User's Guide ‐ Toolbars Overview

Source Level Editor 2.104

Overview

Source Level Editor (SLE) replaces the main toolbar (also known as Map Operations toolbar in Hammer 4.1) with an updated version.
The reason for it was twofold: removing several buttons and adding new ones required altering the graphics file, and while at it, it was decided to also enlarge it (from 32px to 40px in height) to make it easier to see.
As such, it was also re-styled.

For the sake of modularity and fitting on resolutions <= 1280x720, this toolbar is actually broken up into several individual bars. We'll go through them from left to right.

Undo/Redo

Self-explanatory.

Grid, Selection, Rotation settings

1. Toggle grid - toggles it in 2D Views
2. Smaller grid - decreases Grid size
3. Larger grid - increases Grid size
4. Toggle Select-by-handles - controls whether objects in 2D can be selected by center x-shaped handle, or clicking anywhere on them
5. Toggle auto selection - if pressed, drawing a selection rectangle in 2D and letting go of left mouse button will select objects within the rectangle. Otherwise, the user needs to press Enter to confirm selection.
6. (SLE) Toggle Rotation snap - if pressed, rotation will be constrained to the user-selected angle snap value.
7. (SLE) Use Rotation Pivot - toggles Rotation Pivot, which allows for rotating objects around a user-defined point in space rather than the object's bounds center point.

Grouping, Hiding, Cordons, Face Edit

1. Group selected objects - self-explanatory.
2. Ungroup selected groups - ditto.
3. Toggle group ignore - switches Select mode between Groups and Solids.
   Its hotkey (default: I), however, cycles through Groups, Objects and Solids.


4. New Visgroup - opens the Move To Visgroup dialogue. Does nothing if the selecton is empty.
5. Hide unselected objects - ditto, but using unselected objects.
6. QuickHide - hides the selected objects without putting them in a visgroup; persists until the map document is closed or the objects are unhidden.
   Saving the map document while some objects are hidden makes them not appear in the compile.
7. QuickHide Unselected - ditto, but using unselected objects.
8. Restore Hidden - unhides objects hidden by either of the previous two commands.


9. (SLE) Toggle Cordon State - toggles on/off state of all active cordons. Unlike in Hammer 4.1, this button is only active if there's at least one cordon present. It does not initiate the creation of a new cordon otherwise.
10. Edit Cordon Bounds - turns on the cordon editing mode, in which blue resize handles are active.
    To disable, switch to Select Tool.
11. (SLE) New Cordon - prompts the user for new cordon name, then adds it to the list of cordons (the third tab of the Visgroups toolbar).
    Enables the cordon editing mode after making a new cordon.
12. Radius Culling - toggles Radius Culling. Unlike Hammer 4.1, there's no hotkey associated with it, and it resets to Off when closing the map document.
13. Texture Lock - toggles Texture Lock, when textures stay "attached" to faces when moving or reshaping their solids.
14. Texture Scale Lock - toggles Texture Scale Lock, when resizing solids aut-adjusts texture scale for each face.
15. Toggle Face Alignment - toggles between Face and World alignment on newly created brush faces.
16. (SLE) Displacement vertex lock - when pressed, using Raise/Lower mode in the Displacement Tool makes the sculpt handle "lock onto" the target vertex until the user lets go of the left mouse button.
    Same can be achieved by holding down Shift while sculpting in Raise/Lower mode.

Visibility

1. Hide non-disp sides of disp brushes - if pressed, brushes that had any sides turned into displacements will only show those sides; others will be invisible and unselectable.
   Otherwise the brush will render as a mixture of displacement/'plain' faces and those can also be selected.
   This button is named "Disp Mask Solid" in Hammer 4.1.
2. Disp Draw 3D - if unpressed, displacement will render same as flat faces in 3D Views.
3. Toggle helpers - helpers are preview elements such as light cones, radius wireframe spheres, new point_spotlight and env_beam previews.


4. Toggle models in 2D - if pressed, unselected model entities will render in wireframe in 2D, unless zoomed out far enough. Otherwise they will render as their bound boxes.
   Selected entities will render as translucent textured models either way.
   This also controls rendering of displacement wireframe in 2D, although it is unrelated to models.
5. Toggle model fade preview - if pressed, moving away from model entities will cause them to fade out in 3D.
   The fade-out is tied to fademindist and fademaxdist values. If at default values (-1 and 0, respectively), no fade-out will occur.
6. Display collision meshes - toggles rendering of collision mesh wireframe.
   In 2D, that wireframe will also replace the regular mesh wireframe.
   In 2D, it is also susceptible to Toggle models in 2D check.
   In SLE, the colour of the wireframe can be set in the Options->Colors tab.
7. Display detail props on terrain - toggles rendering of detail props (grass sprites) in 3D.
   They will only render on displacement surfaces, even though they can be emitted in-game on 'plain' brush surfaces.
   They will render within the the Detail render distance set in Options->3D Views.
8. Show nodraw faces - toggles rendering of brush faces with materials that have %compilenodraw 1 VMT parameter.
   In Hammer 4.1, it is hardcoded to only filter tools\toolsnodraw.vmt. In SLE, it checks for the VMT parameter, and as such, can make some other materials not draw, such as stock tools\toolsplayerclip.vmt
9. (SLE) Show toolbrush faces - similar to above, but filters any materials in the tools\ folder, except toolsnodraw.vmt, toolsblack.vmt, toolswhite.vmt, and materials with %compilesky or %compile2Dsky parameters.
   Useful for hiding from view triggers, areaportals, clips; does not affect compilation.
   Works with custom materials too.
10. (SLE) Show editor-only objects - toggles visibility of a number of entities matching hardcoded wildcarded sets.
    Among them are ai_*, env_*, info_*, logic_*, path_*, point_*, script*, and others, as well as nodes and lights.
    Useful for de-cluttering the view when not working on entities; does not affect compilation.
11. (SLE) Preview Skybox - hides from view skybox faces while rendering the skybox around the world using the same algorithm the engine uses, based on the Worldspawn sky name setting.

Check Problems and Run Map

1. Check map for problems - opens the related dialogue.
2. Run Map! - opens the Run Map (compile) dialogue.

Moving, hiding, and restoring toolbars

Every toolbar is modular and can be dragged by the thin frame around the buttons with the left mouse key to align, reorient, undock, or hide them.
Dragging a toolbar onto the document frame (where the viewports are) undocks them, after which the frame with a close button will appear.
Dragging them onto the main frame and letting go docks them again.
Any closed toolbars can be re-opened via View->Screen Elements->[name of the bar].