Does anyone do mapping in Hammer here? I do, but I've come across a problem that I can't sort out, and I was wondering if anyone knew how to sort it out.

When I run the map, halfway through compiling it gets to 'building physics collision data'
At this point a box appears claiming something has encountered an error and needs to colse, do you want to sent an error report. I click 'don't send' and it continues compiling. then a few seconds later it claims to be unable to find the file and aborts the compiling. I have no Idea what to do, and the best advice Valve can give is to re-instal Source SDK, which is frankly the most useless advice possible.
The map DID work, but this error report only started occouring after I added a 3D skybox, and i attempted to run the map to test the skybox. I'll continue tweaking the map in an attempt to get it to work, but any advice would be appreciated, as well as recomendations to put in the map. Also, I'm thinking of dedicating the map (ctf_cow_shed or ctf_Slaughter_houce) to the heavies. I'll post a few screenshots once I can get it to run.

In case anyone wanted to know, the map is of two large houses facing each other over a road. They (Will) have mines underneath them, which break into a millirary bunker containing the intel. I've completed the houses, and I am currently adding detail to them.

Sorry I can't help with your prob but I'm interested in trying some mapping for TF2. Is Hammer the best prog out there right now?

Been a long while since I've done any maps (back in the Doom days on Deu2 and for Duke3D in build) but I'm a fast learner.

Good luck with the map and keep us posted on your progress- sounds great

I'm not really into it myself (don't have the patience), but I do follow it and my brother has a go at it occasionally.

You say it was when you added the skybox, so it might have a hole in it. Check for that. Either that or just use the default skybox texture (the blue developer one that says skybox on it) and try from there.

Like I said, I'm no expert so it may not fix your problem. But doesnt hurt to give it a go.

And Khola, as far as I know, Hammer editor with the SDK is the ONLY program. I think theres other programs out there for compiling the map, but to construct it you're stuck with that.

Thanks for the advice, its good but fruitless. I checked over the skybox and its watertight. I even pulled in a few textures to make sure it didn't spill, but no good

Finally, I tracked down the problem to a corrupt displacement. The map is running again. It only took 38 hours of hard work, several help requests and a long time on the internet. Unfortunatly I still need to get the skybox to work (Doh!) But I will post screenshots once I manage this.

I did do some hammer mapping if any of you have seen toy fort (the earlier versions) me and my mate made that, and i have one half way completed now jsut can be bothered to . Used to do Swat 4 mappnig aswell, but no techie on the errors and so on but there is a bug finder built into hammer editor

Sky box is easy if i reember just find the 2d sky box texture and apply it to where you need i f i remeber correctly and it should give you a basic texture in the distance i think

The map is almost complete, for a hopefull releace at the end of the month (If I can get the 3D Skybox to work. I have run across several frustrating problems, like spending 3 days on a tunnel before testing and realicing that it was too small for the player to walk down. However the map, which will be called Cow shed, (Absoloutly no relevence to the context) Is good.

There used to be a stand at the old Huddersfield Town football ground called the Cowshed.

If you can get as much carnage going on your map as there was in there you'll be doing well