officially it's impossible.
There are buggy decompilers, though (see Natus' post).

Alternatively you can open the bsp with an editor and look for entity settings. "developer 3" in console can show you how triggers work in game.
Maybe we can help you with the "something" also!

Even if it's a little buggy, Vmex should be good enough to figure out entitywork. HL2 decompiling is better than HL1 decompiling in general because the HL2 BSP format keeps all the brush information when compiling.

the HL2 BSP format keeps all the brush information when compiling.

:eek: - always learning new things!

This is an interesting read if you want to find out more info about the Source engine's BSP format reaper :smile:

---

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

I never understood why Valve chose to store that additional info in the HL2 .bsp format. I mean, those files already easily get huge... at least they could've provided a 'compress' compile parameter... :S Granted, it would've taken programmer hours and such, but on the other hand, it also would've lowered the bandwidth usage on their release days somewhat...

Oh well. :smile:

---

Create-ivity - a game development blog

The Source SDK from Valve already has numerous maps that serve as examples for entity usage. Why is it necessary to decompile other maps?

I don't know, but I never liked people decompiling things. It just feels devious and immoral to me.

It's perfectly possible to learn mapping without ever resorting to decompile one single map. Most of us have never done it.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Well, for people just starting out to edit maps, the best people to learn from is Valve themselves surely? If people decompile other peoples maps to cut and past pieces..thats just wrong.

However i don't feel that everyone should be tarnished with the same brush of being "devious" or "immoral". I have never done it, and never will. I don't see the point - if i can't make something that good - i can't. End of Dit.

And it is possible to learn somethings without decompiling i agree - however - wanting to learn indepth about AI_relationships and the like isn't a subject many people online will write tutorials about - simply because to do the basic is too easy, and to do things that Valve have managed requires more thinking - and some brilliance - So personally, to get that desired effect, i would prefere to study the HL2 maps, and see how they have managed to do that, and then take it a step further - if possible.

Unless, of course - someone who has never "decompiled one single map" wishes to write indepth tutorials on every prop, entity, brush etc in Hammer - decompilers will always be used - so the brilliance of HL2 can be shared, and perhaps, taken a step beyond.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh - but that last comment pi**ed me right off.

I don't see anything wrong with decompiling Valve maps if it's solely to learn about difficult entity works.

I think what satchmo meant was more that it's not nice to sniff around in other people's maps, copy compilcated innovative things the original author probably spent months to figure out and then claim you have made it all yourself. Especially with user-made maps.

I wouldn't feel bad for decompiling a standard Valve map (which I never did, I must say) to figure out something. For maps made by other users I think it's a question of politeness to ask the author and mention him in the readmes. Which mostly makes decompiling the map unncessary in the first place.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Decompiling_Maps

Pretty much sums up both sides of the argument. Satch's comment means
that you can learn how to map without looking at standard maps, but if
you want to find out the specifics of how an entity works, or how a
scripted sequence worked then Decompiling can be okay. But you should
try contacting the original designer first to see if you can get soem
real feed back on how he did something (even more of an explanation
than you coudl rpobably get by looking at a decompiled map.

---

Posting And You