Tutorial: Port Ravenholm to Left 4 Dead!

SpikeX · December 4th, 2008, 07:28 AM

Since so many people have been bitching for me to release my Ravenholm Left 4 Dead map, and since I clearly can NOT do that due to obvious COPYRIGHT LAWS, I'm releasing this tutorial to show you how to do it.

WARNING: This tutorial is NOT for the faint of heart. You have got to know what you're doing. I'm not kidding. If you've never touched Hammer or used a console command before, hit BACK right now.

SpikeX's Tutorial to Port Ravenholm to Left 4 Dead

What you need:

Left 4 Dead (Steam) for PC
Half-Life 2 (Steam) for PC
GCFScape [Link]
VMex [Link]
- Requires Java Runtime Environment (free)
Source SDK installed and working (Hammer)
An extra 1.3 GB of hard drive space.
Intimate Hammer knowledge. Yes, intimate.

The Steps:

1. Open GCFScape, and open source materials.gcf inside your Steam folder.

2. Navigate to /root/hl2/materials/, right-click on materials, and hit Extract.

3. Select <STEAM>/steamapps/common/left 4 dead/left4dead/.

4. Hit Extract and wait. This can take 10-15mins.

5. Verify that everything worked correctly in your Left 4 dead folder. You don't want /materials/materials/ or anything like that.

6. In GCFScape again, open source models.gcf.

7. Navigate to /root/hl2/models/, right-click on models, and hit Extract.

8. Select <STEAM>/steamapps/common/left 4 dead/left4dead/.

9. Hit Extract and wait. This can take 10-15mins.

10. In GCFScape, open half-life 2 content.gcf

11. Navigate to /root/hl2/maps/.

12. Right-click the file d1_town_01.bsp and hit Extract.

13. Save it in a folder, anywhere. In this tutorial we'll call the folder /RavenholmMap/.

14. Close GCFScape.

15. Open vmex.jar. (You need the Java Runtime Environment for this)

16. Hit Browse, and select the file /RavenholmMap/d1_town_01.bsp

17. Don't change any of the options. Just hit Decompile.

18. The program should lag for a few seconds. Let it work.

19. Once it stops lagging (that means it's done), close VMex.

20. By the way, this is the hard part.

21. Go to Steam, and open the Source SDK.

22. Open Hammer, with these options:

You NEED "Episode One" and "Half-Life 2" checked, otherwise this more than likey WON'T work!

23. In Hammer, open up /RavenholmMap/d1_town_01_d.vtf that VMex should have created for you.

NOTE: If you see a black screen where your "Viewport" should be, CLICK IT and then press CTRL+SHIFT+E. This should re-enable your viewport.

24. Here is the really long and complicated process. What you need to do is go around the map and remove every "puzzle", essentially making the map an easy walkthrough. You should only delete things, you shouldn't really add too much.

Some things that I had to do in order for this to work properly:

Change all the info_useableladder to brush-based ladders. Use the texture tools/invisibleladder, and tie the ladder brush to func_ladder.
Anywhere the player needs to "solve a puzzle", you need to open that walkway. If there is any debris obstructing a walkway, you need to remove it. You also need to add some stairs/ramps in certain places in the map.
You need to remove ALL "puzzles". This includes car traps, their physics contraints, levers, buttons, things like that. Hollow out the map.
Remove ALL of the Triggers. When you open the map at first, you're going to see a LOT of triggers. Everywhere. Go nuts deleting them.
There are some random floating points textured NODRAW. You can delete these.
Delete any "Area Portals" you see, they don't work in Left 4 Dead.
Some doorways are too skinny for the bot pathing in Left 4 Dead. You need to widen them. Basically, you want the map to be brushes and a few effects (You can leave the electrical wires and special lighting in, if you like).
You need to remove all NPCs. Any zombies, Father Grigori (i know, it sucks), they all have to go. Any Scripted Sequences, too.

If you want to mass-delete entities instead of wandering around the map in Hammer, go to "Map > Entity Report..." There you can mass-delete as many entities as you want. I recommend removing all info_* as they don't work in Left 4 Dead (you'll get errors).

25. Once you're all done, you're going to want to add the Left 4 Dead entities. Attached to this post is a VMF file that you need to open in Hammer:

Attachment: test_house.zip, 16KB

Note: I don't know who made the "test house". I didn't make it, I take no credit for it, and I honestly don't remember where I downloaded it from.

You need to find the spawn room in the house (first floor, middle) and copy EVERY ENTITY in it over to Ravenholm. (If you open both maps at the same time in Hammer, you can copy and paste between both maps.)

I'm not sure what all you need from that room, but I'm definitely sure that you need:

The four players' spawns.
The Director entity.
The logic gates (blue icons)
The camera positions (should be floating above the player spawns, this is where the cinematic camera starts)
The fade in entity
The ammo and weapon entities.
The health pack entities.
The entity that tells the game what cinematic intro to use (I forget the name). The one that's included is the airport one.

If you aren't 100% positive what an entity is/does, DON'T DELETE IT!

26. Once you're all done with that, compile your map. Use the following compile options:

This is commonly referred to as a Normal/Fast/Fast compile. Choosing these options (vs just Normal) is the difference between a 1hr compile time and a 5-10min compile time. Plus "Fast" still looks nice in-game.

27. Find the file it just compiled for you (Should be /RavenholmMap/d1_town_01_d.bsp), and copy that file to /<STEAM>/steamapps/common/left 4 dead/left4dead/maps/.

28. Run Left 4 Dead.

29. Enable the console if you haven't already.

30. Open the console and type map d1_town_01_d (Or whatever else you named your map).

31. THIS IS IMPORTANT: IF YOUR GAME CRASHES, THAT'S OK. JUST OPEN IT UP AND REPEAT STEP 30. If your game continues to crash AFTER THE FIRST TIME, then your map has an error.

32. Provided you didn't screw anything up, you should see an error box that says something like "NAV ERROR: Map unplayable." This is good. Hit OK, and watch the camera fade in to your character (randomly chosen) as the game starts.

33. Check that all your entities are working. Grab a gun, pick up some ammo, etc.

34. You aren't done yet. You need to auto-generate your navigation mesh. I'm going to copy and paste my other post detailing how to do that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once you're in the game, turn on cheats first and foremost with

Code:

sv_cheats 1

And then immediately stop the director with

Code:

director_stop

This way the Director won't spawn bosses while you're trying to work.

Next, stand on flat "common ground" of your map (i.e. don't stand on a car or a ledge or anything like that).

Next, you'll want to type in

Code:

nav_mark_walkable

followed by

Code:

nav_generate

This will begin the (sometimes long) process of procedurally generating every possible point in which the bots/zombies can walk, run, jump, climb, etc. The progress bar may repeat itself a few times (Goes from 100 back to 0), this is normal.

After it's all done (It will generate, and then check lighting, and then do some "custom game-specific analysis"), your map will restart. If you get a message saying "Nav Errors, Map Unplayable", then you have more work to do (see below). If not, then do a simple

Code:

director_start

and (optionally) restart your map so you're at the beginning again, and you should be good to go.

If your map has nav errors, then you need to do some snooping around. I don't know the extent of the errors, or even how to list them, but doing

Code:

nav_edit 1

will bring up an interface so you can walk around your level and view the navigation mesh. If you see any part that isn't connected properly (stairs, for example), then you're going to have to either edit your map or manually reconnect them. Unfortunately that's not within the scope of this tutorial (suffice it to say you'll need nav_mark, nav_split, nav_unmark, and nav_analyze, and probably others).

Happy procedural generating!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once you do that, you should be good to go!

NOTE: If the director isn't spawning random zombies in the map when you start (i.e. the map is completely EMPTY and VOID OF ZOMBIES), then I CANNOT HELP YOU, as I'm having the same problem currently. You can manually setup triggers to spawn zombies, and then force a panic event if you like, in the map itself. It's cheap and predictable, but it works.

themaniacboy · December 4th, 2008, 07:09 PM

Woow nice tutorial, i'm gonna try this tomorrow !

/CPH\ · December 7th, 2008, 12:32 PM

Good job, thanks for the effort

AzH · December 7th, 2008, 12:36 PM

Awesome thanks.

Ragenule · July 10th, 2009, 01:48 AM

I know this is a bit of a necro post, but I followed your guide and I'm at the map compiling stage. I have the exact same settings placed as on your compile window, however I get the following error:

Spoiler:

Note that I used both the Hammer included in the Source SDK and the Left 4 Dead Hammer (Although I doubt there is any significant difference, if any, between the two).

Any help is appreciated.

Tutorial: Port Ravenholm to Left 4 Dead!

L4D & L4D2 Mods: Left4Dead & Left4Dead2 custom mod development discussion forum.