Forum posts

The number of HL1 deathmatch levels is pretty limited, how about "any map from any game released before 2000"?

If it's working the way you want, I'm pretty sure you can ignore the sparks. Somewhere in the code you should be able to find the code that generates the sparks - it'll probably be wrapped in a "#IFDEF __DEBUG__" macro (or something similar). When you build the final version of your mod, make sure you unset the debug variable so the sparks go away.

I believe that the sparks also happen on NPCs when the current AI sequence (or whatever it is) is not valid. Sometimes it's an AI programming error, but sometimes the current plan invalidates and it thinks for a second before finding a new plan.

The Express Editions of VS are free and they work with the HL SDK. There's no need to pirate anything.

Did you run through the full install process, and did you get any errors? If it installed correctly, I don't know why it wouldn't be working... Maybe try the online installer instead? The installer is here: https://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7729279

You only need to download one of these, depending on what code you are using. The Github code should work with VS2010, so probably use that.

VS 2008 Express

VS 2010 Express

Here's the VS2010 release he's talking about: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/

You're talking about C++ as if it's a program, but Visual Studio is what you are actually talking about. Stu is right that it was built using VS6 (if I recall, with service pack 5 and another assembly language install), but it should also build in VS2008 (not sure about newer versions of VS) after you fix the errors. You can use the free express edition of VS2008.

(This is based on when I built the SOHL binaries, so sorry if it's different on the standard SDK.)

Most of the errors are pretty straight forward messages that say something like "cannot resolve X, use BlahBlah::X instead" - for those ones, just do what the message says.

Almost all of the other errors are re-using variables in for loops like this:

for(int i = 0; i < length; i++) {}
for(i = 0; i < length; i++) {}

To fix it, move the "int i" to its own line and just use "i=0" for both loops, like this:

int i;
for(i = 0; i < length; i++) {}
for(i = 0; i < length; i++) {}

Just make it 48 hours long next time ^_^

I just tested my ping, I get about 400 when the server is empty. I wonder how that will change when there are more people The hard part for me is trying to wake up at 6AM on a Sunday!

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think all guns should have the same point score... I put more faith in CSGO's existing gameplay balance than some community member's opinionated kneejerk reaction on the subject. Sure, an extra point for a knife kill seems alright, but anything else seems unfair.

Alright, this shouldn't be too hard for me, in roughly reverse order, let's go:

Facing Worlds - Unreal Tournament
Runner up: Grendelkeep (UT03/04)

Facing Worlds. The best teamplay map I have ever played. The positioning of the sniper rifle makes it easy for a team to get picked off, forcing the team to work together to counter-snipe while rushing the enemy tower.

The Camping Grounds (Q3DM6) - Quake 3
Runners up: The Longest Yard (Q3DM17), The Very End of You (Q3TOURNEY6)

Campgrounds is the best free-for-all deathmatch map that I've ever played. It's small enough that you'll run into enemies often, but big enough that you don't get crowded too often. The center of this map is the quad-damage courtyard and the jump-pad up to the rocket launcher, and it is heavily contested. Excellent use of verticality makes this map one of the best that Quake has to offer.

Amateria - Myst III

This map gets a spot simply for being absolutely stunning. Myst III is amazing in general, but this map is the best of the lot by a big margin. It has some great puzzles, all centered around a complex marble-track where large balls roll around like a giant pinball machine. The best part: after you solve the final puzzle, you get to ride inside one of the pinballs like a rollercoaster as it runs around the track, passing through each of your solved puzzles one-by-one. It's satisfying, glorious, and beautiful.

Surface Tension (the cliff face) - Half-Life

All of the HL series will obviously get a good review from me, but the cliff face would easily be my favourite map of them all. There's something really special about stepping out onto the cliff, climbing down and then back up again, shooting grunts and choppers, all while looking out at a vast desert skybox. An excellent map that gives a unique sense of scale, it was amazing when HL first came out, and it's still amazing now.

The Milkman Conspiracy - Psychonauts
Runner up: Lungfishopolis

This list could probably be full of Psychonauts levels - it really has a lot of really amazing and unique levels. "The Milkman Conspiracy" delves into the mind of an incredibly paranoid security guard, and the whole level is suitably delusional. My favourite thing about this level is the freaky gravity effects that are played with.

Locomotion - Uncharted 2
Runner up: Abducted - Uncharted 3

The Uncharted series is packed full of amazing cinematic levels, but Locomotion takes the cake. You start in the middle of a jungle in Nepal, where you climb onto a train headed to the Himalayan mountains. While you're fighting your way to the front of the train, you travel through a beautifully lush forest, then a tunnel, and then finally the snowy cliffs of the mountains. The entire time, the scene is seamlessly looped as the train moves through it, to the point where it doesn't even seem like a loop at all. It's one of my favourite cinematic gaming experiences.

(Yes, I chose six instead of five. Sue me!)

Alright, let's have a go at this. I'll try and choose characters who haven't already been picked:

Atrus - Myst series
"I realized the moment I fell into the fissure, that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned."
Theme song - Atrus' Theme, by Robyn Miller

Myst has some incredibly deep story if you are willing to read all the journals in the games, and the novels as well. Atrus, played by Myst creator Rand Miller himself, is the central character of most of the series. You learn about his childhood, his family, the worlds he has created, his mistakes and his regrets. Atrus is the central figure that connects all the plot points in Myst.

Kyle Hyde - Hotel Dusk series
"Maybe I can deduce my fist to your face. Bet that would shut you up."
No specific theme song, here's the full soundtrack instead

Kyle Hyde is a really cool character, in every definition of the word. The games are set in the 80's and ooze noir and hardboiled detective mystery from every possible outlet. Hyde himself is a former detective, now a travelling salesman, though that's just a cover to move around a lot and investigate stuff without being noticed. He's chasing his former partner, who disappeared after an undercover job went wrong. He's usually calm and collected, but he can get quite emotional if provoked. Whether he's helping a child solve a jigsaw puzzle, grilling a suspicious person for their hidden secrets, or drinking a whiskey on the rocks, Kyle Hyde does everything in the coolest possible way.

Lynne - Ghost Trick
"Oh, I just LOVE stomping out evil! It makes me feel so alive!!!" (said while dead)
Theme song - Lynne ~ A Targeted Redhead, by Masakazu Sugimori

Lynne is quite a light-hearted and energetic character who you initially assume will play a "hyperactive sidekick" type of role in Ghost Trick. She has a lot of amusing quotes and she's generally a really fun character. However, as the story unfolds, you start to discover that her motivations aren't as simple as first assumed, and she has quite a dark past that is revealed over the course of the game.

Mordin Solus - Mass Effect
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
Theme song - Mordin, by Jack Wall

Garrus is a cool guy and all, but Mordin has a more interesting backstory, in my opinion. He's basically a badass special forces guy as well as a super smart scientist, which is a pretty interesting combination. He's also quite morally ambiguous, which makes for some interesting dialogue in places, especially since most of his sidequests involve his participation in the krogan genophage.

Miles Edgeworth - Ace Attorney series
"I object! That was... objectionable!"
Theme song - Great Revival ~ Miles Edgeworth, by Akemi Kimura

In the first Ace Attorney game, Miles Edgeworth is an antagonist who you immediately dislike, but over the course of the trilogy, his character changes quite a lot. He goes from an incredibly arrogant and aggressive prosecutor who will do anything to win, to somebody who believes in using legitimate methods to persue the truth, even if that truth ends up being something he doesn't like.

What's great about Edgeworth as a character is that he's multi-dimensional. He prides himself in being a classy and refined person, but he's not perfect - he can get flustered like anyone else and can even get miserable and sulky at times. He'll sometimes get surprised by something unexpected and panic in court, resulting in him choking on his words and saying something silly. He's also a closet fan of the children's show The Steel Samurai, but tries as hard as he can to hide the fact, usually resulting in amusing dialogue.

His dynamic with detective Dick Gumshoe has a perfect combination of fondness and disdain. In the chapter you play as Edgeworth and in the two Edgeworth spinoff games, they make for a very amusing pair as they perform investigations, with Gumshoe playing the funny man and Edgeworth as the straight man.

Neat, good work guys. Congrats!

TF2 is Source engine which is not supported yet, sorry. You'll need to stick with Hammer for now until it's supported in Sledge.

It should auto-load WAD textures as long as you set up your game folders, here's an example (set up your steam directory in the Steam tab first):If you want to map for Source, it's not supported yet.

Edit: example for WON installs, you can also do this if you have a custom steam library folder instead of the default:

I'd be up for that. I wonder if anybody else would be though

My suggestion would be to start with something like JavaScript rather than C. C has some pretty difficult concepts that you shouldn't worry about until later (e.g. pointers, memory allocation). JS is easy to pick up because you can just open the dev tools in your browser and start running stuff.

The best resource I know of for learning JavaScript (and programming in general) is Eloquent JavaScript.

Once you're familiar with the basic syntax, you can then move on to any number of languages, because a lot of them share similar syntax to JS and C. Be aware that JS is a much higher-level language than most, so there will be some differences with how stuff is done. But the core concepts remain the same. I'd personally recommend C as a second language, and to avoid C++ because it has lot of extra crap that is quite difficult to understand (dynamic casts, smart pointers, templates, classes).

Most importantly: w3schools is widely considered to be an out-of-date resource for programming. It's fine if you use it every now and then (old information is usually still good information), but do not use it as the basis of your programming education. Find something different. I've heard similarly bad stuff about the "[x] for dummies" books, but even if they aren't bad, I wouldn't recommend spending money on a physical book when much better resources are available online for free.

I can't do it. I tried, but I cannot make something that I'm not ashamed of. I'll play the finished product instead

You haven't seen all the Source 2 stuff? Check out the DOTA 2 workshop tools, the new version of Hammer is absolutely amazing. I can't wait for a full SDK game to drop with those tools, it should be great.

If it was Source, you wouldn't get very many participants.

These great-looking WIPs are almost making me want to start on my map.

@Zeeba: tbh, I think that implementation is quite obtuse in terms of usability. If you didn't already know, if you hold down shift, only items that are fully enclosed in the selection box will be selected. AFAIK, Hammer does it the same way.

Ok, now you're just being a troll. Shut up, please.

Never seen that before, Tet. Maybe there's something wrong with one of the open maps? Try deleting the "session" file in the "%AppData%\Sledge" folder (this is the list of files to re-open on startup). If that still doesn't work, try deleting the "Settings.vdf" file (this is all the game configs/settings, so maybe back it up first).

If I use a billion entities in my map, is it reasonable to assume that a changelevel can be put either side in the final build? I don't want to mess up anybody else's entity cap.

Don't most people use multiple email accounts anyway? Create one for your online persona and use that...

If I recall, Bshift actually uses a custom version of BSP which is incompatible with Half-Life. I remember that decompiler tools like Bsp2Map needed to be updated to support the new format. It might have been done to prevent people "pirating" the game by playing it as a HL mod. I could be wrong, though.

Pretty sure SteamPipe Blue Shift runs as a mod, though. I wonder if they updated the HL code to support both BSP formats, or compiled/converted the bshift BSPs into the original HL format?

Hammer doesn't run on .NET, Alberto

Anyway, I thought you were supposed to run Hammer.bat from the game's bin folder, instead of using the SDK launcher. Is that different with CSGO?

Do other Hammer versions work for you? For example, TF2 or HL2?

PNG is good for computer graphics (logos, screenshots of text and so on), jpeg is good for photos and game screenshots. Bitmap is good for nothing.

No, "we" aren't even close to being past that problem. Not everyone has access to high-speed Internet, you know. And when the same image can be saved at 200kb instead of 3mb, it damn well should be a jpeg.

@Orange: Please don't embed bitmap images... Save a jpeg, bitmaps are 10 times larger in size :/

I'll definitely submit something, even if it's just the unmodified base map!
I updated the first post with the rules & link to the base map.

Sledge converts map texture coordinates into UV values (it needs them for rendering), but I don't think it's possible to always convert them back. The engine doesn't allow you to stretch the texture axes (you can only rotate, skew, scale, or translate textures). That is (as far as I know), you cannot do something like this:I'd be interested to know what Jackhammer's "UV Lock" does in this scenario.

This tutorial should hopefully have all the information you need about creating sound files for Goldsource: http://twhl.info/tutorial.php?id=98

You could use the auto visgroups to filter out what you don't want before selecting. I think Hammer has an option to only select entities, but Sledge doesn't have that yet.

If the allocated space is small enough, I'd give it a shot. As long as terrible mapping is OK!

Yeah, it's just hidden in a hotkey so you have to read the manual to find it. In Hammer you can "split face" in VM mode by pressing Ctrl+F.

He's probably talking about the message box that appears when you type the example given in the "Go to coordinates" box.Of course it won't happen in Sledge, but I'm sure some sort of (not stolen) easter eggs are possible.

There's no need for personal attacks, Bruce & Crypt. Keep it civil, please. If you can't have a discussion without resorting to insults, you shouldn't be posting.

Pretty much anyone can visit America (or any other country), you're thinking of a work visa which is more difficult to get. Some countries participate in a "Visa Waiver Program" with US, which requires a $14 "travel authorization" fee. If you're not in those countries, the fee for an actual visa seems to be about $160.

The idea of a meet-up is nice, but I can't plan that far ahead (and flights are quite expensive)

Surely it's just easier to create a large texture that already has the blending you want baked in?

"North American Flags" would be a fine band name, really.

Hosting it in Australia would give me a tolerable ping

Lots of programmers here! I'm also a programmer for a reasonably large corporation here in Aus. The stuff I work on is real-time client/server data capture - as in, one user drags an item in the app, and all other clients are automatically updated in real-time. I primarily work with C#, JavaScript, SQL, and Java. I have a BSc in CS, it was a 3-year degree.

Also...

4-year BS degree

He he he he he

I just finished a Bachelor of Multimedia Design at Uni.
...
I want a job in a pub.

The joke basically writes itself!

Yeah, all the wads in your game directories are loaded up automatically, but you can change what's loaded by using the black/white lists. There's a bit of text on the texture tab in the settings page that explains it in more detail. Sledge only includes wads that you actually use in the map when it compiles (same as the -wadautodetect in the compile tools, except it does it when it saves the MAP file).

The texture settings page could be better, I have a few ideas of how to fix it, so I'll see what I can do for a later version.

You might have put the wads you want in the blacklist instead of the whitelist. Try moving the wad names to the text box on the other side. Check all your config to make sure it's set up correctly. If it still looks wrong, maybe post the settings file on pastebin (and maybe the directory structure of your game/mod folders) and I'll see if I notice anything incorrect.

Edit: along with that, a screenshot of the (incorrect) wad list in the texture browser might help as well.

You might have forgotten to save your config... Go in to the settings and make sure they applied correctly. If it's still not working after restarting Sledge, try renaming the settings.vdf file in appdata and starting from a blank config (close the program before doing anything).