Forum posts

Got it working... its weird.

The icons it placed in my start menu and desktop wont work. they just leave steam running in th background. (not sure still, mighthave something to do with the "-silent" taged to the end of the shortcut, particularly if steam is set up to startup, check msconfig, startup, can see -silent at the end of the steam line). Anyway, if I right click any of the icons and select "pin to start menu" they will work from there.

Im not sure why, I dont care how, im just glad its working again.

Insane.

I checked the threat lists, I disabled and even tried running steam before I installed antivirus. There is a larger and larger # of people having this problem.

What bothers me is the lack of any communication from valve on the matter. A post on their forums saying they are looking at it, answer my ticket even, or anybodies posts over on their forums for that matter. Its pretty sad.

Funny how upset you can get when your game isnt available.

Already did that, no dice. Ive deleted everything off my computer. Reformatted the Hard Drive, fresh install of everythign including drivers.

I filled out a customer service ticket for help over at http://support.steampowered.com on the 17th. I also submitted info for registration to their forums at that time. I still cant post on the forums for help and they havent answered my ticket. THeir forums are filling up with posts from others having the same problem, but nobody from Valve will respond, I dont think they even have a clue as to whats going on.

Frankly, I hope valve really enjoys my $50, because its the last $ they will ever see from me.

HUGE thanks to everyone at TWHL who helped me get rolling last year with the hammer editor. Much thanks, but im going back to Unrealed. At least Epic's tech help responds and they have a phone # I can call with issues, like "the $50 product you sold me doesnt work at all."

peace.

I dont have enough money for the $10,000.00 Alienware pc I want... almost got the wife talked into lettin me get one of their 5k laptops though...

Just got a 512mg 8x GeForce 7600gs (from a 6200) and upgraded from 1gb to 2gb of ram. Now if I could only get Steam to load...

Ok, so last week I was working on a map on Hammer np. Saved my work, quit, and went to work. Came home, steam updated, and the window disapeared at about 30% through the update. Nothing.

I double click steam again. Nothing. I highlight the icon on my desktop and hit Enter about 50 times. Get a ton of windows saying "Steam is already running" and im going "WTF?". So I hit ctrl-alt-del and sure enough, steam is running, but i cant find a window for it. So I shut down the process and assume my pc is buggy, and reboot. Same thing.

Ok, virus definition update, complete scan, router ports, spyware, firewalls. No Dice. Switch it over from my ADSL to my Cable modem. No go. Set it up on my wife's pc. Works like a goddam dream

Ok, time to hit the valve tech help site. I click all their "click this to test this or that" and it will make Steam launch in processes window, but I cant see or do anything! I have been through all the posts, all the suggestions. I reformatted my hard drive yesterday. Yep, fresh clean install of windows xp, all fresh up to date drivers. Ive connected directly to my modem, no firewall, no router, no viruses, no spyware. I shut down every damn unnecessary windows process and startup procedure imagineable. Nothing.

Im gettin really really really bummed out here... been without for close to a week and the withdrawls are killing me in a bad way

I see a few others having this issue since the most recent update. Anyone found any solutions? For some reason I am unnable to post over on the vavle site, and they havent answered the question I ticketed either!

HAAAAAAAAAAALP!

Wow, you guys are fast. LIke mappers waiting to pounce!

I keep all my walls / floors / cielings etc. the same dimensions. Though I dont always work in the same grid size when adding or modifying them. This shouldnt matter too much should it? whether I make a 32 high floor in 16 or 32 grid?

I seem to have a hella lot of "filler" brushes haha. I think my problem is that this being my first level its more a compilation of alot of tutorials... I didnt really have anything in mind when I started. It wasnt until I was comfortable enough to do things myself without tabbing over to a website for instructions that I headed in any particular direction. I think next time I will have less "filler" brushes because I will have something in mind and partially drawn out before I begin. In alot of cases, my walls arent the same height, depending on whether they are beside or on top of the floor, things like this. I am sure I can go over it and delete alot and resize brushes as well.

I have no idea what the different file types are. A BSP is what I want to make to have a playable level right? What is a RMF file? Up to this point I havent researched any of this area of mapping. Im trying to keep this level basic and "out of the box" so to speak.

I dont play with hollowing yet... I would really really like to. I am accustomed to "hollowing" (subtracting in unrealed) but I really dont like how it messes up my brushes. So far the biggest thigns I have wanted to "hollow" out usually involve cylinders, and after brief tests it turns out really, really bad. I am sure hollowing has its place in mapping with Hammer or it wouldnt be provided as an option, I just havent found that comfort zone yet.

Can anyone hit me with a link to a forum post or tutorial anywhere regarding brushwork, and the optimization thereof? As my map gets bigger and bigger, and I add more and more detail to it, things are beginning to get a bit unweildy. Maybe just because of the way I kept building off of what I had or maybe because I am still learning how to use this editor, it just seems like I have my brushes all over the damn the place. I keep having to make alot of "little filler brushs" to fit into gaps, etc. Trying to keep things lined up is getting harder and harder. Any tricks of the trade to help keep all those brush's in check? :

Here are a couple of screenies of what I am working on if anyone is interested.

http://publish.shaw.ca/Maestr0

Yeah, I just found that quitting out and loading it all back up seems to fix the problem. Took me 3 attempts to get the "flat" shaded mode back

video problems

On the plus side, I guess I dont have to scrap my first level!

Ok, so a couple of days ago I ran into a problem that I havent been able to find a solution for. I compiled my level and started to run around and check things out a bit, when BOOM! My graphics go all screwy. I can see my gun, but the texture on it is gone. The textures for most props are gone too. When I change weapons or open the console, I cant see anything in the menu's either, just a bland greyish box where the window is. I can t ype in the console, but cant see the letters I am typing. So i figure, shit, what did I do? I dont see any errors, checking the map for errors shows notta, according to my log it all appears sound =/. So I backtrack... days worth of deleted and undoing and loading older versions to no avail. I figure I shifted a brush or something, so I check each brush, one at a time for alignment. No overlaps. Ok, this has gone too far. Scrap the level.

Lets start... smaller. So I begin a new level, very very simple. Just a big "donut" like hallway around a central room with 4 connecting corridors. Fine, its all good. build my level. its fine. cool, start adding stuff, np. build a skybox, its all good. it was fine hours ago. I made absolutely no changes at all. I run the map again a few hours later and bam... graphics on my gun and menus disapear again. All the textures on brush's are intact....

Help?

I will bet you dollars to donuts that was it exactly DarkKilauea. Thanks alot. Reading this post, i realized that alot of the textures I used do have reflective qualities and I only noticed them today. they look alot different than they used to. (I have used alot of tile textures thus far, and alot of them are really shiny today when yesterday with the old card they were a flat / matt / dull color).

Im going to go through a couple of cubemap tutorials again tonight and add them in and see how it goes. Thx much for the multitude of info Xysos212.

Another question though if I may :

When I used unrealed, (for Unreal Tournament, long before 2k3 or 2k4 were released) to make a "3d" looking texture like a tile, what I would do is often make a cube, vertex edit the edges to make a "tile". I would then texture it so it looked good, then I would crank all my graphics to the roof, load it up in game and take a screenshot. Using Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro I would resize the image, touch it up a bit, make any modifications I felt it needed, then save it as a file I could load into unrealed as a texture. I could then use this single sheet texture to give the appearnce of having 3 dimensions.

So now I am trying to build things in Hammer for a HL2DM map, and I am wondering if a similar process is possible with this editor? Can I take an ingame screenshot of something, edit the picture as needed, and load that up as a "texture" for use in the game?

I would like to continue using this method to give a false impression of there being things like railings, doorframes, room borders, etc., with 3 dimensions, but made off a single surface. (instead of actually having a doorframe, jsut have a texture that "looks" 3 dimensional).

Thx much in advance, and I sincerely apologize if this is covered elsewhere in the forums or tutorials. I have been reading the forums and tutorials, but its alot to ingest and I dont retain alot of information like this until I put it into practical application.

Ok, next problem.

When I got HL2, I was running a crap 128mg geforce 4400. Yesterday I upgraded my video card to a 256mg geforce 6200oc. Of course, the game looks entirely different now, but so too does my map

When I loaded up the editor today and began to work again on my level, I found that it lookst he same in the editor as it did before, but now in the game the lighting is.... way different. Everything is far, far brighter.

So will the lighting in a map be different for people based on what video capabilities they are running? How do you find a happy "medium" where its not too bright and not too dark. For my old card, the level looked quite dim, but now alot of areas are really, really bright. I can see alot of props alot brighter now (particularly toilots / sinks) and its kind of killing the "gloomy" effect I was after.

If it helps, I am using more light sources, but giving them a smaller light radius, as opposed to using one or two lights with a large radius to light a room.

Also on another note, when I build my map and go to test it out, the console in the game shows about 40 lines in red regarding cubemaps and "ignoring" certain faces. Is this anything I should be concerned about? ((I have not yet added any cubemaps, the opinions on where / when to use them seem to be split right down the middle, some say only with water, some say use them anyway)).

Ok, this is probably something really simple

I have placed a prop_static toilot's in the bathroom, but they dont show up when playing the game. They arent fading in / out, they arent showing up at all. start fade distance is -1, end fade distance is 0. what am I doing wrong?

Never mind, ill figure it out tomorrow. I set them to prop_static_multiplayer and they showed up... but fell onto the floor lmfao.

Ok, but will using the prop_dynamic actors bog down gameplay on a DM map? People are there to interact with people, not the environment.

Cubemaps: My map is a little hard to describe, but basically I have basically 5 rooms connected by hallways & catwalks. In several places you can see from one room clear through the next and into a third room. How far apart should I place my cubemaps so they arent "close" to each other?

Ok, so I have another slew of questions at long last

I have almost finished laying out the general "floorplan" of my hl2 dm map. I just have to add one more room and a hallway. So my question is, before I start filling my level with alot of stuff, should I make the "decorations" static or dynamic?

Should I make it so all the things like pots and pans and computer monitors can be blasted around, or should I just make them "solid" and otherwise unable to interact with them?

I know its cool being able to knock over and destroy filing cabinets, its neat to shoot a pot around through a cafeteria, its lovely to see the lights swing from the impact of a grenade, so on and so forth... but to what extent do you want to use effects like these in a DM map?

Also, I havent yet lit my map, or added cubemaps, or even textured it. But I have a question about lighting maps. I have seen in a lot of tutorials say: "Alot of people use a single light to light a room, dont do that, instead use points of light". What is a "point of light"? Does this mean use more lights with a smaller light radius around the objects that actually dispense light? (lightbulbs, monitors, etc.). Or is there an actual "point of light" actor that I need to be using to do this?

Finally, Regarding Cubemaps. I am to understand that these are to placed at player height in each main room / hallway in a map. I understand that these help with lighting and reflections. But, should I place these before or after I do the texturing, lighting and decorations?

Ok, I lied, one more question. Using the Hammer editor, what is the difference between a Team DM map and a DM map? If I make a DM map will it also appear in the Team DM server list? If so, do I need to (is there a way) to set the properties in the playerstart actors to determine which team spawns at which points? ((do I have to set it up so that team A only spawns from certain spawn points and teab B spawns at a different set of spawn points?))

Thanks much for your time in advance!

It isnt a matter of the clipping distance regarding my disapearing brushes. Most of the time it happens I am in 3d texture perspective and am near the brush, at certain angles it disapears, you can see through where it was and can not select it in the 3d window. So its not that the object is so far away that it is no longer being rendered.

And yeah I compiled it... finally saw the "do not run map after compile" checkmark.

Unrealed has leak issues, they are referred to as "HoMs" or "Hall of Mirrors". basically the same thing, it happens alot when brushes arent aligned right, or there is a gap in the level to the outside world, or when you try to do... anything

Ok, about the size of hallways and things... most of my hallways thus far are like 256 - 512 high, and almost all of them are about 512 wide. I have a few 128'ish wide hallways but they are only for accessing a few sets of stairs. I am trying to make a DM map, so am a little uncomfortable sizing it "small". I like having more room to work with... once you start decorating... things can get messy in tight places.

Ok, next question

The level I am working on I havent yet placed a player_start or lights or anything, so I havent tested it out yet (as I have alot of holes leading to emptiness I have to fill still). When I move around in the Hammer Editor occasionally I will see a brush "disapear" and I will have to move around the camera to get it to show up in the textured window again. Is this a sign I have a leak with that brush in particular? ((as I said, I have several leaks I have yet to fill, corridor ends / etc)). Or can it be a leak from somewhere else? Or is it not a leak at all?

Thanks much Seventh-Monkey. I dont think its something that is going to be a concern actually... so many ways around it. Not used to this editor at all. I was asking about overlapping brushes because I had made some rounded walls going into a wide hallway off a room by vertex editing cubes placed around a cylinder. The problem was that the room was made 1024 units high, and the hallway was only made 512, and I made the curved hallway pieces 1024 high. So i was going to cover up the top half of the room with a big cube (which I did) but the cube would have been sitting "in" / "on top of" (otherwise sharing the same space) as the 6 curved pieces. But i ctrl-selected the 6 curved peices and just shrunk / scaled them down to 512 high, and placed the block in the wall on top of them... something I am NOT used to being able to do.... The way I would have done it was to use the "hollow" function but I frickin hate the way it fuxxors the vertices and cant even imagine how hard it would make texturing a room.

Anyway so far I am having fun. Hoping to at least get one level finished.

Sorry, I have another question :

Can 2 peices of geometry be overlapping / stuck in each other or will this create errors in the map?

thx much for the answers!

Ok, I am new to the Hammer editor (having just got HL2). I have been building levels and things with Unrealed through Unreal, UT and UT2k3. This editor is ALOT different, and frankly im finding a few things confusing. I will try not to ask the same newb questions that tend to get repeated alot in forums. I have tried many many tutorials up to this point and can not find these answers anywhere.

First ~ when making a level, i see alot of references in tutorials to "sealing" your level properly. Some say do / dont use a big cube and hollow it, etc. All I want to know is there something special that needs to be done to "seal" a level? Or is it properly "sealed" when the box sides are all touching each other? Also, if you use a cube and "hollow" it out to make the base "playground" for your level, to keep the engine from rendering the outside of the box cant you simply use some of the dev textures designed to keep that from happening?

Second ~ Is there any way to "intersect" a group of brushes and convert them into a single brush using the Hammer editor? Example, Say I make a doorframe out of 2 kazillion cubes, is there a way to "merge", "weld", "intersect", or otherwise "combine" all of those brushes into a single brush?

Third ~ Alot of Tutorials are referring to "func_XXX" particularly when talking about "decorations" and things like pillars, pipes, ducts, etc. Is this something I have to manually put in to a console? (if so how do i get the console up in the Hammer editor). Or is it a setting or property that I can change? (if so, where is it).

Thanking you in advance for any help.