Wad Files Created 20 years ago2004-05-30 04:25:27 UTC by esmajor

If I create textures, do I just create a seperate .wad file or should I add them to Half-Life's wad?

Also, How do I create transparent textures (ladder, grate, etc)

Seperate wad file is better, otherwise you have to distribute a wad file with Half-Lifes textures as well as yours.
Transparent texture use that blue colour I think.

transparent textures have thansparent spots in blue, and the pal. index of the blue must be the last colour in the pal

besides you have to add { at the begining of texture name!
(besides i dont really get it what is that "last colour in the pal", let tsay my texture is 128x128, then last colours cordinates will be 128 and 128 also?) or wtf "last colour means"?

You need a decent editing program like Paint Shop Pro (or possibly Wally) to be able to see the palette.

HL textures use 256 colors, e.g. 8-bits. The last color is the 256th color, number 255 since the first color is number 0.

When you paste your bitmap into a wad file using Wally, it's automatically changed to 8-bits. Wally will ask you to give it a name, and when you start the name with the '{' sign, the last color of the palette will automatically be made blue and reserved for transparant parts. If you have blue parts in your bitmap, it doesn't make them transparant since that blue is not the last color. You'll have to apply the transparancy color to those parts in Wally.

without the confusion, make the last colour in the pallette blue. 255 on blue and 0 on everything else. then add { to the start of the name. the blue will be tansparent of u give it the right settings on hammer.

In Wally the last color is automatically made blue when you name your texture starting with that {.

It's not the color blue that makes those parts transparant. It's the index of the color. Usually, when I create a texture I paint those parts red or purple. Only in Wally I repaint it with the last color of the palette. Why not first make it blue? Well, that can be very confusing... was this part the right blue (last color) or another blue? Get it?

So once I create my textures and my wad file, how would people play the map if I just sent the bsp file with the wad file? I asdsume they just have to put it in the directory where the other wad's go and HL will automatically detect it?

ALSO, what about resolution? (photoshop uses any resolution you want, I'm just wondering what res HL textures use)

Resolution is irrelevant. You should be working in units of pixels, not real-life units.

16 units is accepted by wally as the smallest, and other textures must be divisible by 16(e.g., 256x256; 48x16), otherwise you cant paste it.
just make a different wad.

Texture sizes are recommended to be powers of 2. Length/width ratios can be 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, and so on, although too high ratio's can give problems with some video cards.

As for distributing the .wad file with your level, you can put the line '-wadinclude wadname' into the csg compile line.

For example, to wadinclude esmajor.wad into your map (only the used textures from that wad are put into your .bsp), modify the line:
'$path$file'
into:
'$path$file -wadinclude esmajor.wad'

Does that replace the need to send the wad file???

yes. the wad is embedded into the bsp so you wont have to upload the wad. but if you want to share the wad then upload it together with your bsp.

That made no sense.

Okay.