Basic Surf Mapping Tutorial [STARTING YOUR FIRST SURF MAP!]

[Juxtapo]

Since it seems like there's not many CS:GO mappers, but so many CS:GO players, I thought I'd make a really basic hammer tutorial, since the most daunting part about making a surf map is opening up Hammer and figuring out wtf everything means. I guide you step by step the process of making a very basic map, covering all of the essential knowledge you need to make an entire map. All it takes is inspiration and motivation. Also, please don't map if you're not enjoying it. If you're not enjoying the process of mapping/your own map, chances are it's not very good, and you're wasting your time.

Please watch this 4 minute video before starting this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thu7hocWd2s) It goes over some basics of hammer editor that is way easier to understand through video than a text guide.

Also -- If your browser is cutting off parts of the tutorial images, just look at them here - http://imgur.com/a/dJBAY

http://i.imgur.com/fWjW627.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/n9roCYF.jpg

Here is the tutorial for the damage filter. (http://source.gamebanana.com/tuts/8856) Alternatively you can download the .vmf's of this example map and copy and paste the trigger_multiple and filter_damage_type into your map.

http://i.imgur.com/AoHuFI1.jpg

http://www.mediafire.com/download/h8j8cgfblygy6ln/surf_tutorial.rar
There is the download to the .bsp and .vmf of both versions of the map.

[Krazy]

Very nice tutorial, it's informative and should help anyone who is interested in getting into mapping. What makes this tutorial even better is that it teaches optimization first, as it's a difficult part of mapping, and is one of the most important parts of it.

Also, you know you're a good surf mapper when even a quick example stage you make looks like a lot of fun.

[unt0uch4bl3]

So will I be able to make surf beginner if I follow this tutorial?

[evolv]

Awesome, this is what I like to see! I know how time consuming and tedious making tutorials like this can be.

[horsefeathers]

Great tutorial! Some things I have discovered while mapping: Its important to contrast parts of your ramps, like the spine, the bottom, the front and the end. Make the angled part a different texture than the rest of the ramp. Make sure the surfer can see the edges of the surfable part before they get to the ramp. For textures on walls and such, make sure your textures are scaled and shifted correctly, it should look like the textures fit into the space they are used in. The lightmap scale matters, if your lightmap scale is too small eventually, when you compile the map, the program that calculates lightmaps (called vrad) will crash and in-game the map will have no lights. This was a problem I had for a while because all of my lightmap scales were too low. There is a give and take here, if you want sharp shadows on a certain wall, then you might have to take away from somewhere else.