News posts

You have all been waiting for the competitions to get started, so I think you will jump at this opportunity.

There is a compo being held at snarkpit.com/pits/lazermaniac/news.htm

I expect one of our members to win this !

Oh...And get used to the Judging Criteria... It is similar to what we will be using this year.

A new tutorial for the New Year, well it is here in Australia.
Check out Spirit Guide by ministeve.

All the best to all the Members for the New Year.

The new tutorial on Tutorial Submission is the tutorial you have when you not having a tutorial

I have received two new tutorials, one from ministeve detailing the setup for Spirit and one from Steinin which brings us the 3rd part of setting up a mod. I need to read and format these, but don't expect anything too soon.

I decided to hold off posting news here until I'd got the contest results out. "What contest is that?" I hear you ask! I'm sure most of you will be pleased to know that that was the last contest to be held under the current system. The new system will involve the community more (yeah!), and will guarantee on-time results. That's about all that's decided at this stage though.

In other news...

Seventh-Monkey has just joined the ranks of the forum / MV mods, so watch out!

I've just emerged from several weeks of exams. They were the last ones I can at least pretend were a joke. Next year they get serious and not very funny. They kept me busy though, so to celebrate my newfound freedom (which will last six whole weeks), I'm doing some upgrading to TWHL. Due to popular demand, the forums can now be moderated, there's a user search feature, and forum search is under development. The menu has changed slightly. And how about private messaging?

Don't you northerners feel silly getting such short holidays at the best time of the year?

Ok, so December has begun and it is almost the end of the year...

There have been considerable difficulties encountered since the change of servers (and it seemed so good to start with:-) and for that I apoligise, not that I can do anything about it. But spare a thought for us as well, I can't get in to do Admin stuff as often as I would like because I also get the 404 error.

SlayerA is keeping an eye on the Map Vault, and I am following the discussions in the Forums.

Speaking of Forums, some people seem to have forgotten that it is not polite to intentionally Flame or use bad language. Remember that this site has been built by a community of people who prefer to help each other, instead of slagging each other off.

If you don't want to follow that simple guide line, then please take your comments somewhere else. I don't want to be forced to edit forum posts or ban members. I believe in free speech and hope that you all have the maturity and common sense required to ignore confronting posts.
As for the site and the problems we are encountering, please be assured that we are trying to rectify the problems and to streamline some processes for next year. More info on that soon.

A tutorial about Keys by Marlborometal has been posted for your enjoyment!!.

Don't forget The Sequel to Vassy's excellent Setting up a Mod tutorial called
Splash Screens by Steinin.

Finally,

The long awaited down and dirty guide to Changing Levels by Kol.

Just thought I would let you know that things are still happening behind the scenes at TWHL. The compo entries are in and Atom is looking at them as I type... or at least I hope he is

Having spent the last two hours catching up on forum posts, I wonder if we could try to keep on the topic a bit more? That is when you are replying to posts in the General Mapping Questions forum, I don't have a problem with the madness in the other forums, but some people would like answers and we used to be really good at doing that.

Also, for those of you posting images... any chance you could reduce the size a little, say 340x210. I might not have to get glasses next month

Having spent time doing Admin stuff, I noticed that some people were still posting under the tutorial forums. ( And why shouldn't they as we did ask them to, at the end of the tutorial

Only problem is that if you post a question at the end of a tutorial, it might not get the same rapid response that it would if you posted in the general forum.

Please help out by posting all questions in the Main Forums ....

Thanks

There has been a lot of activity on the other sites with regards to the theft/copying of the HL2 source code.
I am not going to duplicate the news, as it seems to be everywhere... but I am going to ask that if you know anything, or have stumbled across a site that is offering the code, then contact: helpvalve@valvesoftware.com

I managed to echo a news post... Arghhhhhhhhhhhh

Rather than waste good space, SlayerA's "Minimicus" has been reviewed by and given a 4 out of 5 rating. Check the review out at :
<A HREF=http://www.hangar16.com/Features/Reviews/HL-133_Minimicus_revu.htm> Hanger16</A>.

Well folks.... A new competition, Map a Movie! has been started. You have 30 Days to come up with the most mind blowing map you have ever made, based on the movie of your choice.

New tutorial from Vassy that let's you in on the secrets of the Custom Game setup, check out Setting up a Mod: Part 1

And if you have a question about a specific tutorial, could you post it in the General Mapping Questions forum until we get the tutorial forums sorted out...

Also, you might notice some new screen shots in the Map Vault. Some of the files are corrupt, some are missing or there is a chance that I couldn't download it because of one reason or another. If the file is there, let me know.

Yes, at last, we have a new forum system!

The transfer of posts from the old system went suspiciously well... I haven't moved the tutorial-specific forums yet though. I'll probably give each tutorial a thread in a special 'tutorials' forum, rather than have a separate forum for each tutorial. Coming soon.

There's a bit more planned for the new system that I'll implement in the next few days. Indicator icons, a mark-as-read system.... image bbcode ;)... and anything else anyone suggests to me

And the poll is over! The winner is fairly clear:

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Scenery</SPAN>
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<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">13</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Unused models</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="38">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">12</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Explosion sequence</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="50">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">16</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Specific entity</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="19">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">6</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Movie-based map</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="200">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">63</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Something else!</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="19">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">6</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

A contest will be launched in the next couple of days.

And last but not least Vassy has sent in another great tutorial : Re-Texturing Models. Worth a look even if you are a veteran mapper