Welcome to my tutorial on Surf Map Design! I will be teaching you how to design and create a surf map from scratch. There are some tutorials on how to make a surf map, but I feel that they lack some key points that I will share with you in this tutorial.

Let's jump in, shall we?

*Any images in this tutorial are thumbnailed. If you want an enlarged version, click the thumbnail.

Step 1. Open up the Hammer Editor, and create a blank map file. Just for our ease, set the grid magnification to 16. Before we start mapping, save the blank document so we have something to save to. Press CTRL + S (or goto File > Save) and as a file name, let's just call it surf_tutorial.

Step 2. Now I am going to show you how to create a surf map. In your front view, create a box that is 256 units wide by 272 units high. Now that we have our base for the surf ramp, we need to edit the vertices so the ramp has an angle the player can surf on. Select the vertex tool, and in the front view, drag the 2 top vertices to the center of the box. To give the surf ramp some length, go in to your top or side view port, and drag the ramp so it is longer length-wise. Refer to figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1

Step 3. A. We have completed our surf ramp. It doesn't look like much now, but once we start connecting some of them together, it will really start to look like a surf map! In this step, I'm going to show you how you can easily make your ramp go at an angle, and connect up to other ramps. First, select the surf ramp. Press CTRL + C (or goto Edit > Copy) followed by pressing CTRL + V (or goto Edit > Paste). Align the new ramp so it is flush with our other ramp.

B. Now we will angle our ramps at a slope, so the player can gain some speed when first getting on them. Select one of the ramps (preferably the first one) and click it until you see 4 white squares on either side of it. In the side or front viewport (make sure it's not the top), select either one of the squares on the side, and drag it down on your grid. This is called "skewing" and object. Refer to Figure 3.1b

Figure 3.1b

Step 4. Okay, so we know how to make a surf ramp and angle it, but there's just one problem. After you skew the object, notice how on the side your skewing, the vertices are misaligned from the grid! It's not by much, but it's something you should get into the habit of fixing. Remember that vertex tool we used back in Step 2? Well, click on that, and on the 2 vertices that are messed up, drag them either up or down so they are aligned to the grid. If you don't quite know what I mean, check Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1

Step 5. By now you should probably know how to finish this up. Paste some more surf ramps, and align them all like we've been doing. If you feel one of the ramp pieces is too long, shorten it in the side or top view before you skew it. This will prevent the ramp from being "squished". Here is what I got (see Figure 5.1)

Figure 5.1

Step 6. Time for some finishing touches. First we'll make a spawn area. Create a 384x384 block up next to the start of your ramp. Then, create a 128x32 wall and put it right smack in the middle of your spawn. This is so we can split up the T and CT. Now, create some spawn points. One side has Terrorist spawn points, the other has Counter-Terrorist spawn points. The map I made supports a total of 32 players (16 per team). See figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1

Step 7. And finally, we are going to add a place for the player to actually land after they surf, some guns (to kill the other players) and basic lighting. Create a ground area where the players can land onto. I suggest you put an area of water so when the player lands, if they are going fast, they won't have their health reduced. Add some weapon_ak47 entities, or whatever you want on the ground of the landing area. Lastly, create a light_environment some where in the map, make the pitch around -80, and make the brightness 255 255 255 400. Obviously everyone is going to have done this differently, but to see how I made it, check Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1

Almost there! This is where you can go in and add anything you'd like. I added a grass floor far from the surf ramp. One thing you will need to do is select every surf ramp you made and widen the width by about 50. If you don't you'll notice you can't really surf on it even if you have raised the airaccelerate. Lastly add a large skybox around the entire map.

Surf_Tutorial.vmf Source

Thanks for reading!