Forum posts

Yeah, we could make a plan on a Google docs with a hierarchical structure and the possibility to add comments. I can create it if that suits you.

Yeah we really need better beginner tutorials, the problem is that nobody has time to write all of that down. And any tutorial that explains everything people need to know will end up being very long due to how many terms there are, the amount of history, etc.

For now we really just need a starting point for beginners, not to make it comprehensive. I could work on it, but we would need to decide how it will relate to existing beginner tutorials and to Admer’s planned tutorial.

I’m joining late in the discussion, so bear with me if I say something already mentionned. I read the posts but I might have missed something.

I learned mapping at an age where I barely knew how to use a computer. When I was told to go in the "File" menu I was looking for it in the Windows XP’s Start Menu, I didn’t understand what the tutorial mean by "extracting" something, and it took me years to understand I had to compile a map to play it and figure out that to create a mod I was supposed to edit "liblist.gam".

The TWHL wiki is a great source of information, but as I think was already mentionned, it looks absolutely daunting to me and to any real beginner.

I believe it is crucial to have clear distinction between an all-encompassing introductory tutorial for complete beginners that assume no previous knowledge, and more specialised guides and other specialised articles like glossaries and entity references. This would help beginners know where to start, and more advanced modders know where to find the information they are looking for.

This distinction must be made clear in the wiki homepage (by displaying a visible link to the introductory tutorial). The current wiki homepage simply lists articles which would seem extremely confusing to any beginners. For instance, after being scared by the sheer number of available pages, they would click on "Tools" as advised, and find an enormous number of things they are supposed to download, not knowing what they do.

In specialised articles, it would be great to display a small banner warning readers that it requires some skills and redirecting beginners to the introductory tutorial). This might sound overkill, but for the minority of confused beginners I think that will be very useful, and it does not need to take a lot of space.

For me, most of the effort needs to go in the introductory tutorial.

The introductory tutorial

I believe tutorial, to mean an article that explains and teaches modding from the very beginning, is an appropriate term, moreso that guide and especially explanation. Guide to me seems more appropriate for more advanced articles on specific techniques.

The situation is very difficult for a beginner arriving on TWHL. For instance, assuming a beginner manages to access the GoldSource tutorials homepage, they might not know what GoldSource really is, what is WON, what is modding. Maybe they’ll think they have to first do the "modding in general" section, then learn programming, to finally be able to reach the part about level design. They will also be discouraged if they see the sheer amount of pages in the category at the bottom of the page, not knowing they do not need to read all of them. Even if they get to Introduction to mapping, the introduction is very thin. What does the tutorial explain? What is a level editor? Maybe the user expects the level editor to be in-game as it is for other games.

Content

That’s why we need a real introductory tutorial that would be all-encompassing and aimed at beginners (e.g. "Learn to create maps and mods for Half-Life 1 games"). This introductory tutorial would start by explaining for what games the tutorial is for (Half-Life 1, CS, Sven Co-op, etc.), what GoldSource is and why modding is similar on all GoldSource games, what modding is, and what can be done (creating maps, mods, etc.).

It would then link to the mapping tutorial (e.g. "Learn to create maps for Half-Life / GoldSource games and mods"), explaining what it will allow the reader to do. It would also link to the programming tutorial, warning that it requires C++ knowledge.

At least for the mapping tutorial, any IT skills such as extracting a zip file or installing a program should be explained. It doesn’t take too long, especially with one or two screenshots. Having a page that covers the essentials of using a PC, might be useful Solo, but it’s best to include its relevant content directly in the beginner tutorial (it will be easier to understand and apply), instead of relying on it as a requirement. Similarly, a very small introduction to GoldSource, describing it as a collection of files that allow Half-Life and its mods to run and handle its graphics, audio, and AI is sufficient, instead of a full-blown article on the subject (for the beginner tutorial at least).

Mabe this is what you mean by the "in the beginning" tutorial that you intend to create Admer? I think it would be amazing to have such a tutorial.

Navigation

The current wiki navigation can suit specialised articles, but it should be made simpler and more straigtforward for beginner tutorials. The tutorial starting point page should list all pages of the tutorial, and only those links, so as not to confuse or discourage the read. Each page should link to the next and previous chapter, as well as to the starting point page. This could be done in the website’s code or, more probably, directly in the article content.

Example

So, in the end, for the introductory tutorial, we might have something like this:

Learn how to create maps and mods for Half-Life 1 and GoldSource games (the introductory tutorial)
- What games is this tutorial for: HL, CS, SC…, what is GoldSource, what is modding, how to learn mapping (link to tutorial)
- Screenshots / links to maps & mods created by the community, for illustration
- Link to navigate to the mapping tutorial
- Link to navigate to the programming tutorial

Learn how to create maps for GoldSource games (the mapping tutorial)
- Link to the parent tutorial (the introductory tutorial)
- What is mapping, examples of maps, etc.
- Link to the next chapter: "Installing the map editor"
- List of all the chapters of the tutorial

Installing the map editor
- Link to the parent tutorial (the mapping tutorial)
- Why you need to download a map editor
- How to download and install a map editor
- Link to the next chapter (setting up the map editor)

Specialised articles

By specialised articles, I mean any article that only address a specific topic and requires some previous knowledge, which is what the current wiki mostly contains. I think the main issue is with the navigation that should be improved, maybe by improving navigation between categories, maybe by making navigation more hierarchical (displaying only the top categories in the homepage), and moving the list of all pages of the category in a separate page, maybe in the results of a search request).

This looks very inspired, I’m really looking forward to its release! I can only support mods that venture in original directions like this one.

My only complaint is that the mapping looks a bit rough around the edge.

Can we appreciate the fact that, without context, this post seems like a genuine question posted in a forum dedicated to private Osprey casual piloting?

(More seriously though, your video is unavailable on my end.)

The toggle flag should do that but depending on other keyvalues its behavior may change. Maybe create a small test map that illustrates what you're trying to do and what isn't working.

My problem was that the button could only be used once with the Toggle flag checked. I tried fiddling with the lip and texture but it didn’t help.

I did find out the problem after more fiddling though: "Delay before reset" must be set to a value greater than or equal to 0. I was setting it to -1 as I was expecting it to work like other toggle entities like doors. I’ve added a note on the wiki about this behaviour, I don’t think I’m the only one who wasn’t aware of that.

Reviving this thread, as I still do not know how to make a func_button that is toggle-able. Does someone know?

Look up func_train if you want a moving platform that doesn't rotate, or func_tracktrain if you want a train that can rotate or be controlled.

You’re probably already aware of the naming conventions used in the original WADs. Search for one of this terms and you’ll find textures corresponding to the category:

• generic: self-explanatory (vending machines, breaker unit, special glass...)
• glass
• w, wall
• out: outdoor-related
• flr, floor
• lgt, light
• ceil, ceiling
• crate, box
• btn, button
• trim
• dr, door

And a few others I forgot.

I would advise just leisurely scrolling through part of the wad when you’re looking for a texture (not necessarily the entire WAD). This will help you each time get a better glimpse of the available textures.

Certain mods like Blue-Shift excel in using the original HL textures in an elegant way. Other mods use them in a very original way for which they were not intended. My second advice would be to play maps and mods and take screenshots and good texturing choices.

Check the flag "Freeze player", it will prevent them from moving without making them cold or anything.

I would definitely side in favor of a Goldsource mod.

I would recommend looking into quality multiplayer mods, like Science and Industry, or maybe Bleach: Zanpakutou Senshi, that don't necessarily get a lot of attention. You'd probably need to get people to play on your server, asking them here is a good place to start. There's a list of mods on moddb: https://www.moddb.com/mods?filter=t&kw=&released=1&genre=&theme=&players=2&timeframe=&game=1&sort=visitstotal-desc

You could also change the mod every once in a while, see which ones "performs the best", so to speak.

I think Sven Co-op is doing okay in terms of servers, especially since it supports p2p. However, it would be great to have a server running maps from the TWHL community. It would give more incentive to mappers for individual projects and even competitions. And we could all play on it. By the way, did I mention I made a map for Sven Co-op ? 😇

I use button_target instead of func_button because for some reason func_button never works for me, i think its pretty bugged.

I did too, problem is button_target fire when hit, which can makes things confusing for the player if the button activates because of say a nearby explosion.

I don’t know... func_button that mysteriously stop working have been plaguing me ever since I started mapping. To this day I still do not know why. I’ll double check my lip and my textures...
I also once had a func_door_rotating that also stopped working, maybe it’s related...

What's your problem exactly?

Note that with Use Only checked, the player will need to press the Use key to open the door.

I too find that Goldsource hasn't lost its appeal. Welcome to TWHL, Frissi!

item_generic is Sven Co-op's entity for prop models.

Sounds like there is for some reason a lot of invalid geometry in your map. This, in turn, can cause leaks and, if I'm not mistaken, max clipnodes errors. Fixing the first problem could fix the rest
The three lines you're seeing are just the origin of you map. Hammer displays them on any map.
What do you see when you enter Alt P ? What does your map look like in 2D views?

Nice work. Can't wait for the rest of the tower to get 3D printed!

Noice noice! Thanks!

I don't know how I missed that, sounds amazing! I've discussed this with my... employers and they agree with me that it has limitlesssssssssssssssssss... potentialllllllllllllllllllll.

Looks great!

I first took the roomba for a barbell weight 😛 My phone makes images smaller.

That might be a whole lot to ask for, but did you consider adding support for converting Gimp’s XCF files too, as well as to automatically resize converted images to valid Goldsource dimensions (less than 256 and divisible by 16). Realistically though, this would just make things a bit more convenient.

That's great! I actually long longed for such a tool, good job Captain!

I’ve always restricted my reads to historical or technical books, or to any book with a practical purpose. For some reasons I tend to think that books better fit a "serious" use case (e.g. learning) because there are other medias much more suited for entertainment (videos in particular). But it’s actually been a very long time I’ve never read a novel or any other sort of book for that matter (comedy, sci-fi…). I’m completely unfamiliar with the books you mentionned Archie but their description makes me want to give it a go!

I've never been into audiobooks, do they have same impact as reading a book normally?

If we mean the same thing by "impact", I would say that actually they have a greater impact. The tone and involvement of the narrator in what he reads really adds something to the book. The downside of that is that if the narrator is bad then the audiobook will be terrible too, even if the book is great. But that’s rarely been a isssue to me, most poorly-narrated audiobooks were based off bad books from the start.

I believe the book you mentionned was the gulag archipelago? I’ve started reading it. I’m not sure whether his writing style is a bit odd or if the translation I bought is just badly done. Did you get the same feeling as I did?

My search for any thread in the forum mentionning the word "book" returned various results which unvariably were at least 14 years-old. Some of them were rather peculiar too.

So since it seems this is a new concept here on TWHL, and inspired by Striker’s last journal entry, I suggest we discuss our various reads in this very thread. What are you currently reading? What is your favourite book, the one that had the biggest impact on you? Do you also listen to audiobooks, and do you also fall asleep when you do?

Much like someone who asks a question just to be asked the same question in return and be given the opportunity to talk for hours, I will commence this fantastic journey with my last reads.

Well not really reads because I’m very much into audiobooks now. When it comes to books that tell a story, such as historical books, I find them to be a perfect fit. I’m using the Audiobooks app.

The Tudors - A fascinating book about how the offspring of an obscure Welshman and a widowed French queen managed to seize the throne of England in the 15th century. The book casts a new light on Henry the VIII and his reformation, depicting him as an impulsive and selfish tyran, while it partly rehabilitates among other things the Catholic Church of that era in England, which while being far from perfect does not fit the exagerated evilish descriptions taught today by mainstream or English-patriotic history. Certlainly changed my mind on the subject.

Say Nothing - Another fascinating but depressing book about the Irish troubles, read with a thick Irish accent. It’s hard to believe everything that’s in it since it resembles so much an action movie, albeit with a somewhat bad ending. The book focuses on the murder and disappearance of a mother-of-ten by the provisional IRA, as well as many other cold-blooded killings that were committed during that time, and on how their perpetrators are still escaping justice to this day. The book discusses the still ongoing tension between Republicans and Unionists in Northern Ireland and the infamous peace walls, the violence and paranoia that reigned in that time and the crimes that resulted from it such as the Corporal killings and Bloody Sunday, the use of informants by the British army and the role of paramilitary organisations in the peace process and finally, the price of peace.

The Triple Agent - Yet another depressing book about an Al-Qaida triple agent who successfully managed to infiltrate the CIA and blow himself up at one of their secret bases, killing 9 people (plus himself).

As for my current "read", I’m listening to a book about dirigeables, or "zeppelins", and to the reader’s amusing German accent. I hope this book will end well for a change!

Can't see a thing... :/

EDIT: Actually managed to see it, looking good! (and exotic to me)

Made very little progress on my Sven Co-op campaign lately (because of my free time becoming an increasingly sporadic resource), but I'm pretty proud of the "ceiling" I managed to come up with, even though it took me more than an afternoon:

I'm sorry to revive this thread so late, and I hope my contribution will not restart a heated controversial debate (in which case I let Penguinboy delete this post), but the reason for my delay is that I've been thinking about my opinion for the past few days weeks and I'm a bit concerned by what I'm reading.

AJ's claim that Freedom of Speech is often misinterpreted looks like a play on words to me. Terms can be defined in many ways but it was pretty clear from the beginning that what the uneducated such as myself mean when they say Freedom of Speech is being given the ability to express and discuss their opinion, without serious consequences, even if contrary to what the majority thinks (within some limits, of course). For this reason, I don't see the point of giving it a legalese definition halfway through the debate.
I also find meaningless the claim that Freedom of Speech does not mean speech is consequence-free. Censorship or harrassment are possible consequences that seem to fit within your definition of Freedom of Speech, as long as the government is not directly responsible for these.
And yes, as you said, TWHL is free to set its own rules because it's a private community. Which is exactly what it is doing, based on the suggestions of its members, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

I'm also a bit concerned about what Jessie is saying. You used the words intolerance, offensive shit and shitheads to qualify what Potatis was referring to as conservative Christians against gay marriage, or to the topic of gay men's blood donations. I'm not necessarily defending them but that seems like derogatory insults to me, which furthermore seems to imply that anybody against gay marriage or gay men's blood donation is an offensive shithead defending offensive shit. Unless you were referring only to people who reject tolerance and inclusion, in which case this language still seems unneeded to me.
And also I don't like the example Potatis gives for people who reject tolerance and inclusion. I completely agree with the message: people who reject tolerance and inclusion because of their religious beliefs or ideologies do not have their place on TWHL or in any Free country. But let's not forget prejudice and violence can be found in all opinions and groups, people against gay marriage are not necessarily disrepectful and not inclusive, much like people on the other side can lack any respect for people with different opinions. Similarly, not only gay and atheists are being persecuted in the world, but religious people as well. (which includes Christians) So, we should remain careful with the preconceptions we naturally tend to develop as human beings (and social animals) about people of a certain group, religion, or opinion and remember this doesn't give us the right to qualify the opinion they are defending with the flaws of some of their supporters, and even less censor the opinion altogether.

I'd also like to say I don't know exactly why TWHL needs a more formal code of conduct, though I can imagine there is a reason. I believe I took part in the beginning of the Discord (a rather fitting name) debate that was mentionned, if we are talking about the same, but I do not know of anything else that happened afterwards. (I don't think there was anything controversial with anything I said or anything that came before.) Not knowing this makes it a bit difficult to know why exactly we need a more formal code of conduct for such a small community, and what needs to be made more obvious. So, the draft copy of the new detailled TWHL rules seem good to me, but I do not know exactly what they're trying to address. I'll come back to that later in my post, I have a suggestion.

In an ideal world, everybody should be able to express their opinion, live in accordance with it, and discuss it, without fearing for their lives or facing judgement, prejudice, social exclusion, insults, harrassment, etc. Of course, opinions that contradict freedom of speech or any other fundamental right should be banned. The problem is that it can be difficult to determine what opinion is incompatible with the fundamental rights, because even this is an opinion... Add to that the misconceptions we all have about certain groups, the limited or biased informations we get about certain events, and it quickly becomes a mess... Some people might abuse of Freedom of Speech because they are simply be ill-motivated or misguided, without necessarily being aware of it. The context also plays a significant role, and for practicality this ideal world cannot be possible in our current society.

Currently in the West many new ideas are being accepted as self-evident by society and they that are becoming increasibly hard to challenge, with their opponents either facing some sort of censorship, social exclusion, or any other sort of judgement by the majority. Some of it is justified, because we do not live in an ideal world and there are indeed many dangerous people with dangerous ideas. But I also believe a lot of it is unjustified and unfair, caused by some people's urge for a meaning for their lives, or their impossibility to emotionally process certain opinions. It would be best if it was possible to live in that ideal Free country that I described above, but the current context might make it partly impossible. (Still, we can do much much better.)

The reason I'm saying that is because I've always considered TWHL to be a safe heaven for Free Speech. Some people put forward the fact it's a community centered aroung gaming, and not around political debates. That's true, but the very fact it is before anything else a community, rather small, centered around similar passions, with people knowing others relatively well, makes it in some respects a better fit for political and other kinds of debates than the comments section of a newspaper or a political forum, where people don't know other people (and don't care about respecting them or not), have misconceptions about them, and only participate to defend their political convictions. Comparatively, the very nature of TWHL coerces people to be more listening, polite and respectful. It did allow me to challenge my opinions much more than in any other place, either physical or online. We all love Half-Life, so for all of us there's at least one part of our brain that's functionning normally. This assumption is not one many people make about their opponent when they debate online or elsewhere. We all want this community to continue to exist, and I believe we kind of all like each other as well? All of these things make it a better fit for debates, and I second Dimbeak's request for a separate space for discussions and debates. Saying TWHL is not a place for debating is a bit like barring friends in a Pub from talking about politics or Football (*). For that reason, I think very clear rules for debating would be very welcomed on TWHL, such as: always back up your claims, don't just say "your opinion is stupid"... This sort of things. After all, all the problems the new rules seek to address stem from debates and political discussions, don't they?
Obviously, some subjects should be treated with more care than others, because some people might take it personally, such as the trans issue (assuming people want to debate this at all), but I believe discussions about this should still be allowed. Even if the majority takes something for self-evident, discussing it in a friendly atmosphere and with rules allows them to better understand what they are thinking and to what their opponent is thinking, to make sure they are not deviating from their original opinion, and maybe to make the opponent more informed and maybe convince them.

To conclude this record-breaking lengthy message, here's an extract from the book: Letters from my Windmill (Alphonse Daudet):

"Despite being neighbours, our keeper and he don't see each other. They actually avoid each other. One day when I asked the stalker the reason for this, he replied in a serious manner:

--It's because of a difference of opinion.... He is a red; I am a white.

Well, even in this wilderness, where solitude ought to have brought them close together, these two unsociable people, as ignorant and naïve as each other, these two cowherds of Theocritus, who barely go to town once a year, and the small cafés of Arles must seem like the Palace of Ptolemy to them, have managed to fall out about politics of all things."

(Not sure how good the translation is)

*: Disclaimer: I don't like Football.

You're talking about Raven Shield, Invalid Oskar Potatis? That's a good game Indeed! Even though its difficulty is what makes the game interesting because it "coerces" players to adopt a strategy, cooperate and remain extremely vigilant (something that is quite missing in Sven Co-op), the AI is sometimes unrealistically reactive. Sometimes I get shot dead immediately as I just pass the top of my head to take a nano-peek around the corner to see if there is someone.
It'd be nice to play Raven Shield with fellow TWHL members, I'm pretty sure it's possible to play it online.

Did you forget to make a full disclosure, Shepard?

I tried Parasomnia when it was released, but it was very laggy and buggy so I stopped. I should try it again now that it's on Steam but from reading the reviews it seems the author did not learn from the mistakes he made in A Fever Dream. They were many gameplay issues with A Fever Dream that ruined my experience of the game : monsters shooting at you through walls, same textures that mean different things, annoying noise made by monsters... Basically, a bunch of easy to fix details that could have made the difference between a frustrating experience and an enjoyable mod, which would have been the mod had the author made people playtest his game and paid attention to the feedbacks and reviews was getting.

When I commented on the mapping of the Parasomnia and offered suggestions to make it look better, his reply was: "We'll release the SDK along with the mod." As if the mod was so good already that he could expect fans to make a remake and that the mod could afford not paying attention to comments...

But I'll try it maybe these problems have been fixed by now, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere, voice acting and cut scenes of the first installment.

If you buy me the game and the hardware I will finish The Core!

Well I'm not mapping on Linux now but that's good to know! I'll try it next time I map on Linux.

Yeah JACK is basically the way to go. It's not perfect, but by far the best offer on the market. And it works on Linux! (So do the VHLT, so they seem to be very slow on Linux). I'd recommend you stick with the free version for now, the Steam version costs 10 bucks and it brings very little apart from useless distracting achievements.
For textures, I'm still using Wally. Half-Life Texture Tools seem to have a problem adding textures to an already existing wad.
To view models, I belive Solokiller's model viewer is the best choice: https://github.com/SamVanheer/HL_Tools/releases.

Looks great, agent Orange! Looks both new and Half-Lifey at the same time.
Tower submission can be much bigger than I thought.

Yes Indeed! Especially "cl_autowepswitch", "Fixed progress bar for individual files in resource download always showing at 100%", and "Fixed inability to reload a partially empty weapon after reloading a save game". These things always bothered me!

We hear a lot of people complaining about Valve, sometimes for right reasons, but what they're doing here is just great!

It certainly has something to do with being a male (considering the overwhelming majority of males in mass shootings), but blaming everything bad that happens in the world purely on a moral and educational system that would allegedly make guys feel like they have the right to commit mass shootings seems terribly baseless and simplistic to me.

I'd rather not have an opinion about the second amendment. That's not my business, I'm not in the US, plus the only view I get about the subject here in Europe is always the same. That being said, I probably wouldn't want it in my country. Now, it's still hard for me to understand why someone with such mental disorders was able to legally buy guns...

"wasnt there some guy who went all the way to another players house to kill him because of loosing in counter strike? "
Think that happened in France. The victim was stabbed. (But survived!) I even think that it took several months for the attacker to find his rival's address...

"Wait, there's a TWHL Discord? Where is it?"
There's a big link to it if you go to the homepage of TWHL 5.

I know very little about the way rounds work in CS entity-speaking. However, what is it you don't understand about multi manager? I didn't get what your problem is.

So it's an importer from VMF to Unity? Sounds very interesting, but aren't there already other tools that do the same thing?

On my screen it's so dark I barely see a thing

Unforeseen Consequences. #rebel

Tough choice, but UC wins this one for me. Both chapters are incredibly atmospheric, but UC is even atmospheric, has a gameplay, and was also quite shocking and scary the first few times I played through it.

I'm surprised C++ is so verbose and isn't equipped with a dependency manager.

I understand it's less verbose, easier to manage dependencies, and run on all platforms without recompiling. I hope it's not too much off topic, but why C# specifically? For instance, why not Java? (I'm just curious :p)

Not sure if it's the right place to say it (and sorry for saying it again), but I was never fond of the story of Half-Life starting from Half-Life 2.
Come on, the good human rebels completely united against an oppressive alien regime which invaded the earth, that doesn't sound very original to me. Not to mention Alyx Vance which is just the pretty tomboy, Dr. Kleiner, the eccentric scientist and Barney Calhoun, the funny, good-looking and courageous male hero… Just the standard characters you find in so many average / bad movies, including Star Wars 7 (COMPILATION_ERROR: TOO MANY ERROR TROLLS).

@SSB, YOUR IMAGE IS NOT ACCESSIBLE!!!
It fails to meet the WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1 and the WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.5.

(sorry, my web development internship is driving me crazy :P)

It's not always easy to fix, and if it's true, it could save wpolys quite often.