Converting Hammer

[Spartan300]

How would I convert hammer to work with Blockland?
I saw a tutorial on it on RTB, which lead into another tutorial on Garage games.
The RTB tutorial was easy to follow, but I got lost at the first sentence of the Garage games tutorial.
Could someone please simplify this whole process for me?
Also, these are the least important questions:

How to make lights
Also, if I don't place lights on a map, it will be automatically lit up, right?
How to make a dark map
How to place a player spawn in Hammer
 - Thanks Wedge and Resonance
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[Wedge]

You have to place player spawns using the mission editor, you can't use the hammer player spawns.

[Resonance_Cascade]

Lights are still done through entities, like you would do for Gmod, but the entities and their properties are different.

A dark map can be achieved through editing the skybox/sun in the maps mission file.

[Wedge]

Maps will automatically be lit by the sun. Its always nice to put a few lights on this inside of the map, however, since it will make the inside look better. Plus, you can use different color lights.

[Spartan300]

Alright, thanks for clearing those up, how about converting Hammer to work with Blockland?

[Spartan300]

Bump de bump.

[Wedge]

If you followed the RTB Hammer guide, then you should already have your exporter and compiler set to map2dif, and you should be able to compile the map normally.

[Spartan300]

all the RTB guide told me to do is download those 2 things, and than it links you to the Torque guide which explains what to do with them, that's where I get lost.

[Wedge]

This section?

Now, before you can start mapping, you need to set up hammer, so it exports your maps correctly. You can't do anything with hammer, unless you set it up to use the map2dif_debug exporter you should have already downloaded.

To do this, you need to press File, and then New. Now, you need to press the export button. If you look underneath the main navigation bar (with the File, Edit, Map, View, Tools, Window and Help menu's) you'll see another bar with a row of buttons on it. The very last button, is the Run Map button. Click this (or if you are unable to find it, Press F9) and the compile menu should come up. If not, it is most probably because you haven't set up hammer to use a .Wad file, so you need to go back above, and do it. Unless you've already done so, a Save menu will appear, and you can save it in your Blockland Map directory (which for me, was My Documents\Blockland Maps) under any name (I used compile) and now the export menu will appear.

In this export menu which you should now see, if you look on the bottom left hand corner, there is an Expert compile-mode button, which we have to use, as there is no exporting setup made for Blockland currently.

So click that button, and you'll see the Expert Compile Window. Under the text: Configurations: You'll see an Edit button, a little to the right. Click that, and on the new window, click new. For the name, you may again, enter Blockland, before clicking OK, followed by Close on the previous window, which it should revert to after you click OK. Now, we need to add some Run Commands specifically for use with the Map2Dif_Debug program we downloaded.

To do this, make sure under Configurations: Blockland, or whatever you decided to name it, is selected. Under Compile/Run Commands, click new. Now, on the right side of the window, you'll see Command Properties. For the command, copy and paste the following exactly: $csg_exe It should now appear on the right hand side, under Compile/Run Commands. Tick the box next to it.

Now, under Parameters, copy and paste again: -v -h -o $path -t $path $path\$file.$ext

You can now click cancel. It should remember the settings you entered, and you can start on the mapping.

[Spartan300]

hmm...no, I got lost in a diff tutorial.
I guess that works too though, thanks.

[Wedge]

http://returntoblockland.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hammer_Tutorial

[Spartan300]

Awesome, thanks alot.
Expect a map by me soon. 

[Resonance_Cascade]

I should probably update that tutorial sometime.

[Spartan300]

I've ran into another problem when trying to compile my map.
It tell me it cant find a certain texture.
I created the .wad with the textures, set Hammer to use it, created a crappy test map, saved it, and did everything this said:

Open the compile dialog (F9 or menu file/run) hit the expert button at the bottom.
Select edit, create a new configuration by hitting the "New" button, name it Torque
Ensure the new Torque config is selected in the "Configurations:" drop-down list.

hit the New button
On the right hit the Cmds Button and select CSG program option

Copy the following and paste and in the parameters: dialog.

-v -h -o $path -t $path $path\$file.$ext

Select the tick box next to $csg_exe in the Compile/run commands pane, then Hit Go! button to create the DIF file.

than when I try to "Hit the Go! button" it tells me it can;t find texture  *brick and asks me if I would like to retry or cancel.

I followed this tutorial on converting hammer:
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=9322

* Used as an example, not the exact error.
Please help me.
Thank you.

[Spartan300]

Never mind, I got past that, but now each time I export the map it only creates .RMX .MAX .MAP and some other microsoft office thing.
I'm not seeing any .MIS or .TER files... so am I doing something wrong or is there another step after creating all that..
Please help.