Hi all, this is a tutorial for an apparently little known way of getting custom textures/decals/overlays into hammer that I happened to stumble across. This is the way I use to get my UCTA posters from photoshop into hammer, and it allows me to bypass the program that most people use to convert and size their files for use in hammer. This should work for textures of any size. I will also include screenshots of possible errors that you might get and how to fix them. A side note: This may not work for TF2 mapping, because you picture has to be a certain size to be a spray, and I'll explain why that's important in just a moment.
Alright so the first thing you have to do is make your texture, then open Counter Strike: Source. Go to your options and go to import spray. Another side note: your spray image doesn't necessarily have to be in a certain place on your computer to be found by CS:S, you can go to the drop down box at the top and start in the C: drive and search through your folders for wherever you saved it. I keep all my sprays in a folder in my pictures main folder. After you get your picture, it is very important to hit APPLY or it won't work. Now go back and restart hammer and head over to your textures browser, search the name you gave the picture, and it'll be there. Now you can use it as a texture, decal, overlay, or anything else that it can be applied to.
HOWEVER
You WILL have two pictures in your browser that look the exact same. Only ONE will correctly work, and this is where we get to the part about the errors. In the below screenshot I have used one of the two textures that I know doesn't work, and it looks just fine, and it's a nice big size for a decal.
It looks completely fine, until you look at it though a wall. The problem below is that you can still see it, even through a wall. This is a problem because no matter where you are on the map, you will continue to see it through ALL walls.
the way to fix this is to go back into the texture browser, where I used the duplicate on the bottom row (it has a white box around it).
It is very easy to fix this, just delete the faulty texture from your map, and use the other one (Now the one on top has the white box around it).
Now the decal is much smaller, but as seen in the pictures below it doesn't show through walls. If you need it bigger, make it an overlay and resize it. Just be sure the overlay isn't bigger than about...64 faces I think, otherwise you'll get the following error:
Face List Count >= OVERLAY_BSP_FACE_COUNT
The new decal (smaller)
It doesn't show up through walls anymore
I hope this helps everyone out, I like this method just because I don't need another conversion program sucking up space on my computer, and I think it's easier. Maybe this method is already well known, but I'm just posting here because I've never seen any tutorials that use it. Feel free to message or add me if you have questions.
Alright so the first thing you have to do is make your texture, then open Counter Strike: Source. Go to your options and go to import spray. Another side note: your spray image doesn't necessarily have to be in a certain place on your computer to be found by CS:S, you can go to the drop down box at the top and start in the C: drive and search through your folders for wherever you saved it. I keep all my sprays in a folder in my pictures main folder. After you get your picture, it is very important to hit APPLY or it won't work. Now go back and restart hammer and head over to your textures browser, search the name you gave the picture, and it'll be there. Now you can use it as a texture, decal, overlay, or anything else that it can be applied to.
HOWEVER
You WILL have two pictures in your browser that look the exact same. Only ONE will correctly work, and this is where we get to the part about the errors. In the below screenshot I have used one of the two textures that I know doesn't work, and it looks just fine, and it's a nice big size for a decal.
It looks completely fine, until you look at it though a wall. The problem below is that you can still see it, even through a wall. This is a problem because no matter where you are on the map, you will continue to see it through ALL walls.
the way to fix this is to go back into the texture browser, where I used the duplicate on the bottom row (it has a white box around it).
It is very easy to fix this, just delete the faulty texture from your map, and use the other one (Now the one on top has the white box around it).
Now the decal is much smaller, but as seen in the pictures below it doesn't show through walls. If you need it bigger, make it an overlay and resize it. Just be sure the overlay isn't bigger than about...64 faces I think, otherwise you'll get the following error:
Face List Count >= OVERLAY_BSP_FACE_COUNT
The new decal (smaller)
It doesn't show up through walls anymore
I hope this helps everyone out, I like this method just because I don't need another conversion program sucking up space on my computer, and I think it's easier. Maybe this method is already well known, but I'm just posting here because I've never seen any tutorials that use it. Feel free to message or add me if you have questions.
