TileGen v. Hammer - The Dilemma

This is not going to be some tirade about how TileGen is better than Hammer or vice versa. I simply don't understand how you have to use one without the other. Personally, I use TileGen to build my maps, and then go into Hammer to edit them asthetically, and add pickups for ammo and medkits. The occasional asw_queen spawner is nice too.

So please, tell me AS mapping public, what do you think?

[ZPKWAN]

I believe hammer is best for people who have the time to actually work on their maps. Hammer allows for more creativity and uniqueness at the cost of time.

Just what i think.

[Ayanami Fan]

I like the TilGen cause I can open it in hammer and see how things work.

Once I get better with it, I plan on checking out the random level builder thing I heard about somewhere.

[Cauldron King]

They are meant to co-exist in beautiful randomly generated bug dungeon hell

I think tilegen is utterly useless. It might be helpful for some people to create fast maps, but they'll be generic, two dimensional flat maps that everybody else will be making. 100% hammer maps need more ingenuity and offer a much more polished product. Tilegen just doesn't offer the kind of vertical sense you can get from using only hammer.

[Beezy]

Originally Posted by Doomwaffle

I think tilegen is utterly useless. It might be helpful for some people to create fast maps, but they'll be generic, two dimensional flat maps that everybody else will be making. 100% hammer maps need more ingenuity and offer a much more polished product. Tilegen just doesn't offer the kind of vertical sense you can get from using only hammer.

I fully agree with this.

butomgzurtehelitistnubamirite

I have to admit though, letting tilegen create a completely random map and playing it with friends...

Is fun.

But yeah, quality, original maps will not come from tilegen alone.

It's not a matter of one versus the other, you use both together. Saying tilegen is for "lazy" or "noob" mappers while hammer is for "real" mappers is stupid. Should mappers not use modelling programs either? What about photoshop for textures? Is that out too? Sketchup for photomatching? The hammer elitism running rampant in this forum makes absolutely no sense.

No one should be using tilegen by itself, but ignoring it completely is foolish.

Tilegen is just another tool in our belts, it doesn't replace hammer and hammer doesn't replace it. It's here to fill particular roles just like every other tool we have.

For example..

Lot's of mappers create good looking maps that play terribly, because they don't take the time to create a fully playable rough draft before they move onto the details. With tilegen you can quickly throw down a level plan and playtest it. Once gameplay is solid, export to hammer!


Alien Swarm itself is a game that is conducive to modular map design, as are RPGs or sidescrollers or hybrid whateverers. Source has never been the engine for these as you can't map that way with hammer alone. But now you can create your map assets from scratch in hammer, but pack them up as modular tiles to put together in an overall map with tilegen. This is a huge help to many different kinds of projects, even if not that big of a deal for Alien Swarm itself.


And then there's the whole mission rule aspect. Tilegen can randomly generate and compile an entire map based off rule parameters you define, AT RUN TIME. While Alien Swarm itself doesn't capitalize on this, many projects could. RPG's with random dungeons are one thing that used to be foreign to the Source engine, but are now easy.

Am I missing something? Tilegen seems extremely basic.. is there more to it?

[Beezy]

Originally Posted by Shawk123

Am I missing something? Tilegen seems extremely basic.. is there more to it?

Right now it's basic.

It's up to the community to bring "originality" to it.

[Beezy]

Originally Posted by Nullvector

Should mappers not use modelling programs either? What about photoshop for textures? Is that out too? Sketchup for photomatching? The hammer elitism running rampant in this forum makes absolutely no sense.

How do you compare creating your own textures and models to piecing someone else's creations together?

Originally Posted by Beezy

How do you compare creating your own textures and models to piecing someone else's creations together?

Where did I ever say people should piece together other peoples creations? The actual useful aspects tilegen brings to us mappers have nothing to do with that.

I find it amusing that you keep going off about using other peoples work and originality, when both your L4D releases are just imported Portal and CSS maps... Not that those were bad projects, but I'm just sayin...

[Beezy]

Originally Posted by Nullvector

Where did I ever say people should piece together other peoples creations? The actual useful aspects tilegen brings to us mappers have nothing to do with that.

Maybe if you make your own themes, or use the dev theme for basic layout and export to Hammer.

But using a theme created by someone else would be piecing together other peoples' creations.

Originally Posted by Beezy

Maybe if you make your own themes, or use the dev theme for basic layout and export to Hammer.

Isn't that exactly what I talked about in my post? I don't think anyone in this thread has even mentioned using community themes.

[Beezy]

Originally Posted by Nullvector

Isn't that exactly what I talked about in my post? I don't think anyone in this thread has even mentioned using community themes.

I just dont understand why you would spend the time creating each section with appropriate scaling, saving as it's own vmf, and then opening tilegen to piece it together.

When you could just layout the map in Hammer. It seems like a waste of time. Especially if you add in missions and etc.

[arienh4]

Originally Posted by Beezy

I just dont understand why you would spend the time creating each section with appropriate scaling, saving as it's own vmf, and then opening tilegen to piece it together.

When you could just layout the map in Hammer. It seems like a waste of time. Especially if you add in missions and etc.

Then why would anyone ever use C++ to program. Aren't you just piecing together someone else's creations to create something new?