Adding custom content part 1

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A map typically consists of the brushwork and entities. However , there are other things which can be included in your map. This tutorial will show you how to properly add your own custom content in your map.

This is how your cstrike directory places files:

• cstrike
• Maps
• Gfx
• env
• detail
• Overviews
• Models
• Sounds
• Sprites

In your maps folder, the bsp file and a txt file containing information about the map is placed, additional files like the nav file, res file and the detail texture file can also be placed.

Your env folder in your gfx folder contains all the skyboxes. Place a custom skybox here and enter its name in map properties>environment name in vhe to use your custom skybox. By default, a detail folder will not be present in a fresh copy of cs. This folder is used to place all the detail textures you will use in your map. If this folder is not present, make one.

Your overviews folder contain the bmp file which is shown as a overview in the game radar. It contains the bmp file and a accompanying txt file which has all the co-ordinates of the bmp file.

The models folder contain all the models you are going to use in your map.

The sounds folder contains all the sounds you are going to use in your mpa and also two text files which can be modified.

The sprites folder contain the sprites you can use in your map.

Oh and the wad file is placed in your cstrike folder

One bad habit people have while maping maps is that they pollute other peoples's directory by placing models, sounds, sprites,etc directly in the directory.

So if I want to make a standards compatible map called foo.bsp which uses all sorts of custom content, I will name all the directories as shown below:

• cstrike
• foo.wad
• Maps
• foo.bsp
• foo.txt
• foo.nav
• foo_detail.txt
• foo.res
• Gfx
• env
• fooskyft.tga
• fooskybk.tga
• fooskylf.tga
• fooskyrt.tga
• fooskydn.tga
• fooskyup.tga
• detail
• detail1.tga
• detail2.tga
• Overviews
• foo.bmp
• foo.txt
• Models
• fooish1.mdl
• fooish2.mdl
• Sounds
• fooish1.wav
• fooish2.wav
• Sprites
• fooish1.spr
• fooish2.spr

If I want to use the fooish1.wav sound file, I will have to place an ambient generic entity go to sound/fooish1.wav in the pathname. This will confuse mappers as they will not know whether the fooish1.wav file was provided on a fresh copy of cs 1.6 . So we add relevant folders to place our files.

But it is not standards complaint so

• cstrike
• foo.wad
• Maps
• foo.bsp
• foo.txt
• foo.nav
• foo_detail.txt
• foo.res
• Gfx
• env
• fooskyft.tga
• fooskybk.tga
• fooskylf.tga
• fooskyrt.tga
• fooskydn.tga
• fooskyup.tga
• detail
• foo
• detail1.tga
• detail2.tga
• Overviews
• foo.bmp
• foo.txt
• Models
• foo
• fooish1.mdl
• fooish2.mdl
• Sounds
• foo
• fooish1.wav
• fooish2.wav
• Sprites
• foo
• fooish1.spr
• fooish2.spr

As you can see, we only need to create foo folder in detail, models, sounds, sprites folder. We can name our folders anything but is is better if we give a common name and also give them the name of of our map as seen in the example; all the folders containing our content are named foo. 

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Adding your own custom textures

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This tutorial will teach you how to add your textures to your map.

First, know that textures are simple .bmp or .jpeg images packaged in a .wad file. You can download wad files from gamebanana.  Don't forget to give credit to the author of the wad file. Place your wad file in the cstrike folder. Now open up hammer editor and go to tools>options>textures tab and click on the 'add WAD' button. It will look like this:

After adding your wad, open up texture browser. There the new textures will be present. Just compile your map now and play your map. Keep in mind that when you distribute your map, you also have to give the wad files as well or else the game will crash.

Wadinclude
Now that you have successfully added custom textures, it is time you learn about the -wadinclude command. This is a command line parameter you enter in the advanced compile menu just before compiling your map.

What this command does is; it embeds the .wad files in your .bsp file so you don't need to add a res file and another good thing is that it only adds the textures which are used in your map; eg: if you are using a wad file which is 5mbs but you only used 4 or 5 textures, the rest of the textures carry unnecessary weight to your map


First, open the advanced compile menu. If you don't know what it is, go here. Now click on csg_exe and type  -wadinclude in the parameters tab. It should look like this:

You can also add multiple wads. Just leave a space and enter the wadinclude command again. Like this:
-wadinclude sheikh.wad -wadinclude gg.wad
After that, there is no need to place the wad file in the cstrike folder after your map has been released as the game will automatically get textures from the .bsp file itself.

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I will add a tutorial on how to make your own custom textures shortly.

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