Forum posts

I mentioned some seats there, but I haven't explained these in detail.
There are basically 4 types of seats: Driver, Driver-Gunner, Gunner and Passenger.
Driver -> vehicle accepts the driver-specific commands from this seat. Can turn on the vehicle's lights (if any), can toggle the motor etc.
Gunner -> controls the weapon component of the vehicle.
Driver-Gunner -> combination of both. Think of the HL2 jeep's tau cannon.
Passenger -> the simplest type. Does not control the vehicle, only sits there. Can only switch seats and/or exit the vehicle.

The weapon components are the next thing to be done, once the engine and wheel components are finished.
Tanks will require a weapon component, absolutely.
Now, Driver-Gunner seats and Gunner seats are the ones that can utilise these vehicle weapon components. Such a seat has to be linked to a weapon component, otherwise it'd be exactly the same as a passenger seat.

Another question might appear, and that is: are seated players able to use their own weapons? I'll let that be an option. If you want seat A to allow that, just flip the flag for that in the init function.
You'll likely want to disable the flag for driver seats, for example, and enable it for passenger seats. But this is something I'll definitely work much later on. For now it's a concept.

An example of a weapon component is a mounted MG on a Humvee. Even stuff like a mounted M60 on a helicopter. Either way, these will have to be attached to seat bones, for the sake of simplicity. This may or may not be the final decision for that, but we'll see.
Basically, seats assume that seat bones are the last seats of a model.
So you've got the following
Bone 0 - root
Bone 1 - something
Bone 2 - something else
Bone 3 - seat 1
Bone 4 - seat 2
But if we were to add more stuff, eeeh, it'd get complicated. They will likely use attachments then. We'll see. shrug

Yeah, screw that last post. It was an April fools thingy.
Now back onto the serious stuff.

The CBaseVehicle class is siting at around 400 lines of code right now.
Since last time, I have added multi-seat support, seat switching, and better controls. But also, a very important change for modders who decide to use this tech one day.

And that is the following: creating new vehicle classes is super duper easy.
1. Define a vehicle class e.g. CVehicleVWGolf and base it off CBaseVehicle (however, it'll likely be CBaseCar, since each base is devoted to different vehicle types)
2. Define the VehicleInit() function
3. Let the base take care of the rest

And what did I do to make the two-seated couch work?
I just defined VehicleInit() like this:

m_iSeats = 2;

v_Seats[0].Init(Driver, v_Body.pos, 0);
v_Seats[1].Init(Passenger, v_Body.pos, 1);

Of course, this is just a part of the total function, but I'm planning to make it as easy as possible. For two reasons, really. Firstly, people would have to learn the whole vehicle system (and it can only get more complex in the following months), and that is not optimal for someone who just wants to create a vehicle. Secondly, I'm just too lazy to type 400 lines for each vehicle class, and you may agree that it's a bit inconvenient too. <w<

Either way, the new controls have arrived, finally. Up until now, my controls looked something like this:
if W -> push the vehicle in the direction the player's looking at
if A -> push the vehicle negatively in the X axis
if D -> push the vehicle positively in the X axis
if S -> push the vehicle negatively in the Y axis
That is, obviously, wrong (the ADS part) because those axes are world axes, not ones that are local to the vehicle.
So what I did was, I made it more standard, how you'd usually expect a car to be driven in games.
if W -> push the vehicle in the vehicle's front direction
if A -> rotate the vehicle's direction to the left
if D -> rotate the vehicle's direction to the right
if S -> push the vehicle in its back direction

All of this new stuff was programmed just today. Lastly, the seat switching. This one was the most tedious one, but it turns out I had a small inconsistency:

// Standard for all seats - always listen to unuse and seatswitch
fCommands[bi_unuse] = pSessilis->GetKeyButton(vehicle_unuse);
fCommands[bi_seatswitch] = pSessilis->GetKeyButton(vehicle_seatswitch);

This is what it's supposed to be like ^
However, I somehow placed the seatswitch listener into the Driver seat category, so only Driver and Driver-Gunner seats could switch. D:
But it was resolved in about 30 minutes.

Here are some videos:
https://i.imgur.com/5RWNHld.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/uRG4rmv.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/94xW83F.mp4

What's next?

Engines/motors. There's already some code, including the jokes:

void VehicleEngine::Damage(float hp)
{
    if (MadeInGermany)
        return; // engine was made in Germany, can't break

This is an actual part of the code and it'll stay that way.
Either way, the engines will be responsible for the vehicle performance. Think of RPM, gears, shifting and perhaps fuel if we want to be that realistic (though I don't really wanna add fuel). Either way, the engine will be damageable, and if it's broken, the vehicle cannot accelerate etc.

Wheels. Currently only the struct definition.
Wheels are interesting. They define the grip of the vehicle, and its handling. They will also be damageable, except the vehicle will still be able to operate after these are destroyed.

However, I will eventually create a new vehicle class to utilise all the 4 components: the body, the seats, the engine and the wheels.
A couch won't cut it. Once I get to the cars, then I can show the real power of the vehicle system.

QuArK has an FGD converter, I believe. So just download VHLT v34, and convert its FGD.

You're not disappointing anybody here.

To me, it just sounds like you weren't interested in any of this. But I'm likely wrong, since you looked like you were willing to learn.
You could've asked questions here, or even on the TWHL Discord, because people are out there, willing to help with modding problems and whatnot.

You need a func_tracktrain for that.

It has to face east, and you'll set its angles with the compass in the object properties.
Otherwise it should work like a func_train.

"my mouse gets locked in a box"

Turn off raw mouse input. This same problem is present in the latest Half-Life SDK.

Also, models can have as many polys as they like. It's just that you can have a maximum of 2048 vertices per SMD.

Now, I believe 1600 polys is a bit too much for a donut box.
My 2007 laptop will probably agree with me. But regardless, maybe your model is too tiny to be seen. This is just a wild speculation though. Blender units should, I believe, be equivalent to GoldSrc units. So you'd generally make a 24x16x12 box or something around those dimensions.

Or maybe it's so so huge, that you gotta zoom out a little bit in the model viewer. That can happen as well.

Does the model viewer display the number of drawn polys correctly for that model?

As for the cup, maybe the polys' faces are flipped.
Not sure how to do this in Blender 2.79 and before, but in 2.80, you gotta select the object, go to Edit Mode -> Mesh -> Normals -> Recalculate outside. Something like that.

I highly suggest you to enable backface culling in Blender's 3D viewport, so if faces are facing the wrong direction, you'll be able to see it.

Maybe it just needs a restart. I've done a quick test just now and when I configured the compiling tools, I went ahead to compile the map.Threw the same error.
I restarted Sledge and it worked.

Alternatively, if all fails, you can try out J.A.C.K. It's free, even though you might get confused seeing it on Steam: http://jack.hlfx.ru/en/download.html

Woah, I love those screenshots.
One of the screenshots does indeed look like Uplink.Now, it's been a while after I posted those screenshots up there. After some technical problems, I eventually got these hands to work.The Old Bridge in Mostar.
It's going to be in the intro, basically. (no, it won't get destroyed xd)Missing slide lock mechanism, magazine and trigger are unfinished. But it's all fine for now.
It works in-game, even:I'll likely fully finish the model after the competition. I don't have time for smaller details right now. :/The Zastava M70. Not an AK-47, but it's pretty much based off the design. I'm pretty much making the "as-is-poly" model and throwing it into the game, just as it is. No high-poly-to-low-poly workflows, none of that stuff. I don't quite have the time to get used to that right now, so I paint my bump maps manually. (well, all the other maps as well; never used stuff like Substance Painter)

The to-do list is pretty broad, but actually a tiny bit smaller than the "have-done" list, comparing the number of lines:

• make textures for the M70
• rig and animate M70’s viewmodel
• import M70 into the game and write a script
• convert soldier models from Battlefield Balkan, rig and animate
• write NPC scripts
• make a bunch of textures from existing photos, reuse older textures
• make materials for bullet holes, blood, and particle effects for gun smoke, explosions and whatnot (20%)
• make map 1
• make map 2
• make map 3
• make map 4
• make map 5
• make credits
• make music?
• make a full main menu UI
• make a HUD
• submit the game (15th May) - development deadline
• make a trailer and a presentation
• present the game (23rd May)

In a matter of 3 weeks, I did more than I'd do within 3 months. So I realised, deadlines make me run really fast.

I believe it's got something to do with this: (cl_dll/battery.cpp)

rc.top  += m_iHeight * ((float)(100-(V_min(100,m_iBat))) * 0.01);

So replace 0.01 with 0.02. I haven't tested this, but it should be that. It's around line 103, right after the #else line. Either way, the code for drawing that stuff on the HUD is there, so change it as you need.

You're welcome.

I recall doing something similar (increasing it to 200) in 2015. Basically, you'll have to change a line in weapons.h, in the HL DLL project.

Around line 95:
#define MAX_NORMAL_BATTERY 100
Set the number to something else you'd like. It will affect battery pickups.

For the chargers, you'll have to go to h_battery.cpp and manually change some stuff: (starting at line 164)

// charge the player
if (m_hActivator->pev->armorvalue < 100)
{
    m_iJuice--;
    m_hActivator->pev->armorvalue += 1;

    if (m_hActivator->pev->armorvalue > 100)
        m_hActivator->pev->armorvalue = 100;
}

I think that's about it.

I got you covered: Creating new entities

Also, here's a bit of material to understand the SDK itself:

Looking at a simple entity class
Creating a new entity class (my tutorial up there is this, but far simpler - I should port it to TWHL soon)
Finding your way around the SDK
Printing to the console with ALERT()
Engine functions
String handling in GoldSrc

The specific entity that you'll wanna make will need these three:

• traces
• some func_train code (imagine that our player is a func_train)
• some vector maths and logic

"QuArK can open .bsp as well"

I wanted to check this. It is true.

Thank you.
If I hadn't gone out more, I wouldn't have even taken these photos.

BUMP uwu
I haven't posted in almost a year here.Remember this photo?Here's the view from the other side (there's a bridge there too, you just can't see it in this photo xd):Ever since my 2nd year of high school, I've been going outside more, and I've been walking more. So I thought I'd take photos of things along the way:Green river Bregava. :3

Also, a bonus one:R.I.P. resistor, as part of a demonstration of power ratings, for my classmates.

And I thought I was presenting something complex.
But yeah, having 50 entities or so, each doing a part in the entire thing, it can take up more entity data in the BSP, entity slots, and it might have an impact on performance too.
Either way, can you program this, or should I provide you all the code?

ADM v0.1 tech demo

Today I am releasing v0.1 of the mod base of Utopia At Stake, called ADM (Admer's DevMod). It has got the following features:

• vehicle support
• FMOD sound system implementation
• Bullet physics engine implementation
• bump-mapping (I never thought I'd reach this point)

Download the tech demo right now:
ADM v0.1
Installs like any other HL mod, just extract the .zip into steamapps/common/Half-Life.
Should not work with pre-Steampipe versions, or rather anything lacking updated SDL2 and VGUI2 libraries. (sorry pirates and WON HL players)

The source code will be released some time later.
Have a good day/night, everyone.

RB-DOOM3-BFG?

Hot damn, very close. RBDOOM3-BFG has shadow mapping IIRC, and this one has it too. Buuut, it's not RBDOOM3.

@abbadon
But I don't like MS3D. :/

@Screamernail
Because I never worked in the Cafu engine and I don't know what it's like yet. I know Source and GoldSrc workflows but they're proprietary engines. :/
I was thinking if I should use Quake 2's idTech 2, or Quake 3's idTech 3, but then I realised, idTech 4 is so damn powerful yet so damn rapid for development.

Edit: now, onto the weapons...I haven't modeled weapons in a while. This Zastava M57 will probably be done by the end of the week.
Also, hooray, I finally made the switch to Blender. UwU
Now my Free Development Arsenal is even more complete. :3

"I think the best way to define grindable rails is point entities that define the rails like path_track does. When a player comes close enough you snap them to the rail and move them relative to the lines between points."

This. Except I had an idea about checking whether the player is touching the line between the two points. "Close enough" is a bit harder to do.

"Speaking of triggers, I believe with zhlt_noclip they wouldn't work because clips are their essence."

I was talking about the illusionaries. And here's the concept.
rs1 checks traces between pt1 and pt2. If the player, for example, jumps on it, then rs1 will take that player and check the velocity. It'll determine the direction of movement according to the velocity, and accordingly, it'll snap the player to that traceline, and move the player smoothly to either pt1, or pt2, depending on the direction.

As you can see, the minimum keyvalues required for the entity to work are the start and end path entity. It's quite simple.

Now, in this case, three things can happen:

1. Player jumps off the rail
This is really simple. Check pev->buttons and dismount the player, maybe add a number like 50 to velocity.z.

2. Player arrives at pt1
Same thing as case 1. We have no neighbouring railslide node, so dismount the player (also, don't forget to 'lose' the pointer that points to the player entity, cuz' the player no longer belongs to rs1).

3. Player arrives at pt2
This is where things get interesting. The entity loses control of the player, and tells rs2 to handle the player. Then rs2 will move the player to rs3, and if the player reaches pt3, they will be dismounted.

Now, I believe that this specific way won't work for multiplayer. :/
It'd take some extra work to optimise this for multiplayer, since you have to take multiple players into account and thus somehow point to multiple entities at once, usually done with a for loop iterating until it hits the max player count.

On another thought, maybe you could just take one func_railslide and let it take on an entire group of path entities? Kinda like a func_train.

I believe you can do that without triggers.
Instead of trigger_railslide, let's imagine a point entity called func_railslide. It sends a trace between one path_corner and the other. If the player is in the trace, it starts working just like trigger_railslide would.

I drew the concept on paper today, I'll explain it in detail when I get home.

400 illusionaries eat up 22.2% of clipnode limit

Even with zhlt_noclip 1? Hmm.

Doom 3's engine

You got a cookie!
Now guess the fork and you'll get a cake.

After 22 photos of my left hand, I managed to do it:Here are some earlier renders:Did the mesh in 3ds Max, did the texturing in GIMP, and the last touches in Blender.
This is gonna be used in my game about the Bosnian War. I had to make something to replace these hands which came with a starter asset pack:( Guess the engine and you'll get a cookie. )

SoHL can be pretty unstable to work with sometimes, at least in the latter releases, as far as I've seen.

Not doable unless you code it into the engine, and I don't see that being an easy task either.

into the game*
We don't have access to the engine. XD

BUT, it's possible. And here's one of my ideas. Defining an entrance trigger for the slide, and using path_corner entities to slide between. Then simply interpolate the player's position to the next path_corner, depending on what they're facing, and what they're closest to. It'd take some maths and time, but it's certainly possible.

Essentially, you'll get some sort of trigger_railslide entity, which detects whether a player is inside, and when the player enters it, it'll move the player as if the player were a func_train. Then, it checks which path_corner the player is closest to, and it takes the player's original position, and interpolates between that and the path_corner's, so that the entrance could be smooth and arbitrary.
I'd do a proof of concept (this stuff requires coding just one entity), but it's 01:24 here, so. :/

Don't angles work on func_wall too?
It's a very old and useful mapping trick.

I had done some testing, and it seems that J.A.C.K.'s UV-lock works best with triangles (was mentioned briefly in my ATC tutorial). But ONLY if you move the vertices in a single axis, and nudge them with arrow keys. Otherwise it's gonna be a load of texture baloney.

So yeah, either skew with the select tool, or nudge vertices carefully if you're using triangles.
ToTac has got some really neat guides that rely on the UV lock, actually. The thing is, the texture scale gets messed up, but the projection angles are right! This needs some more studying and documentation.

Also, do NOT use the clipping tool while the UV lock is on. It's gonna screw up the textures because it doesn't know how to project them.

Just toggle it, and skew the brush. It's like an additional texture lock.
Otherwise, you gotta use that method which may or may not work. xd

From what I see, there is no other way. If you use J.A.C.K., there's the UV lock option: you can just skew a brush and it'll skew the texture properly in most cases.
In some Radiant editors (you're very likely not using these), there are actual UV map editors, but they work the best with triangles and (not a GoldSrc thing) patches.

It's possible to detect if the game window has focus with SDL2

Yesss, that's exactly what I was thinking about!

On other OSes lile Linux, you will likely need a soundfont first.

GASP I almost forgot.
I gotta try compiling my mod's code for Linux one day. It's gonna be one hell of a ride IMO.

100% because I can.

But seriously, AFAIK FMOD supports MIDI music, so something like that would be amazing, because then you can save a lot on space.
And then there's OGG support.

and music will play even if you go to menu (and even if you minimize the game, AFAIR)

Sounds and music can be paused though, can't they? As for minimising the game... pretty sure there's a solution to that too, even if it's a bit ugly coding wise.

After a month of silence, it's time for some news. :3

• The FMOD implementation is so-so. It loads the library, starts the system, creates and loads a sound, but fails to play it.

Yeah. But I think I know the cause. I'll get to it later on.

• The Vehicle API has been enhanced, and simplified so I can make it easier for myself, and for others, to actually code the vehicles.

In the VehicleThink() function, you can now just place these two:...instead of manually and individually setting the origin of the player, the seats, setting the angles etc.
Basically, you have to set positions for each seat, then for the player, then the angles, listen to the commands from the player, and perhaps other things in the near future. Now you just need to call 3 functions or so, as opposed to writing 5-6 lines per seat (now imagine having a minibus vehicle with 16 seats - blimey!).

Support for studio model vehicles has been added, so now I can finally have vehicles with bones, controllers and whatnot. It was just sitting there and all I needed to do was precache and switch the model, if the mapper assigns a "model" keyvalue. It looks pretty neat:Currently this is just me debugging the seat position stuff. With the chair, it was really easy because you'd just snap the player to the centre of the chair, but now you gotta add a bit of trigonometry and vector maths.

Being based on the chair code, it behaves exactly like the chair: https://i.imgur.com/b5Bxqrn.mp4

Now, what's next?

• A seat-switching algorithm (you can switch to another seat e.g. from the driver to the passenger seat if it's not taken by a player)
• Motor/engine stuff, like switching gears according to the RPM. (manual transmission one day? Who knows)
• Binding seats to bones, and utilising controllers for special vehicles (studio model only stuff - brush-based vehicles will use my maths xd)
• Potentially a way of scripting vehicles in text files. Stuff like engine horsepower, gears, the model and whatnot. This way, it will not be hardcoded, nor "hardmapped" (even tho' you can ripent a map etc.), and it will still remain serverside.
• More complex vehicles: aircraft, boats, and ultimately... cars and... maybe if I become mad enough, NPC vehicles
• Eventually, NPCs that can drive vehicles. That would be insane, don't you agree?

Before I move on to that, I'll have to polish the current set of features and fix bugs (there's gotta be some!). I still have to code taking damage, exploding, switching the engine on and off, emitting sounds... Basically the smaller things.

You simply can't get more high-res lightmaps without altering the scale.

As Bruce said, take a, for example, 128x128 texture and upscale it to 512x512, then apply that and scale it to 0.25 and 0.25.

Your Celeron will surely handle it only slightly better than my Core 2 Duo T7500.

BTW you can find a bunch of other parameters here with screenshots:
link

Chop 512, texchop 256. Compilation time on my 2007 laptop: a minute or two.Chop 8, texchop 4. Compilation time on my 2007 laptop: an hour. An hour for just this room.

The difference is in the corners of the room. And that's all. Literally. It's almost like some sort of AO.
For final compiles, -chop 32 and -texchop 16 would be reasonable enough, while you can freely increase them to 512 and 256 in non-final compiles.

The mods I'm about to describe are actually the same mod, that actually got rewritten about 2 or 3 times between 2015 and 2017.

Admer: The Game

Premise

In late 2014, I had QBasic programming classes. Inspired, I decided to create a text adventure game with visuals. Inspired by Zork for the text adventure aspect, and Another World for the "another world" aspect, and the visuals. However, I was quite limited by QBasic and I would draw things line by line, manually, making animation super lengthy and tedious for myself. I only stuck to the textual component.
In 2015, I decided to convert my QBasic text game into a Half-Life single player map pack.
I made the first level and 13-year-old me wanted to do more. So, I wanted to do a total conversion.

Story:You wake up in a cave after getting knocked out by some bandits hours earlier. You get out of the cave, find an empty house with some things, pick those up, and try to find your way through the forest.

Progress

It was rapid at first. I made 3 maps within the first couple of months (albeit, very low quality maps).The maps were really all that was made for the mod. It had around 3 or 4 maps.

What happened?

It was solely based on my QB text adventure game. I got bored of it, and I wanted to make it more interesting.

Rewrite!

An unknown game

Premise

You were playing as Admer (not me, rather an Admer from a parallel universe who's way more capable than me). You somehow ended up on a different planet called LoG (Land of Gamers - will be explained soon) with no memory of what happened within the past 24 hours. You had to get out of the cave by blowing up the TNT and fighting your way through a zombie-infested forest with abandoned houses, until you reached the city. [sudden end of footage]

Progress

New HUD sprites were made, a main menu background was added as well as AVI startup videos. I was developing that on a pirated Half-Life copy, which still had the D3D renderer and could play AVIs, so definitely before the Steampipe update. Either way, it ran. Most importantly, programming!

What happened?

This wouldn't last too long, as I wasn't satisfied with the mod's goal again, so I rethought of it once more.

Rewrite!

An unknown game, revision 1

Premise

It was 2016 when this revision occurred.

Story: In the 80s, scientists discovered a portal to a parallel universe. In the 90s, a rich dude gathered a team of researchers, scientists, and life-sentenced prisoners to create something he always wanted: a way to change the appearance of his body so that he could look like a furry. Gotta explain the humanoids on LoG somehow!
In 2017, you travel to that universe because of education, and a brighter future. It was called Land of Gamers because, pretty much, most people who lived there were gamers. The cave and forest level actually then became a "game inside a game", basically, the player would enter a friend's apartment somewhen in the 3rd chapter, and he'd ask the player to test his VR game.

Tech: New entities were planned, and some gameplay tweaks.

Progress

Mapping skills improved, so I could deliver more interesting entity setups. New textures were also being added, as well as new sounds and voice acting.Finally, I had more success in coding and I could copy-paste things I wanted without errors. But still, not make my own code. xd

What ultimately happened?

The whole thing eventually fell apart, as I couldn't keep up with anything. I lost motivation completely, and I didn't want to continue. I was getting into making maps way more (and that's the skill that I've really developed the most, throughout those years - now I'm developing the rest to a similar level).
I'll quote what I originally said about that matter:

Like most of these Half-Life mods, this mod lacked a good coder. Back then, I understood none of the code, and I didn't know how to write my own code. I was a copy-paste coder. I only knew QBasic. Now I know some LUA, and I can code for Far Cry.
What's worse, I didn't know how to model. Now I do, but it's too late now. I had to make simple, low-poly models, but I didn't have the skill to model a simple rock. Now I can model cars, weapons, characters and many other things.
What's even more worse than that, is the fact that the mod actually had many characters in the story. Thus, a lot of voice actors would be required (voices for Barnes, George, Jody, random citizens, radio chatter etc.). And an awful lot of maps would be made (like, 40 of them).
Then, I simply stopped working, as I was getting deeper and deeper into CS mapping. 3 months ago, I transitioned completely to work with CryEngine 1.

I hope I will continue to work on this mod in the future, when I am capable of being a 1-man modding machine. This was simply too much work for 1 person.

But not any more. I've become just that, and I'm hoping to revive this.

It just definitely won't be the same. It'll be like a revision 2, except that's called 'Utopia at stake'.
I'm putting these here, because they're pretty much different than the mod I'm going to make. Admer: The Game was supposed to be an adventure, exploration, an expedition to an unknown planet gone wrong, with action. An unknown game would've initially been just like ATG except it'd be heavily story-based, so you'd get to know some characters. An unknown game, revision 1, would've been about saving the planet, and your love~

Bonus:

AUG: Quest for Burek (Far Cry)

Premise

2016. I wouldn't let the An unknown game franchise die so easily. I had to do something. So I decided to make a sequel for Far Cry. This time, the protagonist was one of Admer's friends from elementary school, and the year was 2023. Some terrorists came to Admer's and Roki's hometown and destroyed the local burek place.
Roki got mad, but he couldn't do a thing about it. Admer came in, speeding in his orange Zastava 750, listening to accordion mixes. They barely escaped the terrorist attack.
Throughout the mod, you'd visit LoG and come back to Earth occasionally, and you'd eventually learn about The Organisation, which is responsible for the civil war that Admer stopped, back in An unknown game/Utopia at stake. Eventually, you'd track down their leaders and kill them off one by one, and the boss would be the last.

From the technological aspect, I would've started using satellite mapping, and I planned to add entities that extend the functionality of Far Cry maps, even though it had quite a few entities by itself: ProximityTrigger, AreaTrigger, AITrigger, DelayTrigger etc.

The so-called AUGU (An unknown game universe) got most of its lore from this time period. I improved the story, added way more content to it, and laid the foundation for the whole plot. There is a blog on GB about it but, it's outdated.

Progress

This time, I had something I didn't have before. A plan. First, do the technical part, then the assets and to realise the concepts.
I stuck to it initially, and it worked. I coded some vehicles, weapons etc.

What happened?

Well, I couldn't stick to the plan and alas, my laptop was from 2007 so it wasn't really suited for CryEngine 1.
I lost motivation for that one too, since I started working on the whole mod instead of finishing the damn technical part. It was a fun ride, though. Who knows, it might just get that sweet revenge of being revived as well. Not entirely sure, but I'd love to do it, since Far Cry is such a nice game to make mods for.

These old mods of mine are definitely merely historical papers right now, but they paved my way in various skills, and brought what can be years worth of thoughts, stories, and a bit of love. They may be definitely dead now, but I'll bring them back to life. One day.

"The BSP_tool utility also allows you to automatically generate HPB bot waypoint files using the information in the BSP file to place the waypoints."

Oh neat. Didn't see that. ^^

"There is an open source tool on botman's sites"

The only Botman site I know is this: link
I didn't manage to find it there though.

Here is something that has stuff about masters: link and link 2.

Masters and optionally, multisources. I believe there's a tutorial on TWHL somewhere.

Doors are entities that can have masters, which control whether they are locked or unlocked. If the master entity is turned off, the door is locked and vice-versa.
So you could also select a Locked Sound and an Unlocked Sound, just to have an audio confirmation that the door is locked/unlocked.

Now, the master entity could be anything that has an on and off state, e.g. buttons. I don't know how the scene with Barney was exactly done, but this should give you an idea.

@sample vodka

How did you fix the problem? What was the solution?

There we go. Hopefully he'll reply now.

Oh, now I've got even more plans for that drink machine. I know just the right thing to do.

For the button, you can check the flags, so it's either X axis or Y axis.

I've got lots of everything to deliver, lol.

@abbadon
Yes, that is my high school.
Recently a construction site was built around the school, they seem to be doing something about the facade. So I think it'll be a nice detail to add eventually.

I still haven't compiled this thing, lol.

Yay.

"The only difference between the two is that one is stuck doing an idle animation whilst the other is free to move but I don't see how this would have an effect."

Think of it as one guard being busy. What does your entity setup look like? What entities are triggering what, and what keyvalues/entity properties are being used?

Write this into the console:
developer 2
Restart the map and you'll see a real-time log of what is actually going on, what entities are being triggered etc., and then try to see what's the issue.

Oh right, one more thing: the point file's lines actually do end up in the void in the end. The thing is, you gotta track the line to see if it's going through a brush or not. The lines will "find their way" through any hole in the map, basically. Watch out for teeny tiny gaps.

I didn't mean it. No need to be sorry.

"I have literally no idea why this is happening because the entire map is completely sealed off from the void."

Do you have any entities outside of the map? All entities should be inside of the rooms, even things like lights, or info_ entities etc.