Comments on: Speed Mapping

By: Andy "Velvet Fist, Iron Glove" Durdin

Andy "Velvet Fist, Iron Glove" Durdin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:30:23 +0000

#1 is probably the most useful. I tend to spend a lot of time in Hammer trying to decide what to do next.

By: Tweaking Hammer for Efficiency – Nodraw.net

Tweaking Hammer for Efficiency – Nodraw.net — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:49:35 +0000

[...] And to round everything off: Learn the shortcuts for all the tools, they’re listed here: Two posts ago. [...]

By: Ravidge

Ravidge — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:52:44 +0000

I use Alt + a/s to adjust the grid size. I find that this hotkey combo fits really well with all the other nearby shortcuts!

By: MangyCarface

MangyCarface — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:10:42 +0000

All good suggestions!

By: Tapp

Tapp — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:30:07 +0000

Another thing that I think you should add is that tapping z puts you into ‘noclip’ mode, I thought you knew that one because you told us to put a finger there, but never explained it. Also, using ctrl+e and ctrl+shift+e can minimise the amount of time needed to find brushes. By holding ctrl and scrolling, you can also synchronise the zooms on the 2d planes.

By: Velvet Fist, Iron Glove

Velvet Fist, Iron Glove — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:20:36 +0000

Three key shortcuts that everyone should know, that make it very quick for me to navigate around the map when mapping are:

* “Z”, which toggles the mouselook/WASD movement in the 3d view
* “space”, which if you hold it lets you pan around the 2D views
* Ctrl+mousewheel, which zooms the 2d views in sync.

By: Acegikmo

Acegikmo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:46:30 +0000

Nice guide! I should really learn to use these shortcuts, the clicking on the left hand side toolbar is a bit slow.
However, the hand positioning and the camera control is rather different for me.
My hand is promarily on ctrl/shift, alt and the spacebar. The reason for this is simply because I use an other way of controlling the camera, which I don’t think is very common. It is, however, much faster than most other methods! (Which is why this is related to Mangy’s article).
I move my camera by holding the spacebar and different mouse button combinations, while moving the mouse around.
Here’s a short guide on the spacebar+mouse camera movement:

Spacebar + LMB -> This enables a pivot look mode. All you do is turning the camera by moving the mouse, just like in any fps game.
Spacebar + RMB -> This makes the camera traverse on a plane parallel to the 3D viewport as you move the mouse around. (I personally never use this combination)
Spacebar + LMB + RMB -> While both mouse buttons, your camera will move forward and backwards, as you move the mouse up and down. Moving the mouse sideways, will pan the camera in the same direction as you moved the mouse.

The good thing about this system, is that the camera speed is variable. When you want to move fast, you can move fast. When you want to look at little brushes on the smallest grid, you can move the camera carefully.
The speed is just limited by the speed of your hand! (And the size of your desk, the length of the mouse coord among other things. You see what I’m trying to say anyway!)