The Hitchhiker's Guide to Dodgeball Map Making

[Nightmare]

Preface

Most of the you here in the DB community have heard and known that I am leaving the game, potentially for good.  Nevertheless, I intend to make this guide to provide a basis for new DB map makers to spring forward, show the community their stuff, and continue the game mode forward by providing new and interesting content.  Note that this guide will provide very basic instructions on making simple maps and making them work.  Learning better design for a map should be learned ultimately be learned on your own time.  Anyway, lets get started!

Tools Needed

Team Fortress 2
Valve Hammer Editor - included with TF2 (steamapps/common/team fortress 2/bin)
Voogru Dodgeball FGD - Here.

Tools that are Optional

VTFEdit - Here. - For making custom textures if you need them.
GCFScape - Here. - For Decompiling maps with custom textures.
BSPSource - Here. - For decompiling maps to use in Hammer.
Pakrat - Here. - For packing in Custom Textures.

Make sure you have Java installed on your system to use BSPSource and Pakrat.

Step 1 - Visualizing Your Map and Preparing Hammer

A tip that Skibur first told me when I started out was to design your map first out on paper.  It entirely helped me out with how to apply it inside Hammer believe it or not.  Writing down your overall ideas for how the map will play will help out as well.  I do advise that what may be fun for you may not be fun for a majority, so ask around with fellow regular Dodgeball players for feedback.  Some of them may be assholes, but a few will give honest feedback.  Keep in mind the game mode you're going to develop for, as is the case with any map you should make even non-Dodgeball.

My tips for Speed Dodgeball:

 - Make the map have huge skybox space, as it will give the rockets/nukes more room to breathe.
 - Make the overall atmosphere of your map dark, as it will give better sight for the players to see the rockets/nukes.

I will mention more tips as I go along with this.

Now, lets prepare Hammer for Dodgeball compatibility.

I recommend placing a shortcut to Hammer on your desktop or somewhere else convenient for you, as you will be accessing it a lot in the future.  Open Hammer and select your configuration for Team Fortress 2. go to your options and add the tfadmin.fgd that we downloaded earlier.

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3

Now we'll be fully prepared to start a Dodgeball Map!

Step 2 - Roughly Designing Your Map in Hammer

For this example, I'll keep it as simple as possible, just a floating Orange-style Platform.  To do this, choose the block tool from the side bar and drag your mouse for how big you want that block to be.  For this example, I'm drawing the block to be about Red Court sized. On the right side, you can browse for different textures, look through them and explore them for options.  If you can't find a default texture to use or if its not good enough, try finding custom textures elsewhere or make your own (will be explained later on).  I typed in "dev" for the filter and scrolled through to find the Orange texture.  Once you're satisfied with the size, shape, and texture for the map, Press enter and your block will be drawn.  Next, click on the arrow for the Selection Tool to properly position the platform wherever you want with better precision.  I'm making the platform sit at 0, 0, 0.  This is the dead center of the world.

Sizing the Block
Applying the Texture and building the block
Arranging the Block

More later!

[111112oo]

Preface

Tools that are Optional

VTFEdit - Here. - For making custom textures if you need them.
GCFScape - Here. - For Decompiling maps with custom textures.
BSPSource - Here. - For decompiling maps to use in Hammer.
Pakrat - Here. - For packing in Custom Textures.

You don't need GCFScape for decompiling textures, BSPSource has that option built in. Also I'd reccomend VIDE instead of pakrat.

[X1acecombat]

I feel as if creating each block with nodraw and then going back and texturing each individual face is a good habit to get into early on.

[Calcium]

Also I'd reccomend VIDE instead of pakrat.

I personally use BspZipGui, but anything is better than pakrat TBH

I feel as if creating each block with nodraw and then going back and texturing each individual face is a good habit to get into early on.

Actually, you are better off using dev_measuregeneric01 on vertical brushes (walls, etc.) and dev_measuregeneric01b on horizontal brushes (floors, ceilings, roofs, etc.) and then texturing only after you have the map done as far as game play goes. I know a lot of people think that you are somehow optimizing your map by using nodraw on everything, but that is just an uneducated myth. For each individual brush model, only faces that touch a visleaf are compiled. The end result is something like this: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/images/0/0e/Optimize.jpg which means making sure that you have a nodraw texture in places where no texture is visible to the player is an exercise in futility since it will be removed all together due to the way that BSP works.

[Donbot]

Hey just figured I would share with everyone the updated version of the Dodgeball FGD, it seems as though the links to it are dead and I just happened to find it on my hard drive.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/32frvtw32lif2o3/dodgefgd.rar

[Electromaster]

I didn't think you actually asked Skibur for help