Is it possible to join a brush entity onto another? Created 5 years ago2018-12-11 21:16:33 UTC by MOCOLONI

I would like to make a map with, let's say, func_tracktrain helicopters with spinning rotor blades. In the Source engine, this procedure is known as "parenting" (attaching), but since the GoldSrc one doesn't support it, I'd like to know if there's anything that comes close to the feature.

The helicopter won't be an idling one so it's not just a func_rotating entity that has to be placed above the base brushwork. I remember seeing a ZM video long ago where players were on a moving one, but I can't recall seeing rotor blades. I also hope it wasn't Counter-Strike: Source (which I'm certain).

I'm afraid that this would not be possible with the standard Goldsource engine. Spirit of Half-Life allows you to set a "Moves with" value which is a very primitive form of parenting. The only example I have seen of a helicopter in Goldsource made use of an animated rotor texture.

UrbaNebula said:I'm afraid that this would not be possible with the standard Goldsource engine. Spirit of Half-Life allows you to set a "Moves with" value which is a very primitive form of parenting. The only example I have seen of a helicopter in Goldsource made use of an animated rotor texture.

Perhaps I'll be trying to use an animated texture but it already sounds like a lot of work besides making textures with transparency. But still, where can I find the "moves with" value?

As Urby said, it's in the mod Spirit of Half-Life. In that it's just another attribute on a given entity. It's a fairly basic function, and doesn't work particularly well with anything more than the most simple movement.

You could do it by having a second train with identical movement and you would use either an animated texture with additive rendering or the X Y Z rotation option. Another hack would be to add a custom keyvalue "model" with "models/heli.mdl" or so

If you look at maps like the Infested series for Sven Co-op you'll see that it uses the "second train" approach. This does cause issues when one of them gets blocked, for instance the elevator in the first map can end up out of sync with the doors stuck closed or in the wrong place.

Jessie said:As Urby said, it's in the mod Spirit of Half-Life. In that it's just another attribute on a given entity. It's a fairly basic function, and doesn't work particularly well with anything more than the most simple movement.

Never heard of that mod so by "Spirit of Half-Life" I initially understood it as a very old or obsolete function, or something like that. Thanks for clearing it out!

Bruce said:You could do it by having a second train with identical movement and you would use either an animated texture with additive rendering or the X Y Z rotation option. Another hack would be to add a custom keyvalue "model" with "models/heli.mdl" or so

Yet another great idea I didn't think of (the 'secondary brush entity' trick). Thanks a lot!