Forum posts

Also never make a displacement surface into a func_detail. It stops your map compiling at all. BSP won't even finish. Thankfully the compile log points out the problem, but it can be annoying to find the cause because it tells you what the problem is but not where it is.

I've done it by mistake before, when grouping large numbers of things into one.

Hammer 4 is harder on the resources than HL2 is.

If you struggle with HL2, making anything more than a tiny map will be awkward, unless you are ultra, ultra effecient with your texturing and visgroups.

Thanks all

Rimrook, I agree with your point. Indeed, I don't deserve the luck I've had with Day13 and Day14, because although I am proud of them both, I've downloaded much, much better custom maps which I'm sure never got the same attention.

If anything your own work, or that of Kasperg or Rabidmonkey or any of the other legends that I aspire to around here, should have recieved this attention and not me. I'm pretty certain if any of the big names here played D14 they wouldn't be that impressed, indeed I myself am not that impressed with it any more. Like D13, it was a learning experience for me.

I hope you don't get too much trouble from anyone who might register here because of this, Seventh. crosses fingers But I also hope maybe the magazine might pick up on more deserving work as well.

Sorry for the double post strider

And the thing that pleases me is that I didn't send it to the magazine.

I replied:

Hello Robert,

Thankyou for your email. I am very pleased that you have noticed my work.

Feel free to use Day 14 in your magazine and coverdiscs. You did not really need
my permission (the mod is freeware) but I thank you very much for asking me anyway.
I really am grateful for your attention.

There is no copyrighted custom material in Day 14. All of the custom content was made by me.

All required credits are shown in the text file which is in the Day 14 download.

I don't have any website, but you could link to http://www.twhl.co.za/ which is the
mapping community which taught and inspired me to do all this.

I would like to see a copy of any article that is written about the work. Could you send me
a copy of the article? Electronic is fine.

Many thanks

Best Regards

<removed>

I just recieved this email:

Hi <removed>,

My Name is Robert Horn, I work for the german PC-Gaming magazine GameStar.
GameStar is the most important German PC game magazine from the IDG
company with a sold circulation of over 300.000 copies per month.
GameStar addresses the whole environment of PC games. The cover-mounted
CDs & DVD offer the reader an extensive collection of demos, mods, levels and patches.

This month, we found your SP-Level Day 14. We would be very happy if you gave us permission to put
your level on our DVDs. Also there will be a small article about it in the magazine.

For the DVD of the coming or of a subsequent- /special-edition we ask you to give
us your approval to use one of your programs (Day 14, Half-Life 2).

Please sign the following declaration and fax it back to the faxnumber:
<removed> as soon as possible. Alternatively, a permission by email would be fine, too.

One very important question is: Do you use any copyrighted material such as music oder pictures, that aren?t your own?
Do you have a website we should mention?

I hope this is the correct address for this request. If not, please
forward this to the right one or email me.

Best regards,

Robert Horn
<address removed>
Telefon: <removed>
Fax: <removed>

---

GameStar: 304.324 verkaufte Hefte pro Monat (lt. IVW IV/2005)
http://www.gamestar.de: 28.650.167 Page Views, 4.447.166 Visits pro Monat (IVW 02/2006)

---

GameStar: 304.324 sold copies per month (audited by IVW IV/2005)
http://www.gamestar.de: 28,650,167 page views, 4.447.166 visits per month (IVW 02/2006)

Yeah favourites is up and down for me too ..... but if you select View>Servers from the main Steam window, you will see that all your favourites still show up in there, and you can join them directly.

I can understand how fast vis could potentially cause this problem, but I've never actually seen it happen like that in my maps. Normally I get things appearing when they should not, as opposed to disappearing.

Damnit. A question I could answer really well, and you work it out before I get a chance....

Hehe

My room is coming along already.......;)

There's definately a Rimrook influence going on in it........

Impressive

If I give myself even just a few weeks, if I'm just making one room, I think I should be able to do something pretty special

voice acting won't hurt the performance of the map hardly at all, but it will increase the filesize of the download quite a lot

I may well steal a few choice pieces of architecture from D14 for it There's a few little bits I'm really really proud of.

You really want me to put a puzzle in it? How would it work, the player would come into the room and have to solve the puzzle to get out again?

Can I have a voice actor walking around my room?

Oooh I definately want in on this. Great idea!

How long do I have to make my room?

I'll send you a pic, soon....

They do look a bit over the top. What kind of system would require a pipe setup like that?

Oooh, that sounds interesting. And difficult.

The way you describe it sounds like the most obvious way to make it, I'll see if I can think of any other way, but right now I have no ideas.

I hope you get what you ask for satchmo --- if you ask me, it's a fair price!

/waits for someone to pay me to map something

/dies of old age

I've uploaded it, in the unfinished map section of the map vault.

I don't think I want to continue with doing it, so feel free to do what you like with the VMF's.

Even though they suck

Sure, I still have copies. I'll post up the VMF's up to the map vault for you when I get some time (probably in 6 hours time from now).

I have no use for them anymore. There's two map files, as I did the plane and the rest of the map in seperate files (didn't finish either of them though) but the basic layout is there (few slight changes from original) and it's all leak free etc etc.

I remade 747 for CSS and I was almost going to release it, but I felt my plane was not good enough so I decided not to.

I didn't model the plane, I built it in hammer, and although it looked better than the old CS's version -- it still didn't look very "Source".

I was disappointed cos I spent three days making it before I scrapped it.

Haha, I popped home at lunchtime and did another quick test. For some reason, everything was fine, even though I was running the same compile as last night.

I guess that last night, where I had been opening-closing-opening-closing both HL2 and Hammer for an entire night, had an effect.......

I've got a fillrate problem......Swap Buffers going crazy.

I've spent a whole day trying to find information about it and fix it. No luck so far. I don't have any water in the map, and I've tried removing all transparent objects and volumetric light, as suggested by several sites. No help.

Is the shader "LightmappedGeneric" - which is the default when using VTFEdit to convert TGA's into materials --- really expensive?

I have tried every suggestion I have been able to find so far, and the last thing I have left is custom textures. I have quite a few custom textures in this map, and they are mainly things like large pictures for walls rather than the walls themselves. I've got a few 1024x1024 textures in there

My question is --- could Large custom textures using the LightmappedGeneric shader cause huge Swap Buffer lag? Should I downsize custom textures?

Any help appreciated. I was going out of my mind with this until 3am this morning, and now I can't think about anything else.

Wow, that unusual huh?

I'll send them an email.

0.875075 3.246032 0.000000
0.875075 2.297225 0.000000
-2.299129 -1.983886 0.000000
0.875075 -3.246032 0.000000
make_triangles:calc_triangle_representation: Cannot convert

A new one on me, it doesn't seem to have any negative effect on the map though, It runs fine and I can't find anything really wrong with it.

The error occurs in the very final stages of RAD.

Anyone know what it means?

I did know about it appearing on some magazine coverdisc, but I didn't send it to them, and I didn't see the CD or what was written about the map. If anyone knows....let me know please! I'm pleased it spread so far though. I still get email about it. Thats really what made me start this.

PS Captain P - I've taken your advice about the light on the big symbol - I'm compiling the first test of it right now, so if it looks good I'll post a screenie shortly.

Thanks for your comments. I still plan many weeks more work on the map, so hopefully it'll end up decently polished.

And it has a nice skybox now too.....it's not in any of the pics as I'm currently working on it. I'll take some more pics in a few days.

Well, I've been working on Day 14 recently. I didn't want to give anything away before it was completely finished, but I'm afraid I've just got too excited.

I really feel I've taken a step forward in mapping with this one.

Here are some screenshots of my latest work so far.

What do you think?

I'm pleased with it

Well, as a test, I just deleted every info_node from a small CS:S map I made ages ago, and recompiled it.

Suddenly the hostages won't move But bots still work.

So, unless I am somehow a total idiot, you need info_nodes for hossies, but not bots.

Erm, you do need info_nodes .... without info_nodes, hostages aren't going anywhere! Satchmo, you surprise me!!!!

NinjaGrinch's link is basically what I was going to link to. All you need to do is extract the HL1 textures you want to use with Wally, and then create HL2 textures with them, using the methods detailed on that site.

I wouldn't use a trigger_hurt for this.....

I think Habboi is right, make everything you want to break into func_breakable entities. Group them by giving them the same names as you see fit. Func_breakable entities have a parameter which you can alter to make them invunerable to weapons fire, but you can still use triggers to break them. I can't remember off the top of my head what it's called as I don't have hammer with me right now. But it's pretty obvious.

Killing func walls will work too but they will literally just vanish and not break apart, doesn't look as satisfying.

/EDIT damnit, that post above this one wasn't there when I started writing this

Yeah Highlander, it can be done and it's not THAT hard, but it's still far from a one-click process. I'm working right now but later on when I get time I'll post you a guide.

Thanks Rabid, I'll make a little test map to play with it. Do I only need one env_tonemap_controller for the whole map? Or one in each contrasting area?

It's going well, I only began it a few days ago. I'm aiming for spookiness and to make it quite puzzley, and to expand the story a lot. I've completed the "intro sequence", and I'm just getting to the first real puzzle. There is still a heck of a lot to do.

Does anyone know much about the techniques for using HDR in Hammer, or know where there's a tutorial on it?

I'm sitting waiting for the update to finish now, and I'm wondering if the changes will affect 'old' maps. I started on a mapping binge* two days ago and I've done a lot of work on Day 14 already. Am I going to have to re-do anything?

I haven't been using the beta SDK, which in truth I only found out existed five minutes ago, so I'm hoping that had the HDR in it, and someone knows how to use it already.

• I go through phases of not mapping for months, and then doing nothing but mapping for weeks on end. I usually complete one project per phase......

habboi, yes that is one possible solution. However as things stand now, it's a lot of work to do that (you'd have to see the map) and I'd rather avoid it if I can.

Madcow, my problem isn't the ragdoll being pushed by the door as it moves. It's the ragdoll flying through the air -- and passing through the door as if it isn't there.

Kasperg --- func_wall_toggle gives the same results Thanks for the suggestion though, knowing what that entity does has given me some cool ideas for later on in my scenario

I'm seriously considering just redesigning that area now, might end up being the simplest way.............

PS I also noticed when browsing the forum that this exact topic has been brough up recently. Sorry I missed it, or I would have just added to the existing thread.

Ok, thankyou Kasperg. I am lucky to have someone as talented as you here to help me!! (you rock)

I will try that tomorrow and report back.

For now, goodnight.

OK I can try that, but it's something I've never used before.

So, what's the significance of a func_wall_toggle?

In a more direct answer to your question -- yes the player has to go through the door - but it opens at a later time in response to another trigger.

The door lets the ragdoll pass through it -- but the player cannot!!!

I've tried clip brushes, none of them stop a flying ragdoll.

Hiya everyone

I haven't been here in awhile due to life complications, however I have recently returned to HL2 editing and have begun work on Day 14 ..... I hope anyone who played Day 13 is looking forward to it.

Anyway, on to my point.

There's one point in Day14 so far, where an NPC is blown up by a explosive barrel via a trigger as part of a cinematic kind of thing.

The NPC dies when the barrel explodes (the player never sees the barrel or then NPC when it is still alive), and the ragdoll corpse hurtles into a wall right in front of where the player really is. It's quite scary and I'm proud of it. You have to see it to appreciate it though.

Here is my problem.

This all used to work perfectly.

But then I decided to make the wall that the NPC ragdoll hits, into a door.

It makes gameplay sense in this map, and I've progressed to a point where it would be a lot of work to make it a different way. I NEED a door there.

When the "door" was a wall, IE not an entity of any kind, it worked perfectly --- the NPC crashed into the wall and bounced off. Fine.

BUT

As soon as I make the wall into a func_door --- the ragdoll just passes straight through the door as if it is not there.

And that looks totally wrong in-game.

But now, I really need a door in that position.

Help please.

Although I am not a very good mapper, I am good enough to have checked the obvious stuff.

I have no idea why the ragdoll (which starts life as an NPC_METROPOLICE entity) will pass through a func_door, but not a normal brush.

Can anyone help?

.....erm I mean Revenge of the Sith. In Chinese.

Imagine if this was the first version you ever saw:

http://americaninlebanon.blogspot.com/2005/07/backstroke-of-west.html

Get more RAM. I have 1024mb and I still run out using Hammer.

So, you're heading to the airport and you realise you're late for your flight. Do you:

a) Speed up and try get there as quick as possible
b) Give up and change your flight

OR

c) Ring the police and call in bomb scare so your flight will be delayed and you can make it on time

URL of Full Story :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/4741965.stm

Some people eh?

Yeah upload it and I'll take a look tonight.

I can't help but grin.

I've had this when I've mistakenly used model textures on brushes.

I've also had it as a result of poor cubemap setup.

So I'd check those things first.

I've done this before, but it was awhile ago while I was still mapping for CSS.

The computer tries to generate NAV points for bots automatically, you probably saw it doing this the first time you ran it. But, unless your map is very simple, then it usually does a terrible job.

You need to edit the NAV information in-game. Unfortunately you can't just build your own NAV matrix from scratch -- attempting to do so will crash the game. You have to have the matrix generated by the computer first and then alter what it makes.

I've only got the basics of this so far, but you can seriously help your bots out a lot, even with this small amount of knowledge:

Here's a guide to what to do:

You need cheats enabled for this, so type "SV_CHEATS 1" into the console.

Now type "nav_edit 1" into the console. Close the console and look around. What you are seeing is the navigation matrix of the map, overlayed onto the map itself. If you can't see anything, quit looking at the sky. Move your crosshair over walkable areas. Yeah, that's it.

Those boxes are navigation boxes. They can have several attributes -- the only ones I know about are normal, crouch and jump. These tell bots that they can go to these areas, and recommends a course of action for the bot to follow. IE, in a place where a player must crouch under a half open shutter, you should have a NAV area marked crouch underneath that shutter.

Here are the commands (that I know of) that you can use to edit this mess:

nav_begin_area -- starts a new NAV box at the point your crosshairs are at. It's very useful to have this bound to a key.

nav_end_area -- ends your new NAV box. It's also very useful to have this bound to a key.

(So to make a new box, you point your crossghair at one corner of your intended box, use the begin area command. Then move your crosshair to the opposite corner of your new box, and use the end command. Voila! A new nav zone.)

nav_crouch -- marks an area as a crouch area

nav_jump -- marks an area as a jump area

(you must have the crosshair on your intended target box when you use these)

of course if you screw up, or youi want to get rid of some of the computer's mess.....

nav_delete

will get rid of a NAV area. Again you have to be pointing your crosshair at it.

Now you have to connect areas together. Connections are one way, so you have to make 2 connections between each area if you want your bots to be able to navigate both ways between them.

nav_mark

says to the engine "I want to connect this area to:-"

nav_connect

says to the engine "this area"

I hope that make sense. So anyway, go connect all your nav zones together.

Once you're done,

nav_save

will save all you've done. Restart the map, and hopefully your bots should be somewhat improved.

Hope this helped.