Hammer Editor - Open(ish) Source?

[la la laura]

I've been following the Source 2013 repository for a while, and after reading several feature requests (which aren't going to be added due to them being on different branches of the engine), specifically the one about including instance support, I'm curious about whether or not modders could reproduce the functionality in the Hammer editor, perhaps as a plugin of sorts, or a direct mod of Hammer's source code. That's slightly off the topic I'm trying to address though

What I'm asking is, how much of the Hammer Editor consists of private Valve doohickeys, and is it possible that a new Github repository could be created for it, to allow community modifications to better suit the needs of individual mod teams, and possibly advance the state of the (admittedly aging) toolset for all SDK users? Could we even (possibly) port it over to Linux and Mac?

[Wazanator]

One of the Vlave staff commented on the Hammer editor being ported and said it's not going to happen. The way they programmed it at the time they werent considering porting at all and so it is very dependent on the windows OS.

That said vmfs are nothing more then text files and manipulating them is fairly easy with third party programs. I think instead of people asking to update hammer a group should be formed to make a new one.

[＃gbn.scart]

Parts of the source code, and pieces that's need can already be found in the source code. It seems very unlikely that Valve will ever release the source code for Hammer.

I've messed a bit with working on my own editor but I haven't looked at it in a really long time, and it seems to be a waste of time seeing how close we are to either the end of Source modding or switching to Source 2.

[la la laura]

I think it would be remarkably difficult for someone to create their own editor. The documentation for VMFs was written in 2006, there's no way of knowing whether or not this information is completely correct now. Not to mention interpreting FGDs, catching leaks with the pointfiles, parsing and presenting models, and creating a reliable system for sorting through all the logic that one can implement. The 2013 Base was just released, so obviously it's not the end of Source modding, we're at a point though where we can't keep using 15 year old tools that are only developed with Valve's interests first, and modders at a distant (though they do keep us in mind) second

[☠F☺celessMind☠]

gtkradiant, quark,..
what about these older alternatives ?
quark : got hl2 support and is open source
gtkradiant is cross plateform and open source
access and read the data from the vpk files is the must important thing with a potential alternative to hammer.
But I think its possible, but this is for sure a real big and long project.

http://quark.sourceforge.net/
http://icculus.org/gtkradiant/

[＃gbn.scart]

The leak files are written by vbsp and their structures are very simple. The VMF format haven't changed, and even if it had it's plain text. Nothing is hidden. There's no big secret to reading the formats.

[Pocket]

On the subject of producing a fan-made, open-source Hammer alternative, I feel obligated to direct you to this project[forums.tf2maps.net] that's being worked on.

[☠F☺celessMind☠]

hey i sucessfully made a very basic map with quark 6.0 beta 6, open the vmf in hammer and directly compiled the map.

when i tryed to compile with Quark a get some trouble with tier0.lib

Can't load MaterialSystem.dll



materialPath: g:\Steam\SteamApps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\materials
Loading g:\Steam\SteamApps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.vmf
Could not locate 'GameData' key in g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\gameinfo.txt
fixing up env_cubemap materials on brush sides...
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...100...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10Processing areas...done (0)
Building Faces...done (0)
FixTjuncs...
PruneNodes...
WriteBSP...
done (0)
writing g:\Steam\SteamApps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.prt...Building visibility clusters...
done (0)
Creating default LDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
   skybox/sky_wasteland02*.vmt
 ! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Creating default HDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
   skybox/sky_wasteland02*.vmt
 ! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Finding displacement neighbors...
Finding lightmap sample positions...
Displacement Alpha : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Building Physics collision data...
done (0) (2303 bytes)
Placing detail props : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Compacting texture/material tables...
Reduced 32 texinfos to 6
Reduced 3 texdatas to 3 (67 bytes to 67)
Writing g:\Steam\SteamApps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.bsp
0 seconds elapsed



4 threads
reading g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.bsp
reading g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.prt
   4 portalclusters
   4 numportals
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...100...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10Optimized: 0 visible clusters (0.00%)
Total clusters visible: 16
Average clusters visible: 4
Building PAS...
Average clusters audible: 4
visdatasize:44  compressed from 64
writing g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.bsp
0 seconds elapsed



[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[45 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.bsp
16 faces
10012 square feet [1441792.00 square inches]
0 Displacements
0 Square Feet [0.00 Square Inches]
16 patches before subdivision
1528 patches after subdivision
1 direct lights
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...100...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10transfers 101876, max 203
transfer lists:   0.8 megs
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #1 added RGB(63623, 19911, 3249)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #2 added RGB(20711, 2293, 44)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #3 added RGB(6993, 270, 1)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #4 added RGB(2393, 32, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #5 added RGB(819, 4, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #6 added RGB(282, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #7 added RGB(97, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #8 added RGB(33, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #9 added RGB(12, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #10 added RGB(4, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #11 added RGB(1, 0, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10	Bounce #12 added RGB(0, 0, 0)
Build Patch/Sample Hash Table(s).....Done<0.0004 sec>
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10FinalLightFace Done
0 of 0 (0% of) surface lights went in leaf ambient cubes.
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10Writing leaf ambient...done
Ready to Finish

Object names       Objects/Maxobjs  Memory / Maxmem  Fullness 
------------       ---------------  ---------------  -------- 
models                   1/1024           48/49152    ( 0.1%) 
brushes                  6/8192           72/98304    ( 0.1%) 
brushsides              36/65536         288/524288   ( 0.1%) 
planes                  40/65536         800/1310720  ( 0.1%) 
vertexes                19/65536         228/786432   ( 0.0%) 
nodes                   27/65536         864/2097152  ( 0.0%) 
texinfos                 6/12288         432/884736   ( 0.0%) 
texdata                  3/2048           96/65536    ( 0.1%) 
dispinfos                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
disp_verts               0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
disp_tris                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
disp_lmsamples           0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
faces                   16/65536         896/3670016  ( 0.0%) 
hdr faces                0/65536           0/3670016  ( 0.0%) 
origfaces                6/65536         336/3670016  ( 0.0%) 
leaves                  29/65536         928/2097152  ( 0.0%) 
leaffaces               16/65536          32/131072   ( 0.0%) 
leafbrushes             16/65536          32/131072   ( 0.0%) 
areas                    2/256            16/2048     ( 0.8%) 
surfedges               88/512000        352/2048000  ( 0.0%) 
edges                   45/256000        180/1024000  ( 0.0%) 
LDR worldlights          1/8192           88/720896   ( 0.0%) 
HDR worldlights          0/8192            0/720896   ( 0.0%) 
leafwaterdata            0/32768           0/393216   ( 0.0%) 
waterstrips              0/32768           0/327680   ( 0.0%) 
waterverts               0/65536           0/786432   ( 0.0%) 
waterindices             0/65536           0/131072   ( 0.0%) 
cubemapsamples           0/1024            0/16384    ( 0.0%) 
overlays                 0/512             0/180224   ( 0.0%) 
LDR lightdata         [variable]       18272/0        ( 0.0%) 
HDR lightdata         [variable]           0/0        ( 0.0%) 
visdata               [variable]          44/16777216 ( 0.0%) 
entdata               [variable]         349/393216   ( 0.1%) 
LDR ambient table       29/65536         116/262144   ( 0.0%) 
HDR ambient table       29/65536         116/262144   ( 0.0%) 
LDR leaf ambient        64/65536        1792/1835008  ( 0.1%) 
HDR leaf ambient        29/65536         812/1835008  ( 0.0%) 
occluders                0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
occluder polygons        0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
occluder vert ind        0/0               0/0        ( 0.0%) 
detail props          [variable]           1/12       ( 8.3%) 
static props          [variable]           1/12       ( 8.3%) 
pakfile               [variable]       86734/0        ( 0.0%) 
physics               [variable]        2303/4194304  ( 0.1%) 
physics terrain       [variable]           2/1048576  ( 0.0%) 

Level flags = 0

Total triangle count: 32
Writing g:\steam\steamapps\laudanum\half-life 2\hl2\maps\newmap.bsp
2 seconds elapsed

[anthro]

I stumbled across this on the Blender development blog. http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/09/valve-steam-workshop-donations-2-devs-get-hired/ They are looking for suggestions.