Forum posts

I would use them but theyre too complicated for what im doing.

All i want is to have patroling enemies. There was nothing more that annoyed me in Half life than stationary enemies! You would walk round a corner and there would be 2 zombies just standing there facing you as if they were waiting for you. I never understood why they didnt have them moving around, this would of looked so much more realistic and it would of been more fun in some places. Instead of walking round a corner and seeing them just standing there like muppets imagine walking round and seeing a zombie walking away from you, he hasnt seen you yet so you can sneek behind him, but you got to be careful not to alert him. Thats my vision anyway. You'll find no static enemies in my game!

Anyway i guess i could leave it like it is. Its still better than stupid enemies that just look as if they were placed there and they dont know what their doing.

Ive decompiled the barney.mdl from pak1, but i cant edit it because the qc file isnt created. All im doing is editing the textures so they dont have the Black Mesa symbol on their jackets and the Black Mesa name on their security badges.

Is there a way i can get the qc file? And yes i do have the qc file chesck box checked when i decompile.

Thanks

Ive got some patrolling grunts using path_corners and they all work fine, but instead of them walking from one point straight to the next i want them to walk to a point, wait for a second or 2 and then walk to the next point. There is a key called 'wait here (secs)' but no matter what number i put in, including minus digits, they dont wait they just keep walking.

Any ideas?

I'll try that

That book is pretty freaky for a kids book.

But hey, im back home from a short break with my girl friend and im ready to get mapping.

But this is going to take so long!

Well i guess i'll be back here soon with another problem ive come across... Until then, thanks

Ive been making this little map pak project/mini mod thing of mine for a long while now. Ive got so many good ideas (well good ideas for me) for my story and maps and stuff, but im progessing quite slowly and map making takes along time. The annoying thing is that im doing a really boring part of my map at the moment and its quite large, so im getting tired of it, and i keep having all sorts of ideas for whats gonna happen later, luckily i write most of it down, but i was wondering how other mappers get motivation to carry on?

My only motivation is that i keep getting all these ideas that i think are pretty nifty and i think people might like my game/map pak so i want to finish it. But i dont think i'll finish it before HL2 comes out which means that when i do finally release it, no one will play it!

Just wondering what other mappers do to keep mapping?
And how long does it take to finish a map until your satisfied with it?
Whats the average age of these mappers?

Sorry, I know this totally off topic but im very curious, Cheers

Is there a way to have grunts and other monsters walking a set path before they are triggered by seeing you, hearing you, whatever?

I hate the way sometimes when you run round a corner and just happen to bump into grunts just standing there. I think it would be great if you ran round a corner and you saw a grunt walking away, and he hasnt seen you yet, then you quickly jump back so he wont see you and you wait for him to walk round a corner or something before you move. Im making a stealth section of my game and this would be real handy if you can do this.

Cheers

Whats so amazing about that?
Mine always says 1 sec??

But when i dont run VIS, my map isnt fullbright. Its still correctly lighted? RAD runs and says no VIS info, but its still runs and does the lighting for the map. It just makes RAD take a little longer, and i mean a little. More like 2 minutes more. Im just gona not run VIS anymore until the final version. But dont you think thats weird? :

Im making quite big maps and by the time im getting to the end of my map the compile times are bordering 2 hours! But once compiled the maps run fine, no frame skips. But it does get frustrating when all your doing each time you compile is tweaking small things like sound and lighting. The thing that takes the most time is HLVIS, the rest takes about 10 minutes whilst that takes up more than an hour and a half.

So what i did was i compiled without VIS running. I thought it did something amazing thats why it took so long, but i ran may map without VIS and it didnt look any different than if if i had run VIS. Obviously when i do my final compile i'll use VIs, but i was just wondering what VIS actually does?

Thanks alot, i figured it out thatnks to you guys! Cheers!

My cliche flaming truck blocking tunnel entrance looks good.

Heres may scene: Ive got a turned over truck blocking a tunnel entrance. I want fire all around the truck. How do i make fire?

I know its a sprite but im not too good on sprites and ive had a go at testing them but they look so crap. Depending on which fire sprite i choose, i can have one that no matter how you look at it its always facing you (hate that one! looks just like Duke nukem!) or i can have this edited one where its fixed, but it only faces one way. when i tested it i got the black background of the sprite. I tried making it clear like you do normally, didnt work.

Could someone give me tips as to how to make the perfect fire! please!

Thanks!

Ive got a map which is a black room, which sets the scene for my game. The player is unconcious and text comes up as if it were his thoughts. I then chnage to my first level where im next to a bed and the level fades in as if hes just woken up, looks great. But what i want to do is have the level fade in just that once. You see the problem i got is that when i go back to my first level from the second the level fades in again. Obviously i dont want this.

Is there a way i can stop it from fading in again everytime i go back onto that map?

Thanks

Okay, once again im sorry to bother you guys, but im having some really random problems with my level changes.

Ive managed to do the triggered level change i was pondering about last time, and it works perfectly now, so thanks for that, but now im having problems connecting my other maps.

Im trying to connect 2 maps, but sometimes it doesnt load and HL crashes. Sometimes it does work but i get stuck in the floor no matter how high the landmark is and other times it works but i cant go back into the level, it crashes again. And other time when i go back to World craft the changelevel entity has dissapeared and has just become a normal aaatrigger texture surface with no entity attached.

The weird things is that im not doing anything different each time, its completly random what happens.

What the hells going on????

Maybe not, but what ive just tried to do was load the map on the other side, if you cath my drift but that crashed as well so its probably something im doing wrong with the changelevel.

I dont know what though, hell i dont actually know what im doing right!

Thanks for the tip about the multi_manager! I went off and learnt about it and i think its really useful, especially for what im doing.

But i still cant get the changelevel to work. Its the last thing i target in the Multi manager, and i have it placed under the player so its basicly inside him. If i click use only, then nothing happens after my little seqence, but if i dont press use only the map doesnt even load! Says something in the console about couldnt load gearboxsaved(mapname).HL... Whys it trying to load a saved file??

Could someone please help me with this?

I also did some research into change levels. I was naive and thought that all you had to do was have a changelevel entity at the end of your map with just the next maps name in the mapname bit and then it would take you to the next map, right where the player_start entity is. I didnt know anything about these info_landmarks and stuff. So tyo help you answer me this is what ive got on the 2 maps:
2 info_landmarks with the same name - 28DL0102
2 changelevel entities one going to the other.

I dont know what im doing wrong, please help?

Its really hard to do this, I cant do it! Well its hard for me anyway!

I thought it would be quite simple just how you link them all together and how to trigger them.

Any over suggestions?

Please help

Heres what i want to do:

For my intro for my game i want it to be as if the player is unconcious, so i place the info_player_start in a very small pitch black room.

I then have some text from my titles.txt come up using env_message whilst i have a breathing wav playing.

then after the text has dissapeared i want there to be a 3 second gap then i want the level to change to my first level where it slowly fades in as if he has just woken up.

My probelm is linking all this together. Ive tried some things like having the ambient_generic playing, which triggers my env_message which triggers my trigger_changelevel box which is around my player, but obviously this didnt work. To be honest i dont really know where to begin

So if someone could help me please link all these things together i would really appreciate it.
Cheers

Ive done it now. What I did was save my map under a different name and then select individual things and delete them, then try and run the map, just using HLCSG and not running the map. This is probably the lonfg way of doing it, but it worked in the end. It was weird though, it was a shrub thing i had created, but what was weird was that there were about 8 on the map all copies of the original and only one was effected???

But thanks alot for that tip kol, i was looking everywhere hoping that there was an option that lets you find specific entity numbers.

Thanks everyone... once again!

how do i find it?

Okay, ive finally finished my first map for my little mini mod, for those of you who have been following and helping me. Ive done the weapon models and got them how i want, and im satisfied with everything else everyone has helped me on, thanks, but now ive got a whole new problem!

Ive got one of those 'outside error' errors! Ive looked all over the internet for things to help me but found nothing. The only thing i could find was stuff about how if your coordinates were 9000 then that meant you had a damaged brush, but it said nothing about if you had coordinates that were 10000! Ive tried everything, looking for leaks, holes, etc. I got bored and in the end put a huge hollow sky box around my entire map so that nothing was touching the outside. This didnt work either, and i havent a clue what it could be because ive done about 5 hours of stuff today and this is the first time ive compiled.

Heres my compile log error:
--- BEGIN hlcsg ---
Command line: C:PROGRA~1VALVEH~1TOOLSHLCSG.EXE C:SIERRAHalf-LifegearboxmapsOP4bunker
Entering C:SIERRAHalf-LifegearboxmapsOP4bunker.map

Current hlcsg Settings
Name | Setting | Default
--------------------|-----------|------------------------
threads [ 1 ] [ Varies ]
verbose [ off ] [ off ]
log [ on ] [ on ]
developer [ 0 ] [ 0 ]
chart [ off ] [ off ]
estimate [ off ] [ off ]
max texture memory [ 4194304 ] [ 4194304 ]
priority [ Normal ] [ Normal ]

noclip [ off ] [ off ]
null texture stripping[ on ] [ on ]
clipnode economy mode [ on ] [ on ]
onlyents [ off ] [ off ]
wadtextures [ on ] [ on ]
skyclip [ on ] [ on ]
hullfile [ None ] [ None ]
min surface area [ 0.500 ] [ 0.500 ]
brush union threshold [ 0.000 ] [ 0.000 ]

Using mapfile wad configuration
Wadinclude list :
[zhlt.wad]

0 brushes (totalling 0 sides) discarded from clipping hulls
CreateBrush:
10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...Error: Entity 58, Brush 0, Side 2: plane with no normal
Error: plane with no normal
Description: The map has a problem which must be fixed
Howto Fix: Check the file ZHLTProblems.html for a detailed explanation of this problem

Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-64)(10000,10000,-24)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-64)(10000,10000,-24)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-100)(10000,10000,12)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-100)(10000,10000,12)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-96)(10000,10000,8)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-96)(10000,10000,8)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-82)(10000,10000,-6)
Error: Entity 58, Brush 0: outside world(+/-4096): (10000,-10000,-82)(10000,10000,-6)
(5.49 seconds)

If anyone has any suggestions please say, thanks!

Man I am such an idiot!

Really sorry about this guys! I was forgeting to recompile the .qc's!

Ive decompiled some weapon models and ive changed some of them so that when i fire the laser model doesnt come up. Let me explain better:

Im changing the weapon models for Op4 to the weapon models from Action HL. When i first did this and ran the game i discovered that everytime i fired the model changed to the upgraded laser version of the weapon. After some tinkering i discovered that by editing the .qc file i could fix this. Ive done this with the beretta model and now im working on the mp5 model, but this one is different. I do everything i did with the beretta model but it doesnt work. What i do is delete the cmd lines about the silencer and laser then save, then export. This is what i did with the beretta. But when i do it with the mp5 it doesnt work, then i go back to see what i can do to the .qc file and the cmd lines i deleted are back.

Is there anyway i can do this?

Ive had a go but im not sure what im doing?

I tried to decompile the beretta model, but nothing happened, then whilst playing around i found a QC file or something, i had a look at this and it said stuff about the silencer and laser sight. So i deleted these and saved it. Then i thought maybe compiling the QC file might do something but nothing showed.

Please help me?

How do i decompile and compile?

Okay, i was so stupid!

I should of known this from back when i was 12! Just put the new ones in the models folder!!

Ive done that, but now ive got another problem.

The models im using are from the mod Action HL. The models work but on some of them when i fire the model changes to the laser sight version, you know, so the model becomes a different model in effect. Then i reload and it reloads normally, but as soon as i fire it goes back to laser sight model.

What can i do, im losing all hope of this little project of mine...

Im trying to make a SP map pack for Opposiong Force but i want to change the weapon models. Ive got everything I need, now i just need to know how to do it.

Ive tried creating a new pak file for Op4 but everytime i try and paste the models i want into it, it alwasy says invlaid filename.

Whats up with that?

Is there another way i can do this?

Im not too sure if that will work, but ive never tried it.

The reason i dont think that will work is because with CS i think you have to have areas where you buy weapons and stuff, so you cant just have the weapons lying around... Actually now i think of it, there is a way you can play HL using the CS engine, Ive done it before, years ago. and at the health and HEV stations you can buy your weapons, and you get money from the enemies.

So it probably does work for CS.

You can make Multiplayer mods single player!

All you have to do is make your SP map with the HL fgd and the mod fgd and put in monsters from the HL fgd and then put in the items and weapons from the mod fgd. It works really well, especially with the Action HL mod. Its really cool how the grunts and other firing enemies can actually kill you with one bullet to the head!

Thats why im making this map because the damage engine and weapons make the game so much more realistic but not like CS realistic, fun realistic. It also makes the game soooo much more tense!

Its real fun!

What im thinking of doing is perhaps making these SP maps with the Action SP engine, then afterwards i might redo it with the opposing force engine.

All i want is to use some enemies from Opposing Force. I was hoping there would be a simple way to make a Op4 map and then do something like run the map in Action HL, but now i think of it, it was stupid, i should of known that you cant do it without doing some complicated stuff. All i want to do is make a scary Single Player map for one of the best mulitplayer mods.

Oh well! Thanks for trying to help me!

Is there no simple way? Theres never a simple way is there...

I would really like to make this map with the enemies from Opposing Force, it would make my biohazrd storyline so much better, because the Opposing force game has 3 different zombie models and its even got this other more evolved zombie that runs and spits which would look so perfect for my game. But I really want to use the AHL system, that too is perfect and so much fun.

Just imagine like i do, diving round the corner in slow motion with akimbo berretas and blasting a room full of zombies and watch how many hit the floor before you do! Doesnt that sound so fun and im making a resident evil type story line, not actually resident evil though. You know.

So please help me! This games gonna look so dumb with just the same scientist zombie enemy walking around in the streets and woods. They'll look fine for the lab parts of the game, but the towns and outside areas will look dumb!

Thanks
Have a good new year!

Im making my single player maps for Action HL, but alot of the things i need are in the Opposing force game, like models and enemies, etc.

Is it possible to use the Opposing force fgd, HL fgd and AHL fgd, use what i need from both games and run the maps under AHL?

I cant see this working unless i do something like -game gearbox -game action?
Would that work? Or is there another alternative?

Would you recomend it?

I can see you can do things like fog, which i really want to do on my map.
But it looks to me like a new program to make maps with instaed of Worldcraft.
I dunno.

Oh, Heart of Evil.

Is that the SP mod set in Vietnam with zombies and stuff?

I think ive had a look at it before and i looked at the screenshots and thought it looked pretty tacky. I havent actually played it. Maybe i should download it and see what its like. But i havent got my ideas from that, if thats what your thinking. I just love things like resident evil and silent hill. I know theres a resident evil mod coming out but ive been following that ever since it was announced and i thinks its been about 2 years now. I got bored. Also they kept changing the models and their skins, and they actually got worse! Maybe they kept getting new modelers or something but it just started to look crap, but the maps looked quite good.

I edited the titles.txt and it works really nicely i think. It looked really good the way it individually faded in each letter. I slowed it down to make it look as if the player was reading it in his head. I really like it.

I managed to fit in all of this:

Diary Extract:

Day 26:
Its been 26 days since the
'accident' that threw this
town into total chaos.
The man I carried up here
from the wreckage of his
car is still unconsious.
If I dont leave soon to
get him medicine he wont
make it.
I hope this nightmare will
of ended by the time he
wakes up.

Day 27:
I hear them moving and
screaming during the night.
I pray they dont find us.
I must leave him now.
I put my knife in his
pocket, if he needs to
defend himself.
I hope this bunker will
protect him...

Sounds kinda gay i know. but that almost filled the whole centre of the screen. It was a perfect size. There was no problems.

What i did to trigger it was i put the book in the middle of a dark corridor with a flickering light directly above it to draw attention to it, and i made the book a button which triggers the env_message and it reads out the diary extract. So if you want to read books you have to press 'use'. I thought it worked quite nicely.

Also, Loque whats H.O.E?

Happy Christmas everyone

Im not all too sure if your all going to laugh at me for asking this, but:

Whats Spirit?

Ive seen the name around but ive never had an interest in what it is.

I had a go at that and i couldnt get it to work, but im sure i was doing something wrong.
Anyway, ive found something else, although i havent actually tried it yet.
Im writing my messages in the title.txt file, and then hopefully i'll be able to do it from there.

Im making a map for a single player level of the mod Action HL.
What im trying to do is make it so that when my player clicks on something, like for example a piece of paper on a desk or something, i can get a text message up saying what it says.
What would be even better would be to have a picture come up which looks like the piece of paper and have the writing on that.
So is there a way i can click on something and make a picture come up either for a time space of until they click off it?

Thanks
Merry Christmas

I found them too. There was loads of stuff that wasnt ever used in the game. And some of the sentences make more sense of the game and its story. I thought it was pretty cool. I wonder why they never used them all.

Ive tried and it didnt work.
With the zombies you dont have the choice of choosing what bodies.
But i did come across something which i thought was pretty cool.
I was going through the pak0 file for HL and i found loads of models that were never used in the actual game, but still had animations for attacks, deaths, movement, etc. I found 2 of these which would of been perfect for my game, they looked sort of like an evolved sheep with a head crab called friendly.mdl and another one which wasnt so good called kingpin.
I really like these models and ive been trying for ages, to cut and paste the model into the pak file but under another monster like islave. This actually kind of worked. The creature moved towards the player and tried to attack, but everytime it attacked no matter how close, it never actually did any damage.
So ive been trying to change all of the other monsters into this model to see if it works, but none have. Shame, they looked perfect for my map.

Well then, it looks like im gonna have to just make the best i can do with what ive got. I guess i can still have those new monsters on the map as monster_generic's. A good thing is that i dont have to change the pak, because theyre already there. Still might look good.

Thanks for all your help.
Happy Christmas

Damn!
I dont want to go through all that hassle.
I was hoping maybe there was a way i could add the models i want to the original pak file and call them the same file name as the original zombie but put 01 and 02 after. So that when i choose what 'body' to use when i crete the entity zombie on my map, if i put 3 it will create the zombie model 3, which would be one of the new models.
In my theory that works, but i cant copy and paste from one pak to another and everytime i extract a model it doesnt save as a mdl file, it just saves a . file.

Do you think my theory would work?

What ive got so far:
Im using Valve Hammer to make maps
Ive got the ActionHL.fgd and the half-life.fgd

All I really want to do is change the model of the normal zombie scientist into 3 other ones. They would have the same attack animations, health, strength, etc. just different skins. I know how to do this, but i can only make it so that there is only one skin. What i want is 3 of the same enemy that just look different.

Is there away i can have 3 of the same enemy without having to do coding or anything else i'll find complicated?
Thanks

Hi everybody,
Im very new to making mods and kinda new to making maps, but im getting pretty good pretty fast at map making, so thats fine.

Here's what i need help with:
Ive played the mod Action HL and i love it! And i started playing it single player one day because i was bored and found that this mods 'engine' so to speak, would be amazing for a single player mod! It has a great damage system which is realistic and fun, really cool weapons, but the best bit is that when you do the dives and stunts in single player it goes into bullet time, just like max payne!!!
This i had alot of fun with, i almost prefer it to the multiplayer game! I thought this would be great if someone made a single player mod just for Action HL. So i thought that i would be that someone. But i obvioulsy need help.

Heres my synopsis for my story:
Man wakes up in an underground nuclear bunker. He's been in there for 28 days. 28 days ago a virus was unleashed upon the near by city... oh hell its just like the film '28 Days later', but with small differences.

What i need help with is that i want to have the same zombies as in HL, but i also want the ones from Blue Shift that are grunt zombies, and maybe some of those evolved zombies from Opposing Force. I want them all to do the same attack, walk, etc. I just want a variety of zombie models.

What i also want is to have male assasins (from op4) as well as female assasins (from HL).

Now i know there is a way i can do this and its quite easy i think, but when i finish this i want to distribute it on the web. So do i have to use a SDK and make a new mod using the action mod as a foundation. Or can i easily do it by making my own pak or something.

Thanks for reading,
Please help me