Alright, now I'll take you through the basics of mapping. I'll explain each of the tools on the left and which ones you do or don't need. By that I mean through certain mapping techniques you can map faster and more efficiently(for clip nodes, r_speeds, and such) than the automatic procedures can.

We'll start with the tools on the left column.

Selection Tool (Shortcut Shift+S):

You can use this to select objects both in the 2d views and the 3d view. While using this tool, if you hold "Ctrl" while clicking, you can select mutiple objects. Once you have objects selected, you can click and drag them to move them on the grid or in the 3d window, but I don't recommend doing it in the 3d window as it will drag the object across all 3 axis of the grid and put its edges totally out of sync with surrounding objects. You can also hold shift as you let up the mouse button after dragging to copy the original brushes/entities to their new location, creating new brushes without having to copy/paste.

If you click on the selected object a second time in a 2d view, it will switch the selection to rotation mode. Here you can grab one of the handles to rotate the object selected. I recommend only using this for when you need to rotate something by 45 or 90 degrees, as otherwise it can create invalid structures, which I will explain later.

If you click on the selected object a third time in a 2d view, it will switch the selection to skew mode, or whatever it's called. In this mode the sides of the selected brush can be dragged to reshape the structure. This is usually not as effective as vertex manipulation (explained later), but is quicker for simple skewing of edges.

Magnify (Shortcut Shift+G):

When this tool is selected you can use left click on the grids to zoom in and right click to zoom out, but I never use it as I have a wheelmouse and the wheel does that for you. If you hold Ctrl while turning the wheel, by the way, it changes the zoom of all 3 grid views to the same zoom and adjusts them as you turn. The Magnify tool doesn't do that.

Camera (Shortcut Shift+C):

This tool allows you to make several "camera points" in the map to which you can switch the 3d view at any time by pressing PageUp or PageDown to cycle through them. It's kind of useful I suppose, but I usually set my movement speed pretty high for the 3d view so I just use the "Z" look mode (hit Z while the cursor is over the 3D window) that uses WASD movement to move that view around usually.

To create a camera point, hold shift and click-and-drag a line on one of the 2d views - a camera will be created. The red dot is the camera, and either end of the line can be adjusted at your leisure.

Entity Tool (Shortcut Shift+E):

This tool allows you to create entities, which are basically any models, sprites, sounds, messages, anything really that affects the engine of gameplay. There are two kinds of entities - Point-based entities and Solid-based entities. Point based entities are the kind you create with this tool.

To create a point-based entity in 2d view, click at a point on the grid where you want to create the entity, and a green target with two lines intersecting will appear. This is the center of where the entity will be created - you can drag it around to get it in the correct place. It is represented in all 3 grids. The push Enter to execute creation.

To create a point-based entity in 3d view, click on any surface and the center of the entity will be created at the point that is closest to the place you clicked on the grids. (I usually use this method, then hit Ctrl+E to center the 2D views on the object, then adjust its position as necessary.)

Block Tool (shortcut Shift+B):

This is a useful tool for creating simple brushes to use in whatever. I use it to create brushes to alter with vertex manipulations. Anyway, this tool has a few modes: block, wedge, cylinder, spike, and arch, all available in the dropdown box on the right side of the screen where "block" is by default.

• Block is for creating 6-sided rectangular prisms(which basically means all 6 sided-brushes with flat sides of any length that all end in 90 degree angled corners).
• Wedge creates a 3-sided prism, but its usefulness is outpaced by vertex manipulation for creating such things.
• Cylinder is good for creating prisms that have more than 4 sides going one way. I use it to create 5, 6, 7, whatever-sided blocks.
• Spike creates a spike with the selected number of sides meeting in one point at the top(VERY bad for clip nodes).
• Arch creates a number of brushes intended to represent an arch, but is very inefficient for clip nodes and r_speeds and such when compared to vertex manipulation.

To use any of these modes, first decide what texture you want on the outside of the brush...usually "Null" is recommended as it doesn't generate any r_speeds until you texture it, plus you want all textures not visible null anyway. So basically you create everything as "Null", THEN texture it. Next, create a box on the 2d grids and line it up where you want the created object to be, and then press Enter.