The company created the Goldsrc ( pronounces go-ld- so-horse) engine, using the Quake engine as grounds to do so, and used Goldsrc to create games such as Half-Life. If you did not know beforehand, Valve is a game development and distribution company founded in 1966.

Keep in mind, I am going to talk about Hammer from the perspective of developing a map for Portal 2, but most of the content within this post should be usable across all Source games. So today, I am going to tell you the process that you need to go through to create a decent looking map and some tips about using the Hammer editor. It was a long and rather exhausting process, but I believe that learning about how maps within Team Fortress, Portal, and Left 4 Dead are made is a fun skill to have, as it would allow me and other people to join Source modding communities and create cool content that would keep these old games alive. I wanted to see what developing these maps were like, so I jumped right into the Hammer editor and got myself started. I have played the game multiple times, struggling through all of the main story’s puzzles and the community-made puzzles that can be found in the Steam Workshop. For my Advanced Level Design class, I decided that I would create a map for one of my favorite games - Portal 2.

Valve hammer editor 3.5 tutorials