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You're missing the most important spec information, which GPU does the laptop have?

If he really wants a laptop as a workstation, tell him to look for a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad one, there are some models that are intended as workstations and should be in the same price range.

My MC username is the same as here.

My mc username is "torekk", but seeing you recommend to allocate 6gig of RAM I'm not sure if I'll hang around as my PC only has 4gig, depends on how the game runs for me.

That pirate ship is actually from Quark, if I recall correctly. Atleast I had this exact same ship in my singleplayer world, and I'm sure I didn't got Roguelike Dungeons installed.

I also didn't run into any problems regarding Quark and ProjectRed, though not sure if I got the whole "Suite", there's only 7 mods regarding ProjectRed in my mods folder.

Almost sounds like the mods I put together for 1.12.2 myself:

• BetterStorageToo
• BiomesOPlenty
• FastLeafDecay
• Forestry
• GalactiCraft
• Hwyla
• IndustrialForegoing
• GeneticsReborn
• Natura
• NoMoreRecipeConflict
• OpenBlocks
• ProjectRed
• Quark
• Realistic World Generation
• TConstruct
• ThermalDynamics
• ThermalExpansion
• ThermalFoundation
• UniDict
• Xaeros Minimap

Which funnily enough run better than most modpacks that include these, might check out the server at some point. I'd suggest adding Quark though, it adds some really useful things, but in a vanilla way: https://quark.vazkii.us/

JeffMOD said:Mine fell completely by the wayside and there's no way I'd be able to finish it before the deadline, so I guess I'm out.

That's kind of what happened with mine as well, but I still think about sending it in, even though I only got like 2 areas half-way done currently. Still better than nothing, right?

And there's still time left, who knows maybe motivation hits me again, I'll definetely have a check though to see if I got textures aligned right and such before sending it in. And I still have to connect the two areas together.

Use another entity called multi_manager with it's "multithreaded" flag ticked and which basically calls itself, two env_renders, one which "shows" the entity, and one that "hides" it. E.g. if you have want to toggle an env_sprite, set the env_sprite's rendermode to "Glow" and the amount to e.g. "255", then for the env_render that shows it copy those values and for the one that hides it change the amount to "0".

To create a multi_manager, just place it as a normal entity, edit it's properties, give it a name and set SmartEdit to off, then just add the name of the env_render that hides the entity as a key and for value give it 0.1(I read that using 0 can cause bugs), do the same for the env_render that shows it but this time set a delay of 1 (or how fast you want it to flicker). Then add another key with the name of the multi_manager and the delay should match with the last key you added. Then switch to the flags tab and tick the "multithreaded" one.

However I'm not sure if this will work with every entity and I read that using "multithreaded" multi_managers for more complex stuff isn't really efficient, as it basically just creates a copy of the multi_manager until you hit the engine's limits. There's a way to prevent this though: https://twhl.info/index.php/wiki/page/Tutorial%3A_Multi_manager_Looping_Made_Easy

An easier way to "loop" this would be using an env_beam, but it's "random": https://twhl.info/index.php/wiki/page/Tutorial%3A_Random_entity_triggering

@zeeba-G: That looks great for a fy map. The PC with a WIP screenshot is by far the best detail though, really love it when level designers include such things.

No problem.

Make the multisource activate a multi_manager, then just set the attributes of the multi_manager to the name of your trigger_push and adjust the delays.You don't need to add the "#1", that gets added automatically if you add the same target more than once, but it will trigger it anyways.

I'm really liking how this turned out so far, seeing as I had no idea how it should look like a few days ago.

@SourceSkyBoxer They aren't really prefabs as in .ol files, just a prefabs.rmf with all the brushes. Mostly func_detailed, but I kept some as func_breakable.

That's as far as prefabs go for JACK Hammer, since the prefab factory doesn't work there.

I think I got a prefab addiction...Mostly taken from the original half life 1 maps that I decompiled with WinBSPC, yes I know that creates some funky brushwork at times, where it did I either used the vertex manipulation tool to get them back on grid or just re-created it from scratch using the decompiled brushwork as a guide, e.g. I did this for the fan.

Besides the crates, those were actually the things I created first and then thought "hey wait, why re-invent the wheel?" and went on a hunt, might release this as a prefab pack as well afterwards for everyone to use.

Also still missing a lot of things, but I always loose track of which decompiled maps I already checked for useful things, and there's so many...

So I found this the other day: https://twhl.info/wiki/page/Tutorial:_Realistic_Shadows

Basically BEVEL from zhlt.wad is what I was looking for?

Going to try it out, maybe it helps someone else as well.

Edit: Well BEVEL does work like a blocklight texture, but that alone isn't enough for realistic shadows, still need to scale up the textures first.

@UrbaNebula You must've developed a decent work flow if you're able to pull of these in such a short amount of time. Wish I'd have that...

Because meanwhile I'm sitting here with this:

There's one important rule missing in my opinion, what about prefabs or stuff that we already did in the past, can we re-use those? Seems a bit unfair if that's okay, because some people obviously have a larger collection of "prefabs", so it's basically copy & paste for them?

But I guess where do you draw the line then, if you allow prefabs. Only those that got shipped with Valve's Hammer Editor?

I thought running the game from the Steam shortcut fixes the num_edict error, but apparently I ran into it as well. Just before the vent area with the monster. However what's weird, normally when I hit the num_edict error I get a message, this time I didn't. However after restarting the game I was able to get through the part without the error and without setting the shortcut parameter myself.

I also noticed you can reload the pistol, even if the magazine is still full. Not sure if this is intended, it doesn't remove any ammunition so it isn't really game breaking.

As for the balancing, I played on easy and had situations where I just said myself "oh come on, you gotta be kidding" because at times it felt too easy and then there was passages where I had to quicksave and lure enemys. Propably just my playstyle in general, I tend to stop every here and then to take a look at the level itself, which most games don't accompany for. One situation I remember was the vortigaunts at the stairs, think it was like 4 or 5 of them and I had to deal with them with like 10hp, found a healthkit on top of the stairs though. As for the zombies and headcrabs I usually just passed them.

I really liked the garage fight, since you couldn't just pass that one, same for the special alien grunt.

And not sure if this is just Half Life AI in general, but some times enemys wouldn't attack me at all until I attacked them first.

Edit: I also noticed some slowdowns FPS-wise, mainly in the huge open areas which is either just the GoldSrc engine or my PC I assume? AMD Athlon X4 640, 4GB RAM and a AMD Radeon 6870, I know that it's pretty much outdated and low end, if even.

Edit: There used to be some text here where I complained there's no note about "cg.dll" and "cgGL.dll", but I found out they belong to Spirit of Half Life.

This guy is a legend, Peter Hajba or better known as Skaven252. Former member of the Future Crew and as far as I know, did 2 tracks for Unreal Tournament and worked on Max Payne 1 & 2 and Alan Wake.

In general I think most tracker music has something to it that modern music is missing, propably the fact that it's created with love and passion, and not money in mind.

I think you misunderstood me, I know how the doors themselves work as func_doors, that's not the problem.

I'm talking about the elevator doors, those which are func_trains. The tutorial uses env_global and multi_managers together with a delay on the bottom multimanager to get the doors in sync with the elevator, while Richman uses trigger_relays, multi_managers and multisources and both his multi_managers have the same delay. I don't know how he gets the elevator that way to be in sync with the door, I bet it has to do with his func_train doors triggering all those trigger_relays that you can see in my journal entry's screenshot.

And for that I plan to make a flowchart, like this example from here:Edit: I tried, but I reached a point where even the flowchart would get too complicated:I didn't even include the delays or triggerstates for the trigger_relays yet...

I found this to be really helpful: http://the303.org/tutorials/gold_texture.htm

Thanks for the suggestion, I may look into at some time, but for now I'd like to stay as close to vanilla as possible.

And propably this is an engine glitch, however as you can see Richman figured out a vanilla way around this, so it is possible without any mods.

I'm still unsure if I shouldn't just copy his elevator and adjust it to fit my needs, seeing that he released some of his map files for people to learn and use them, as long as you credit him for his works. But then I don't really learn anything, I already know how to copy&paste.

I figured another thing about his elevator, his top and bottom multimanager have the same delays, while mine(and the one from the tutorial) only use a delay on the bottom multimanager, which I guess is what causes it to desync. However if I'd just add a delay to the top multimanager, that'd cause it to desync as well.

I guess I gotta take some time and see if I can create like a flowmap of his entity setup for the elevator, else I don't know how to understand it. I mean he's using 8 doors on the elevator and then 4 on each floor for the outer doors, all which trigger seperate trigger_relays on the path_corners they pass. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

So I wrote about this in the shoutbox already, but don't want to spam it and maybe creating this thread helps someone else as well.

I followed this tutorial: https://twhl.info/wiki/page/Tutorial%3A_Elevator_Doors_that_move

And the elevator works all fine for a time and then suddenly, the doors get out of sync and the elevator stops moving.At about 2:00 minutes in the video I switch to blood1 from Richman to show that his elevator doesn't bugs out, no matter if you move while pressing the button or not. I think this is the cause for the doors getting out of sync, but I'm not sure(well in the video the elevator works if you don't move). I know that the tutorial uses delays on the path_corners, I removed those and it still didn't change anything(well besides I had to get the doors in sync with the multimanager instead). The elevator from Richman however uses several trigger_relays that get triggered by the path_corners once the doors pass them, as seen here: https://twhl.info/journal/view/8958

But even though I've been taking a look at his elevator setup now for about 2 days, I don't quite get the logic behind it. GoldSrc's way of showing in/outputs, or better the lack of that, isn't helpful as well, in Source that'd be easy as cake.

First, thanks for the effort, much appreciate it.

I made the window several brushes some time inbetween testing, it was a single brush to begin with.

Same for the func_detail thing, I do know that you should turn these things into func_details, it was just for testing purposes that I moved them to world geometry.

I've been "mapping" since 2008, with Source SDK, GTKRadiant and Doom Builder so I kinda know the "techniques" that are used.

And yeah, the light_spot makes more sense beneath the hanging light, however I planned on using texlights for the lights and then basically just use the light entity to get that "extra" lighting. Atleast that's how it's done in Source SDK at times, if you take a look at the HL2 map files. I'm still amazed if I check a map in Hammer to see that they've been using like 2 or 3 light_spots in certain scenes, all colored differently with different angles.

However as it seems I have to stick to light/light_spot entities for the effect to work, because when I add a light_surface for e.g. the lamp above the door, the effect gets ruined again. Not worth it in my opinion, but I guess there's a reason why people plan out maps on paper instead of "building on the go", as that usually leads to such problems. Knowing engine limitations could also help, but oh welp, so much to read and I'm still not sure if I ever going to release a map, no reason in learning stuff if you don't put it to use, right?

This is the version with the single light entity: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eLcZRNXePdA3aUDMTg_hVJYW6UEsZaCT

The bars look different than in the screenshots before because I thought it could be the texture that's causing the problems.

I tried using a light_spot and a single light entity, this gave me the best result, but it's still far from nice looking and so I came to the conclusion that I'll just leave this be, as it requires more tweaking/fixing than it's worth it.

And yes, I could use translucent brushes for fake shadows, but I don't like that effect because as I explained earlier the player can enter the area and so would be able to notice it quite easily.

I mainly just wondered why the desk and shelves do produce shadows, even without tweaking anything, while the bars don't, but apparently that's just how lighting works and after all it's a game, no need for that realistic lighting, even though it'd been a nice effect.

Edit: This is with a single light entity:And with a light_spot:As you can see, the spacing is huge, but when I move the light closer to the bars they get too bright.

All hope is lost.

I removed the light_surfaces from the area and so there was just the 3 light entities in front of the bars:But sadly, not even that works?I give up on this lighting magic, guess it's just not worth it for a small effect that propably not even most players will notice.

Edit: Turns out the brightness was too low with 200, with 500 I get the bars to cast shadows, but the result isn't that pleasant so I guess I'll just scrap this effect or use SourceSkyBoxer's method with the BLACK func_illusionarys.

If it helps, here's how it looks in J.A.C.K.:And even with the -dscale 0.125 parameter set to RAD I just get this result:The bars were world geometry the whole time.

Guess I'll either scrap the idea or put it on hold for now, as I don't understand it.

Edit: Tried setting up Sven Coop's SDK to see if that would help, but it seems I'm even too dumb for that. I just get "access denied" error the whole time when I compile, propably because I'm using more than one windows user account. Even tried running Hammer with admin rights which doesn't work.

And that ladies and gentleman, is the number one reason why I hate computers in general. I just want to use them for work, not sitting there fixing stuff that shouldn't need fixing at all, but I guess one can only dream.

I am listening and do know that I could just "fake" those shadows. But I don't like the effect and the area is supposed to be entered by the player, so it would look weird.

What I'm wondering however is why does the desk produce a nice shadow, but the bars which are even closer to the light source don't cast any shadows or if they do it looks totally weird. I even tried putting 3 light entities directly in front of the bars, but the result looks just the same as with my last screenshot.

However in a test map with several different sized bars and just a single light entity, all of the bars produce shadows, even with default texture scaling and the same compiling options? Is there a leak or something in my map that I missed? Compile log.The difference here is that I use a "light" entity, while in the other map I use a light_surface. But as I said, I tried already placing 3 light entities in front of the bars, with the RGB value kinda matching the texture of the lamps(made a screenshot and checked the values for the brightest color by eye) and brightness set to 200, but it seems they don't work.Kinda funny that the shelves and desk are casting shadows, but the bars, even being illuminated directly, don't.

As the title says, the wonders of lighting. I'm basically loosing my head over this, just makes no sense to me.

Now I'm thinking J.A.C.K. either doesn't use VHLT, or I'm doing something totally wrong, because I tried reducing the texture scaling from the floor to 0.160 and what I get is this:I've tried making the bars func_wall with light flag set to opaque at compile try #1 and just leaving them as world geometry on compile try #2, both lead to that result.

Seems like GoldSrc doesn't likes me.

Edit: Tried decreasing the texture scaling for the wall as well, that just leads to those weird small stripes to appear on the wall as well. It seems now the bars block light, but not in the way they're supposed to.

Also, shouldn't the coffee mug get rounded by smooth 85? I guess I'll download VHLT/UMHLT and set that up in J.A.C.K. to see if that's the cause, I think it may be a problem there.

Edit 2: So I downloaded VHLT from here, set it up in J.A.C.K. using the "_x64" executables, but the result is the same.

As I said I already tried turning the bars into func_walls with the light flag set to opaque, it doesn't work. I'm using the default compilers that come with J.A.C.K., which I was told are VHLT.

I'm mainly just wondering what I did to get those blurry shadows(sadly I got no screenshot and wasn't able to reproduce it yet), because right now the bars seem to not block any kind of light. Not even when they're solid world geometry, which is really weird to me. Makes no sense, they should block light.

But I guess I could also use the texture thing, where you upscale the textures and then downscale in hammer. However I'd like to stay away from that kind of stuff until I'm almost done with the map, as it's kinda impractical to re-do it for every texture that I want it to apply.

I'm currently trying out different lighting setups and been playing with light_surfaces and stumbled upon a problem.I'd like those bars to produce some decent shadows behind, but no matter what I do I can't get them to block light?Things I've tried so far:

• turning the bars into a func_wall/func_detail
• setting it's light mode to opaque/opaque+embedded fix
• moving it to world(not even this did work, so I guess it isn't the brush it self)
• copying the bars(so it's a brush over a brush) and applying a NULL texture, but that only results in no bars getting rendered at all

Then I tried playing with the brightness of the light_surface, with no success. It's set to 20000.
I've also tried the grid map size setting of the light_surface, but that didn't seem to change anything besides the compile time.

I'm compiling with RAD set to -extra, -bounce 8 and -blur 1.0.

I remember while randomly trying different things that I managed to get the bars to produce some blurry shadows, but I can't remember what it was.

There's also supposed to be a glass window between the bars, but I took it out to see if that's causing the lighting issue, but apparently it isn't.

It's stuff like this that puts me off of mapping, things that theoretically should work as expected, but don't and you don't know why and googling for a solution is helpless, atleast if I try terms like "light_surface opaque" "goldsrc shadow casting" "goldsrc block light", there's tons of results if I e.g. switch goldsrc to hammer, but then it's all about Source SDK, I know how I'd achieve the effect there. Either increasing the lightmap grid, or using the tooltexture blocklight.

Or am I just asking too much from GoldSrc, as in the engine isn't capable of producing said shadows? I saw this screenshot the other day: https://i.imgur.com/tw0JaUp.jpg

I think the effect is done by a { texture set to solid rendermode and then have it's lightmode set to opaque. Theoretically I could rebuild the bars in 2D this way, but I'd prefer the brush based 3D way.

Edit: I guess I could try placing hint/skip brushes behind the bars, atleast that's worth testing.

Edit2: Either I did it wrong, or it did not work: https://i.imgur.com/J2CikSH.png

My guess: it's because the nodes are partially stuck in the ground. If I remember correctly, you can just place them like 32 units above the ground, atleast that's how the nodes are placed in c1a0(to be specific, it's 48 units for them in c1a0).

According to this, it's still possible via "duckrolling"? I have no idea how viable that is, sounds pretty hard to do.

Without a compile log, how are supposed to know?

@SourceSkyBoxer

So your rad line looks like "rad -fast -extra"?

I'm not sure if you know what -fast and -extra do, but:

-fast -full: determines HLvis compilation method (e.g. use '-fast' for testing; poor optimization but fast compile and '-full' for good optimization and slower compiling).
-extra : turns special HLrad.exe compiling, what makes all light look much better. Generally used for final compilling

https://sites.google.com/site/svenmanor/tutorials/advancedlight

So by telling hlrad to use -fast and -extra, it's kind of contradicting itself?

So I took a closer look at all the maps in the source files for Hazardous Course 2, and besides blood1 there was this piece of art:Does anyone know of similiar styled maps? I've seen Crack-Life already and obviously played Hazardous Course 2 and took a glimpse at it's source files, even though I still can't unterstand everything, it's really good inspiration for mapping, seeing how all the entities are setup.

Okay I didn't know that HLDM has the entities from HL, figured it'd be the same as for HL2DM where most entitities that were meant for singleplayer got removed. But even if HLDM has the entities, are they synchronized?

E.g. you have a trigger_once, could 2 players activate it or just one? That's what I basically meant.

I guess if they would, things like level changes would work as well.

Well apparently even after giving a func_rot_button a name(or does it need to be a global name?), setting a master(which is an existing multisource that gets triggered via an path_track's fire on pass) I still can't get it to be NPC only.

So my entity setup is like:

path_track -> multisource -> * func_rot_button

* actually there's a scripted_sequence which then triggers the func_rot_button, but that shouldn't matter?

Edit: Fixed the button, it was just a targeting mistake. I had the path_track trigger the multisource, which triggered the scripted_sequence, changed that so the scripted_sequence triggers the multisource and now it works as expected, the player can't turn the func_rot_button.

What if the player kills the NPC that activates the button, I read there's the "no interruptions" flag for that in scripted_sequences, which doesn't seem to work though.

Or I guess I could use environmental stuff, like putting the NPC in a room with windows and such so the player is less likely to kill him, but still could see he performs an action that's required for the player to pass on the level? Like opening a door as an example. However from a design perspective I dislike the idea of having a room that you can look inside, but not enter.

Edit: Well seems the no interruptions flag works for the time the sequence plays, however if I setup an idle animation and then have the NPC "teleport" to the button it'd be weird and I guess in the time he's walking there, the player could kill him. Just wanting to make sure I'm not introducing any game breaking bugs by relying on certain NPCs, guess I could just also warn people before playing.

I think the most difficult factor isn't mappers or artists yet, it's actually getting the multiplayer part done. Sure half life has deathmatch, but as far as I know you can't just take singleplayer maps, throw them on a HLDM server and play them with friends, since HLDM is missing all the entities from HL.

So you'd have to program that yourself. And trust me, programming multiplayer isn't fun. I didn't do it on my own but I've talked to a few people who worked on SA-MP as an example, a multiplayer mod for GTA San Andreas. E.g. you could just take HLDM and throw the entities from HL in there and then edit it all to work in a new mod, but how are you going to synchronize the entities and stuff? There's a reason why not so many games have a MP mod, and even if, it's far from coop.

I don't want to "bash" your dream, but you should be aware it's almost impossible for a single person to do. I assume you have no real programming experience as well, right? If you really want to do this, I'd recommend starting to learn C and C++. If that doesn't scare you away, working with network engines probably will.

I guess the only option to search a twitter profile is have all the tweets load by scrolling down and then using STRG+F, however that didn't gave me the desired result searching for: "gib", "test", "factory", "crab".

A long shot in the dark I guess since I do remember it being an unfinished map by someone, I'm just not sure where I found it... Even tried YouTube with "half life mod" and "half life map", because I think I saw a video of it before playing, but woah that's a lot of results and getting any more specific just leads to YouTube being weird by showing completely different stuff that has nothing to do with maps at all.

Seeing how many "gore" videos there are for brutal doom, you'd think someone would've atleast made a video of the map I'm searching and uploaded it to YouTube titleing it like "half life gore" or "half life gib", but nope. Ahh well, the joy of people not knowing how to utilize tags right, either that or YouTube just doesn't wants me to find what I search for... :/

Well you still could:

a) create a new texture, that has the decal already applied
b) try to use a detail texture as decal(not sure if transparency works for details?)

While a) would be preferred, because b) only applies to people who have r_detailtextures set to 1 which seems not many do.

I imagined this all would've taken me longer, but thanks to the prefabs from Victor-933 I could dive right into the "entity magic":I'm not sure how long it took me in total, but I've been sitting on this since yesterday and this would be my first real GoldSrc experience. Though I have some experience with Source SDK, GTKRadiant and Doom Builder/Eureka, which helped.

My plan would be to atleast make a map that features a train ride that ocassionally gets blocked by different events that the player has to solve, e.g. water blocking a passage or something like that.

And somehow I fail to use noclip in GoldSrc as you can see in the video, it happens all the time to me.

I remember it featured a vertical room with conveyors connected to it and at the end of those conveyors there were rooms with different NPCs you could slaughter in different ways. The conveyors would then transport the gibs all to the vertical room.

I've already looked through GameBanana, Snarkpit and THWL's vault without success of finding it again and searching without having the slightest hint of what the name could be didn't get me far, looking for things like "slaughter" or "test chamber" just leads me to either Scientist Slaughterhouse or different iterations of the actual black mesa test chamber. I did find a similiar styled map while going through the vault, though: The Crab Lab v2.0

And I found it, called blood inside of a map collection from Richman, the guy who did Hazardous Course 2