Comments

^ Thanks for the links! 😃

Whoa.. I'd really love to, but I'm swamped with code and models. But I'm making the best HLDM mod, so can relate

Thank you, Combined!

Again, we are very happy to see someone enjoy our creation so much. Cheers!

是的。
Yes.

Maybe a bit too far-fetched, but I think it would be cool to have macro previews. It was something that I suffered from back when I was trying MESS out. Obviously, editor integration would be needed for this, and while it could be feasible with TrenchBroom (it being open-source and actively developed), it'd still take a frightening amount of effort, I figure. Add its lacking Half-Life mapping support on top of that. And of course J.A.C.K. is out of the question.

Thanks for the journal, this helped me. Keep the good work and effort man!

An entity can be marked as 'primary' by giving it a _mess_merge_entity_master attribute. If a group has no master then the attributes of the first entity will be used, but it would probably be better to issue a warning if that group contains entities with different attributes.

As for the future of MESS, the big step with v1.2 is that instead of macro entities and a scripting language that is geared towards technical users, there is now a set of template entities and automation scripts that anyone can use. I intend to add and improve template entities when new things come up, such as Erty's func_illusionary + hlt_noclip 1 discovery. But I've also got ideas for new features, such as a geometry API that lets you generate brushes, and support for reading textures and models. Think of automatically covering brushes with thin extruded overlays with additive textures, or generating clip-brushes for prop models, or maybe even generating models from entities. Other ideas are things like issuing a warning if a func_ entity with a transparent texture doesn't have the right render mode or FX amount, or if a map transition uses an uppercase map name. Oh well, we'll see.

HULL0 doesn't use clipnodes. It's pretty much just the BSP model(s).

A short map with a range enemies to shoot at. They are little to no threat due to there being no node graph to guide the AI and a lot of them are stuck in the geometry. Certainly not worth a 70MB download since the one audio file included caused my game to crash to desktop until I deleted it...

Relaying other member's comment on this page: a top-down view of the setup was sorely needed. In that aspect the Tutorial: Total Map Optimisation Part 2 (VIS, Hints) page is much more helpful (and much more thorough tbh).

I found that compiling with VHLT will make sky lighting not work on sky brushes that aren't all textured with sky texture, making that particular brush not emit skylight.

It's also particular about having different sky "ceiling" brushes at different levels. Hard to explain why; I think it can only emit light from one side, and so having one sky brush act as both wall and ceiling of a skybox makes it only emit light on the wall side. So it might mean one sky brush emits light on only one face.
My solution was to have rooms with sky be at only one ceiling level each.

Where did hull 0 go? Aren't there four hulls? 0 is point hull, 1 is standing hull, 2 is big monsters, 3 is crouching. I don't get why the amount of clipnodes is 18/36 instead of 24/48.

I made a version with legends and emojis. The aim is threefold:

1. trim the wasted space the table headers are using, and give more space for the description column
2. Immediately infer the properties with emojis without constantly having to look up the yes/no columns back to the header way up the page
3. hopefully get this to display better on mobile

For now it's in this comment for my personal use. If feedback is favourable then we can merge this version into the main page.

---

Legend

Tool Textures

Image	Name	Z		W	E	S	LM	VL	V	H0	H1	H2	H3		Description
N/A	!cur_0	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in +X. [note1]
N/A	!cur_180	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in -X. [note1]
N/A	!cur_270	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in -Y. [note1]
N/A	!cur_90	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in +Y. [note1]
N/A	!cur_dwn	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in -Z. [note1]
N/A	!cur_up	Z*		🏢	❌	⛅	❌	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CONTENTWATER and func_pushable with a speed of 2048 units/s in +Z. [note1]
	AAATRIGGER	–		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	✂️	🫥	0️⃣	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Used for differentiating entities in the editor, and shouldn't be used on world brushes as it may cause bugs. VHLT strips faces with this texture, making it visually identical to NULL.
	BEVEL	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	❌	❌	0️⃣	❌	2️⃣	❌		Acts like NULL, but changes the clipnode of a brush in a way that any player approaching the brush will not be collide with the brush until their origin reaches the plane that the BEVEL face lies on. It can be used to eliminate exterior corner clipping bugs, and any remaining clipping bugs that the -cliptype precise CSG parameter may miss.
	black_HIDDEN	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	🌓	✂️	🫥	0️⃣	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Acts like NULL, but has a lightmap. Brushes with this texture can cast shadows.
	BOUNDINGBOX	Z		❌	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌		Similar to ORIGIN, but used to define a bounding box for an entity. Useful if you have a lot of complex, off-grid geometry and need a bounding box which is snapped to the grid.
	CLIP	–		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Creates clipnodes on all three cliphulls.
	CLIPBEVEL	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	0️⃣	❌	❌	❌		Acts like BEVEL but for clipnodes.
	CLIPBEVELBRUSH	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	0️⃣	❌	❌	❌		Acts like CLIPBEVEL, but affects every single face.
	CLIPHULL1	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	1️⃣	❌	❌		Creates clipnodes on hull 1, used by standing players.
	CLIPHULL2	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	2️⃣	❌		Creates clipnodes on hull 2, used by large monsters (apache, gargantua, gonarch, etc).
	CLIPHULL3	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	3️⃣		Creates clipnodes on hull 3, used by crouching players.
	CONTENTEMPTY	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	🫥	❌	❌	❌	❌		Removes collision from a brush and marks it as an empty volume.
	CONTENTWATER	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	✂️	🫥	0️⃣	❌	❌	❌		Marks the brush as a water volume that will not render anything outside of it. It also removes collision from a brush and mirrors the faces inside out.
	HINT	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	✂️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌		Faces with this texture will split visleafs, allowing you to optimize what parts of the map are visible. Other faces of the brush should be textured with SKIP.
	NOCLIP	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	✂️	❌	0️⃣	❌	❌	❌		Acts like NULL, but no cliphulls are generated. Similar to the zhlt_noclip keyvalue in entities.
	NULL	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	✂️	🫥	0️⃣	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Removes the face of a brush it's applied to, however clipnodes are still generated.
	ORIGIN	–		❌	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌		The center of brushes with this texture defines the origin point for entities.
	SKIP	Z		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌		Ignores the face of a brush it's applied to. Should not be used on world geometry except with HINT, as it may cause bugs.
	SKY	–		🏢	❌	❌	❌	✂️	❌	0️⃣	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Renders the skybox on faces with this texture, and emits light if all faces of a brush are textured with SKY and you have a light_environment or light_spot entity. Clipnode generation is optional with VHLT and can be turned off with CSG parameter -noskyclip.
	SOLIDHINT	Z		🏢	🚪	⛅	❌	✂️	🫥	0️⃣	1️⃣	2️⃣	3️⃣		Used to eliminate unnecessary face subdivision, especially on complex shapes such as triangular terrain.
N/A	SPLITFACE	Z*		🏢	🚪	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌		Brushes with this texture will subdivide faces they touch. It can be used to eliminate bad lighting caused by opaque entities.
	translucent	-		🏢	❌	⛅	🌓	✂️	👀	❌	❌	❌	❌		Removes clipnodes and mirrors the brush faces inside out. All @ prefixed textures exhibit this property.
Image	Name	Z		W	E	S	LM	VL	V	H0	H1	H2	H3		Description

Notes:

1. Rendered as water, and completely fullbright

Legend

I like It a lot! It's fun Messing around with func_vehicle

I want one as a pet.

Honestly, i enjoyed playing this Little map. Its pretty fun also. Guiding Barney off some rooms, especially the starting room where you find barney can be pretty frustrating, because there Isn't a sigle mode graph. Another thing is the tank: seems parked in a small inaccessible room. And the last thing: the ending. You end in a room full of crates. And nothing.
But to be your First map, i think it's pretty good and fun! Keep Up the good work man!

@sirYodaJedi:
In SC the black_hidden texture is not drawn. It's also hidden.

I kinda thought this might have a few jokes. It's presented as a troll map, but just lacks any attempt at lulz, earned or otherwise.

Architecture:
Extremely blocky. There are two clipped/VM'd brushes in the entire map.

Texturing:
Mostly aligned, but very strange choices throughout. Two separate wads for a grand total of two custom textures, both of which are somehow simultaneously overused and also completely absent.

Ambience:
70MB of completely unnecessary, base-game overwriting song ripped from, i think, Mario 64?

Lighting:
Floating point-lights with no source. Over-bright in most areas, plus eye-gouging colour clashes with the texture choices.

Gameplay:
Monsters stuck in floor (yellow dots), monsters clipping through walls, no node navigation. One vaguely interesting combat space in the whole map with your office cubicles that might have been fun if there had been nodes to let the monsters run around.

If this was a genuine attempt at a fun map, I apologise for being so harsh. But it needs a lot of work to be worth a download.
If it was a troll map... it's totally devoid of any personality or jokes.

If you're overwriting original game files (Suspense02.mp3), please package this as a minimod, otherwise the file will be changed in the player's base game.
Click here to see how to do this with no effort

I liked a lot playing this map! Actually, This feels really like a Lab!

I like It! Maybe Needs to be more complex, but thats a good work! Keep It up man!

Welp... there goes my free time

Thanks to all mappers =)

Nice prefab! A lot effort has putted into!

Dude, it's Amazing. It looks very good, i think its a good CS map. Keep up the good work man!

I see a lot of effort here! It's incredibile you did all the furniture out of brushes! Even if the map was short, i liked it

This map i tryed was well made. It has good and creative level design, with cool lighting! I like It a lot

Captain P said:
Hey Windawz, just wanting to let you know that this tutorial inspired me to add a brush-merging mechanism to MESS: https://pwitvoet.github.io/mess/covering-terrain-optimization.html#merging-props - so thanks for writing it!

Hey, that is wonderful!

Although I'm myself practically retired from mapping by now, and wasn't a big practitioner of mapping automation through tools like MESS, I found the tool remarkable and unique in what it does during my brief period of trying it out. In fact, I think that new mappers should absolutely try adding MESS to their compile process and utilizing the macros that it makes possible to engineer - it has great potential to reduce a lot of annoying and unnecessary work.

Brush entity merging is a really annoying technique to use manually: to reduce the amount of limits taken up by your map's entities this way, you have to sacrifice "readability" of your map source file. For example, it's rather time-consuming to take a single piece from merged entities and perform any individual operation on it. Your tool finally providing an abstraction over the technique gives me the hope that it can go as far as make this optimization zero-cost in terms of mapper's time spent, and this is extremely important - nothing kills the wish to map like the amount of brush paperwork that you have to do at times.

I'm excited to see where MESS will go in the future and would love to hear of any further improvements and new features!

EDIT:

Looking at the feature description, although this is a rather small detail that can be avoided if you use the feature carefully, I wonder how it determines the resulting "principal" or "primary" entity to merge all of the provided entities into. I think there should be a way to explicitly specify which one entity will serve as such.

It can make the map more refactoring-friendly: when you change things, some keyvalues may go out of sync with your changes and intent, and you may end up with bugs that you may not immediately notice.

The bsp takes a little getting your head around but its a real impressive design. I found a few vids on quake but the collison detection is way over my head

https://www.youtube.com/@MattsRamblings
PVS from the top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMeUxF4mHJA

You might find this code helpful.
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/32751/Half-Life-Game-Level-Viewer

And now it support languages using language.ini files.