Engine limitations Created 16 years ago2008-03-08 12:20:29 UTC by raver

Hello people,

I map for almost two(2) years on the HL1 engine. And I know, like you probably also do, there are allot limitations. But, now I want to start out mapping on the HL2 (source!?) engine. My question is: What are the limitations?

Some extra basic info is also welcome!

I dont know if there is a edit option! So I just make another reply under my first question. What are the basic HL textures? For example on the HL1 engine you got NULL, CLIP, HINT, AAATRIGER ect.

Just regular basic information to start out with!

• I just saw I cant edit my first post! Dont blame it on me! -

Your imagination.

GO!

Oke thanks for you wonderfull & quick response Madcow! You are truly a wonder on earth. Thank you so much, now .. Are there other people who are serious enough to answer my simple questions? zenk u

:'<
You made the cow cry.

NOW

There is one limitation.
Wide open areas.
Source just doesn't like them.

So, keep in mind when doing outdoor areas that there needs to be obsticles in the players way to prevent him from seeing too far.
Fog is also a overused but effective solution.

Else, Source is takes pretty much what the HL1 engine does, except 10 times sexier.

Oke thanks for you wonderfull & quick response Madcow! You are truly a wonder on earth. Thank you so much, now I mean it

haha, <3

Source has a limit on template entities. For example I had a river with flowing wooden blocks that acted as jumping platforms. They spawned in two pipes using a template entity which was triggered every 6 seconds. It stopped working after 15 minutes.

Source lights. You can only name oh so many. If you have too many named lights that are triggered on and off then cubemaps will look weird and Hammer will complain and you'll get weird lighting glitches in your map. Sometimes your map will not load at all.

Some of the limitations, especially based on brushes, are detailed in this article on the Source BSP format.

thanks you, and that brings me to another questen. What is/are "cubemaps"

It's an entity used for old graphics card. It creates a surface image of the shader, useful for water textures and reflective textures like metal.

A cubemap is an entity which takes 6 pictures and forms a cube out of them (sky box style)
And these pictures which the cubemaps takes are used as reflections on materials and weapons.
You can notice that if you holster the crossbow and start walkinga round with it the reflection in the scope sometimes goes SHWOOP and changes the reflection totally, this is when you walk into a new cubemap zone, and a new cube reflection is applied to the materials.

Very well explained, cowmoo. ^^

yeah but u don't need it with new graphics cards, doesn't it?

All machines utilize them in Source. There are no real-time reflections. Lower end machines use them in place of the calculated water reflections, but other than that high end machines use them in all the same places as a lower end machine. They are needed in all source maps, without them you get ugly material shading or worse.This is what a map compiled with HDR looks like when cubemaps aren't in place. Yikes.

That looks awesome, wtf you talking about?

omg, now I know why the revolver was looking like that lol. So where I have to put the cubemaps? all arround the map or on reflective surfaces?

place them at about player eye-level, so 64 units is good, in areas where things like light and environment are different. So indoors is easy. A cubemap in each room will do just fine. Outdoors you need to use your judgement. Imagine it as if it is indoor, section off areas that look different in your mind and place a place a cubemap in each "room".

Oh and Luke, that's a pic from a level I made as a joke. It does look pretty damn cool, doesn't it.

That looks awesome, sort of modern and surreal! Love it!