Forum posts

I like behind the scenes. That sounds fun.
Hell, if we don't do that in a competition, I might do it myself sometime anyway.

I have to say, I like the idea of a big team mod. It might be a bit of trouble to get a concept everyone can agree on fully, but it would be nice.
Also, if there was a SVN repository, (which there probably would be on a project that big) I could probably download the mod file by file, avoiding big downloads on my connection.

It's a very good read, well written, informative, and humorous. It's probably the only employee handbook that says "You don't have to listen to the boss", and says it multiple times. Glossary is awesome.

Well, if I remember correctly, the source code is included in the download, so if you wanted to, you could take a look at that, see how it works, figure out how to implement it.
Talking to both rufee and Urby.

There might be a list of valid targets or something in that code. I think I'll let the folks who know what they're doing help find that, however.

I don't really know all that much about coding in C++ or the HL SDK, but I think you can get healing code from the scientist. Dunno how to get it to target NPCs as well.

If someone tells you to draw a dick, just draw a guy with a nametag that reads 'Richard'.

I have to try this sometime. When it selects the next player, does it do so from all users, or the pool of ones currently online?

Do you mean to make them two different weapons? Or make the silencer a 'secondary ammo' thingy so that the player would need to pick up a silenced handgun to gain the silencer ability? I'm guessing the latter is what u mean.

Yeah, secondary ammo type thing. That way we can control if the player has the silencer, and they also don't pick it up from security guards, who really have no business carrying them.

I'm not big on the graphics aspect of the code, do you have source code that allows for this stuff? I remember spirit's fog freezing my computer, so I'd be careful about that. However, for rain specifically, I have a model that shows it very well; only prob is you need generics of this model all over your map.

Later versions of Spirit have the aurora system, which you may be able to cannibalize. Of course, if we do that, we also may as well fully implement it into the mod, and I dunno if you want to go to all that trouble. Code can be found here, I've always preferred 1.5a4 over 1.8 because it doesn't have NPCs randomly sparking when they do scripted sequences or hit snags in pathing. It's not really necessary, and there are ways to fake it under certain circumstances, so don't worry about it too much.

I was sort of imagining it like in the half-life 1 and 2 style, in that snipers don't give out such a powerful weapon on death.

Alright, yeah, fair enough. I'll also give the trigger_push a try.

here's a very complete list of new entities

Alright, I'll test them out and see if I can get them in the FGD. I may have to PM you about specific ents if I can't figure out what they are or what values/options they should have.

Alright, Urby, you're up once again. Enjoy, and thanks!

You're welcome, and I'm glad to hear you have the wrench working fine. Have fun!

You'd need to code them into the game, and you'd also need to do a model hack for the wrench model that changes the arms. Alternatively, you could abandon the wrench and map for Blue Shift specifically. I think there's a FGD around somewhere...
Ninja'd, but I have the goods! The FGD for Blue Shift is available here.

Condolences.

You do know there are places other than Antarctica that have snow, right?
Just checking.

Office is snowing lightly.

Good enough, I suppose.
Also, Blitz, I think they have enough DE maps right now. Need to make the DE to CS ratio more equal.

Yeah, it would be awesome to have an Asian map or three.
Are there any snowy ones on the roster yet?

Really, we don't even need the original games either. Or TV. Or Books. We can just sit at home and stare at a wall in the dark instead.
But that wouldn't be any fun.

Damn, Archie, that is some sexy brushwork wrapped in sexy texturing.

Oh, come on! Gimme a chance to perfect mine through testing, will ya?
Though it is nice that you made it as an add-on FGD, so people can use whatever HL FGD they prefer.
EDIT: Some quick suggestions:
*Make grenades come individually wrapped, as opposed to in packs of 5.

*Add a slight (500ms or so) delay to the glock's silencer submodel being added; you can sometimes see it appear before it's screwed on in the animation.

*Make the glock's silencer a separate pickup from the glock, using the w_silenced/w_silencer (can't remember which it is) model. It would give the player the ability to use the glock's alt-fire if they don't already have it, and 17 rounds. It could also be dropped by the female assasins, because if memory serves, they have a second, unused weapon submodel that is empty.

*Have you put thought into making any kind of weather/precipitation/particle system into the mod? It's not necessary, but it could be useful to have weather functionality and easier ways to make good looking dripping pipes and the like.

*Snipers should toss their rifles upwards and outwards on death instead of the standard drop style; that way players can get the rifle as a reward, instead of it staying in the nest. Maybe a "don't drop rifle" flag that can stop this behavior as well.

Also, what are you thinking about the storyline? Any ideas yet?

Archie, your SVN logs always make me smile. The promise of some new media does as well.

discussion on decals and overlays

Aren't overlays a lot more expensive in terms of both rendering and entity usage? Or has that been improved in engine updates?

Effort = nonexistant

You can say that again. Was good for a laugh.
Anybody want lines?

I don't find it tedious, honestly. That's just the way I've always mapped in hammer.

It's not necessary to use the base 2 grid, it's just recommended for cleanliness in the wireframe views. Turn it down for the windo and then turn it back up when you're done. I actually always map with the editor set to base 1, and I usually make my walls 6 units, but that's probably just me.

No, don't worry about it. I'll play it in HL2 and put up with the missing content. It's my own fault for not having Episode 2 yet.

How much Ep2 content does it use? Anything necessary to run, or could I run it in HL2?

One thing that may be causing the error (and may cause others as well) is that judging from the error, your map seems to be named "Zombie Apocalypse8".
Get rid of that space in the middle, and you'll have a highly reduced chance of loading errors.

It looks like there might be a 1-unit seam in there. Check it out, it sometimes happens.

** leaked **
Entity info_player_start (-1480.00 626.26 -228.00) leaked!

You have a leak somewhere. Open your pointfile and check it out.

Could you post the whole compile log so we can see what's going on?

RAD outputs that error when VIS isn't being run, either because of a leak/similar error, or because you accidentally switched it off. Basically, without VIS, RAD can't do light bounces.

No in yours.

Bruce, I don't think that you get to decide other people's opinions.

I can probably send you some when I get home if you want.

A lot slower than it should be. What I have looks fairly nice, if a bit bland, but there's not really a lot so far. I'm going to have to make myself sit down and resist all the other distractions tonight. It'll get done, but I don't know how soon.

Alright. Any chance on getting zombie barneys and soldiers, or dead variations of the cleansuit scientist, massn, and brother?

Mmmm, sexy map. Even if you don't add any form of story or gameplay, I want you to finish and release that work of art.

Oh, Rimrook's bringing that back?

rufee, did you even read the thread? This doesn't have anything to do with the 3D viewport not rendering. (And they fixed that problem ages ago, as well)

I think Bruce means it will feature fully 3D environments, like all the other Half-life games.

And yeah, it's obviously not real. It lists the developers as "Two guys who usually refill the snack bar at Valve"

This thread makes me feel like in the 90'.

Heh, yeah, with such titles as Wolfenstien 3D and Duke Nukem 3D.

Anytime before CS:GO leaves beta and the special prizes become invalid, you mean.

Well, I suppose you could look for the author, and even if we can't find them, we can still credit them as "Unknown" and hope that they contact us at some point.
Your mod, your decision. I'm just a peon.
EDIT: Having said that, I also highly endorse the idea of assault weapon armed barneys, but you'll have to get someone else with more skill than I to do the model. I took a crack at it, and while the skeletons bones were named the same, the structure/proportions were different, so having Barney on Hgrunt animations makes him look like Frankenstein's monster on steroids.

That's probably just an engine or ram error. Try running it again, and if it doesn't work then, try restarting your computer if you haven't already.

I think he understands what we've been trying to tell him now, judging by the apology he sent us.
When his ban is up, I'll gladly welcome him back to the community.
And I'll hope that he's spent the week off to make a nice SP map.

As long as you know who the author is so you can credit them/get permission, I'm fine with it. I just need the SAW submodel, animations, and a couple of the opposing force heads for variation from the basic grunt heads. Sounds just fine to me if they match the originals better. How are those models I sent? Did the download work out this time?

monster_human_grunts were allied to black ops in op4

Really? I thought they were enemies, and fought the player and their allies. shrugs

(it) is fun since all the guns are sort of unique in some way, wouldn't you agree?

That is true. I dunno, the Glock just feels slow now, but it's probably just me. I must be spoiled by HL2.

By the way, would you happen to have the LD opposing force allied grunt models? If I can get those, I could make a model for a grunt variation that uses the M4 and the SAW instead of the Mp5 and the Shotgun.

You'll need to delete the empty ones (They exist but no longer have any brushes associated with them, because you tied them to another entity) by selecting "go to problem" and deleting them. You may be able to use the fix button to delete them, I can't remember for sure. Then move the glass to world and tie each pane to entity separately. After they are all individual func_breakables, select them all and change their values simultaneously.

Basically, when an func_breakable has multiple disconnected brushes, it still treats it as the same object, so it all breaks when you break one of them. When you get the "which entity do you want to keep" message, just undo or cancel, because it will basically always result in an empty entity when you combine them.

EDIT: Hm, beaten to the punch. I guess I talk too much.

Alright, the new dlls work fine. I've noticed a couple of things with further playtesting; (Sorry to add to your workload )
*hgrunts, massns, and brothers all have the same faction. If you want to count Op4 as canon, the massns (and the female assassins) should have their own faction hostile to all others, and the brothers should probably have their own as well, considering they're terrorists.

*I had a game crash in the signs map; I stabbed the grunt that runs up to pet the rat in the back with the knife, and the game crashed as he fell. Dunno if it's due to something you did, or just the engine bugging out as it sometimes does.

The full semi-auto fire on the Mark 23 works great, can we expect to see it on the other pistols as well soon?

Alright, I'll be sure to get the stuff I have packed up and I should hopefully be able to PM you a link tomorrow night. Thanks for the func_breakable FGD code, I entirely forgot I'd need to update that. Also, what exactly is monster_brother? Are they terrorists, a different branch of the military, or what?

EDIT: Another couple bug reports;

• The Mark 23 doesn't animate or make sounds when firing in automatic mode.
• When trying to spawn a sniper rifle through a func_breakable, it gives an error along the lines of "could not spawn weapon_sniperrifleammo_762weapon_m249weapon_displacerammo_sawclipweapon_eagle ent does not exist"

(forgot to save the exact error message, sorry) and everything further down the spawnable list neither spawns nor gives an error message when the func_breakable breaks. As those entries are number based in the FGD, it would appear you forgot a quotation mark, bracket, or semicolon somewhere in the func_breakable spawn code. Actually, if you copy-pasted the code you gave me from the source code, I can see commas missing, so that should be a quick fix.

Alright, I'll try to start the FGD tonight. A couple of suggestions I forgot to make;
Could you make the pistols fully semi-auto, so they fire every time the player clicks (maybe put in a small fire limit so the player can't bind fire to the mousewheel and unload a whole mag in a second.) I think hotdog or vs49688 know how to do it if you're having trouble with it, they put it in HL:SF.

Code the grunts to be able to/a grunt variant that can use the m4. If it's a variant, maybe have it also carry the SAW as it's secondary.

And I just had an idea, what about a dedicated sniper NPC? a stationary grunt or massn, (which model used is selectable by the mapper through a spawnflag or something) that just crouches there and waits for enemies to walk into it's view. It would essentially work like the sniper turrets in HL, but look and sound a lot better, and drop (or toss forward) a rifle on death. I could see if I can get milkshape installed again and make a model for it, if you want.
I think the model for it could probably get away with using the massn sniper animations, and use different bodies as submodels in the 'head' slot so the head code can be copied from the grunts.

EDIT: I got it almost done, with model support for most of the models (not full yet, some of them, like brother, have a shitton of animations.)
However, I need the entity names for the following:

-ammo for both the m429 and the sniper, and the MK23 if it's in there.
-hornet grunt
-displacer

I also made a model hack that adds an empty weapon slot to the urban.mdl, so brother can drop weapons on death now if you want, and I noticed that the guns in the massn's hands doesn't dissapear on death either. If you need any other hacks, I could take a look at them.

If nobody needs the FGD yet, I'll hold on to it until it's perfected and release it with a tech demo map of my own. I also just finished a sniper model with 4 heads, 2 skins, and 1 gun (2 gun submodels, 1 is empty) It has no movement animations, but it can fire, reload, cower from grenades, and do a victory dance. Let me know if you want it.

Yeah, but you get the original version.
Played two matches of Command and Conquer: Generals with a friend yesterday.
First match was one on one, he kicked the crap out of me as GLA. Second match we played USA against a map full of two teams of hard AI. They were somehow psychic, and kept bombing his dozers as soon as he made them. After about an hour, we somehow managed to beat them back and win.