Forum posts

"That scene took me 2 minutes and 43 seconds to compile."

That's how much it would take my laptop to render 1 frame on that map. XD

@Wiindawz
Mmmmm, no. Type _diffuselight. Man, looks like you'll need a modified FGD file. I actually modded my CS Expert FGD file and adapted it for J.A.C.K.

Now I remember using "-blur 0.001" in one of my maps... the shadows still weren't something, but they were somewhat sharper. Looks like the only thing we need is experimentation.

Now, where are my new screenshots of de_kobbl...

But I've had nothing to show. xd
If I had had anything to show, I would've posted a screenshot, and that's what I'm going to do now.

*giant facepalm

Oh my God, I've just realised it. xD
Bounced lighting, of course...

So, chop and texchop don't have anything to do with shadows. Topic closed.

Now, let's just focus on our usual flow of data, i.e. the screenshots. New de_kobbl screens coming soon + day version.

Use the multi_manager, then.
I can recall the multi_manager working in, hmm, demo_2 and in de_stroytheschool. I should examine this stuff closer, maybe the targetnames are sensitive to capitalised letters etc.

Anyway, I put my laptop into a torture chamber - HlRad with "-chop 8 -texchop 4":Looking good, eh?

Well, look at this:

• PLEASE, NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE -

Have you seen the difference?
No? Well, look at the corners:That's the difference... seriously. And guess which parameters did I use for the second one?

"-chop 512 -texchop 256"

It looks like we finally debunked the mystery of the infamous chop and texchop. It doesn't affect the shadows. It affects the edges. This requires further experimentation, really.

Nah, I don't really need the camera. -_-
Sorry.

In de_kobbl's case, it goes like this:

The bomb zone triggers the multi_manager which triggers the camera.

But in de_stroytheschool, it goes like this:

The C4 explodes and breaks a func_breakable which triggers a multi_manager which triggers a camera. At least I think so... hmm...

"How did you try to trigger it?"

With a multi_manager.
It worked on 2 of my maps which use a camera.

de_stroytheschool has a trigger_camera which gives a scene of the school being destroyed after the C4 blows up.
And demo_2 which has a helicopter in it.

Ah well, I don't really need the camera. xd
The player can get close enough to the C4 explosion to see the beauty, without getting wrecked because of it. It's the player's option to admire the explosion. :3

And about the chop thing... it makes no damn difference. No difference whatsoever. I tried -chop 512, -chop 256 and -chop 128 (with halving the -texchop, of course), and it made no difference to me.

Of course, once you use "-notexscale", it should make a difference.
Basically, if your texture scale is 0.100, you'll have ultra-sharp shadows. If it's 2.000, then you'll have a very low-res thing from the mid 90s.
Basically, -notexscale treats every texture equally and projects the same grid on everything. That's at least how I think it works. Hmm, I haven't done any real experiments with it, but I'll see what I can do about it.

@Windawz

Quote: "It means the .gif you made features the fast-compiled version of the map, right?"

Tututututututu, not in the way you think.

The .gif featured multiple versions of the map. If you watch closely, you will see that the explosions on site A also come with a bright light entity. Some parts of the GIF don't feature that. And for some darn reason, the trigger_camera entity doesn't work, despite being triggered and having a set of path_corners to follow. >:(

To actually answer your question:
The map versions were compiled with these parameters in HlRad:
-vismatrix sparse - texreflectscale 1.28 -chop 512 -texchop 256 -bounce 1

HlVis had "-full" every time, and it was pretty quick, actually!

And no, I didn't hide the visgroups. The individual grass blades really slowed down RAD.

Quote: "I thought visgroups are used to make working on a complex map in 2D views easier.

They are, but they can have that secondary purpose of "interchanging" map features. I could literally produce all 6 versions of the map by switching the visgroups on and off, which I will do.

Well, in the compile dialogue, you have this thing called "Save Visible Objects" or something like that.

When brushes and entities (which are a part of a visgroup) are hidden (i.e. the visgroup is turned off), they don't get compiled into the map.

Literally, those are visibility groups in the editor. You can, for example, visgroup a lot of detail brushes and hide them, because they're not needed for the fast compile. It's cool.

So, I did some experimentation with the visgroups.
Aaand, I halved my compile time.

Basically, all the grass brushes (the ones with a transparent grass texture) were causing a major slowdown in HlRad, in such a way that even with -chop 512 -texchop 256 -bounce 1 it took it 10 minutes to do the job. Now it shrunk to just 5 minutes.

Now I am compiling the map with -chop 64 -texchop 32 -bounce 9 (and -texreflectscale 1.33) for a good result to show you folks how it looks like.

I also replaced my info_texlights with 3 light_surface entities.
In the meantime (while it's compiling), I'll show you this awesome C4 blast compilation:This, my friends, is the reason why I started mapping. This is the definition of insanity. xd

@Cd5ssmffan
The map should come in 6 versions:

de_kobbl - Original map, night time
de_kobbl_day - Original map, daytime
de_kobbl_gsu - Map for GSU: some features removed
de_kobbl_gsu_day - Map for GSU, daytime
fun_kobbl - Fun version, with more features
fun_kobbl_day - Fun version, daytime

If no-one likes the night version, then screw it, you have the day version.

And, Slade directly told me to use de_storm's aesthetics, hmm...
(P.S. Admer is a name, not an object xd)

@Windawz
"some of which is pirated"
In my case, it's "most of which is pirated". Man, you should just see how many programs I've pirated, ever since 2011. I blame Goldeneye: Source for that. I discovered torrents because of it.

I don't understand why would someone be sorry about including the taskbar in a screenshot.

And now that I think of it, I could've used Power 1 displacements to achieve whatever Dr. Orange did. Aaaaahhh... now I see...

Speaking of optical illusions:This floor is actually flat:And back to the topic of making that stuff:
It's susceptible to Vertex Manipulation:But not as well as it should...

Now I see the problem with Vertex Manipulation. If you manipulate a displacement in that way, it doesn't preserve the texture UV, unlike real displacement tools. :/

@Windawz
I am 99% sure that Dr. Orange used (or could've used) the Vertex Manipulation tool for that room. :3
You don't need to use the actual displacement tools provided in Hammer 4, just make the displacements and then move the edges. I've VM-ed displacements before, so I definitely know.

Pretty easily, actually. Place a brush, press Shift+A and select one surface. Then go to the Displacements tab and hit Create.

@Windawz
You were supposed to do it from the inside, not the outside. Or maybe both sides, if that's what you needed.

@Windawz
My first approach:

1. Make an inverted cube
2. Cut each side into a grid of tetrahedrons

See? This is the problem because this wouldn't resemble a ball. OK, maybe it would, but still, it's more like faking it. Hmm, but GoldSRC basically fakes a lot of it, so it shouldn't really matter.

3. Smooth out, i.e. subdivide, the "displacements".

Then, the other way is much more manageable and more time-saving:

1. Put a flat 360° arch
2. Put some squares on the arch pieces (OR MAYBE, cut the squares into the arch, but that wouldn't be so easy...)
3. Elevate the edges accordingly
4. Duplicate the first hemisphere and flip it upside-down or leftside-right, however you started out.

Yeah, I'll try out both methods.

@Windawz
Well, my approach to hollowing a ball might be more mathematically incorrect, so I'll not have such an easy time if I want to make a correct one.

But hey, I don't have A's in geometry for nothing! I can make it.

Edit: I know! I'll construct it with pyramids instead of 4-sided blocks.

@Windawz

Ah, spiral ramps? Or curved spiral stairs? That's easy. I'll even cover that in my tutorial, The Big One. I'm 100% sure that CS 1.6 vehicles will hate those ramps. xd

Also, hollowing out a ball would be good for low-gravity Tau Cannon maps.
I can't wait to make my first hollowed ball.

@Windawz
I think he used Worldcraft.
Or maybe Notepad, only God and he know...

Hmm, "zasuchit rukava". Well, if south-Slavic didn't have this "a" in "zasukati", but instead had "i", then it would be "zasučiti".
Hmm... First Palatalisation - K, G, H into C, Z, S when they're in front of E and I.

I replaced the mechanism which unlocks Easter Egg doors, with a new one:Basically, there's a bomb inside, and you need to shoot it, after you pull the lever to move the picture.

@Windawz

Not "it's", that means "it is". Instead, use "its". It's correct to use its correct form: its; but incorrect to use it's incorrect form. (see what I did there? XD)

So, "suka" should be "bitch" in English, and "pička" (or "kučka") in south-Slavic. Well, that's not such a bad word when used that way.
Did you know that south-Slavic has a verb "sukati"? XD
It has multiple meanings:
sukati pitu - to roll a pie (the crust of the pie)
zasukati rukave - to roll up sleeves
And so on...

Yes he did:

Ebanni karas'
Durak
something I couldn't recognise
Babka
Bljat (because my transcription system uses Ля = Ljа)
Ebannie v rot
etc.

He also told me that "suka" isn't a bad word by itself. I don't know any more...

@Windawz
I have that in mind, I'll add "Не на Б, иди на А!" just to confuse the players. XD
I was actually playing on this map with a Russian friend of mine, and he always rushed towards bomb spot spot B. Hahahahaha.

Also, Bosnian should have around... let me just put it this way:

If 1 alternative for that word has the mass of a peanut, then the amount of all the alternatives in south-Slavic would be equal to the mass of 4 Suns.

(I'm actually being hyperbolic on this one, but we have a lot of such words too)

@Snehk
I've got a nice skybox, just let me post some new screenshots.

AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

@Windawz
"that you've got your hands on my boner"
A "boner" is when... ah well, I'm too young to know that, so I shouldn't say it. It's related to mature things in the bed, you know.

#continuing
Anyway, let's see what I've done with my map:The blue lights indicate the bomb spots.I added this thing. And I've recently added another one with 3 boxes or lemons.The least-detailed part of the map, i.m.o.

It's available for download (open beta), too, and I'd love to find out the framerates of others.

There's also QuArK, Radiant, Trenchbroom (oh wait, that's for Quake, xd), and so on...
But the best 2 options are J.A.C.K. and Sledge Editor.

Umm, I would never ask you that, because I literally have no idea what Brotherhood of Nod is, nor I'm planning to know that.

@Windawz
I found a good texture from chateau.wad, did some colour-balancing, and forged it into this:It needs a few slight adjustments, but it looks OK for now.

@Snehk
Actually, it looks much much better in-game:(those are old screenshots, but you get the idea)
I basically put 4 sprites around each lamp (one for every edge) and it works very well. Render Mode is Glow too, so it gives an extra layer of awesomeness.

@Crollo
I don't make maps for them. This is my first time, lol.
Hmm, he did show me some screenshots inside J.A.C.K., but even if he does make maps, he could probably use the expertise of an external agent.

Edit:
To actually answer your question: It's because of money.

Well, Slade (the co-owner of GSU) said that it's OK if I put detail in the map. Whatever happens, I'm OK with lowering the detail. I mean, I'd then just make a separate map.

Custom textures - yes, a WAD given by Slade and a few made by me
Windows - well, the window:It's actually more than one texture. 2 wall textures (brick and indoors), 1 window texture and 1 white colour texture. And of course, Null. XD

Mm, also, you're right about the arches. I should use a different texture for that...

Alright, I've decided to, finally, finish de_kobbl.
And, I went mad about the detail:Yeah, if this doesn't hurt my GPU, then I'm a good mapper.

I also put this up:And, since the 'hall' was very boring and dull, I added some decorations:I'll add a light or two there, too, so don't expect darkness there.
Man, I'm so excited because I haven't been mapping for a while now.

Yep, this will be a hit in no time.

In fact, it looks ugly and derpy right now. xd

Now it doesn't look so cute. :/

"I rescued a bee"

In my country, some primitive people would just kill the poor bee or let it drown. ;'(

"

"

Aww, that's adorable and cute. =3

I didn't mean cel shading, I meant actual cartoon stuff, child-friendly things etc. not bloody monsters.

Now I wonder why Quake never had cartoony mods. Or had it?

Aww, it looks so cute! =3

Hmm, de_storm textures, eh? Fun fact: my map de_kobbl uses de_storm textures. :3

Also, darn... I forgot to upload some of those screenshots about the film. I'll do it tomorrow after I spend some time programming that robot.

"imagine a voice of a 14 years-old nerd with heavy russian Red Alert-like accent."

Sheesh, imagine the voice of a 15-year-old Bosnian guy with a somewhat German accent, who sounds like he's twice his age. Truly, I haven't played a multiplayer game with someone other than my brother for a very, but very long time. Hmm... :]

Yeah, Shift+F6 was my idea.
I just had to find a way how to copy the projection of one face to another. J.A.C.K. had this option, though I'm not sure whether Hammer 3.x.x supports it. :/

I also always use Null for my untextured faces, and I've rarely used Bevel. No clipnode problems whatsoever. Maybe it's my compiling tools, lol. Or should I have used "-cliptype precise"? I don't know...

Remember my destruction sequence? Well, the map demo_1 is done and now I'm working on demo_2:The platform is just a placeholder for the helicopter which I will borrow from ts_untergrund. =3

@Cd5ssmffan
Looks like I've finally found a working layout, thanks!

@Windawz
That's soooo Quakestyle... <3

@Shepard
Yay.
That's at least considered abandonware like VS6.0, hahaha. I actually used that as my first software to compile my first hl.dll. (I just changed some weapon ammo capacities, lol)

"Programmers have an awesome (secondary) girlfriend in common: the debugger ^^"

You're saying that as if I've never heard of the debugger. My problem was my laziness so I didn't even think about touching it.
Of course, I'm not a programmer yet, so it's not unusual that I've never used one before.

Speaking of girlfriends:
My girlfriend, though, could've helped me but she has an odd policy of not teaching me anything nor pointing out my mistakes during my work. Jody wants me to learn from my mistakes, lol. What a sly fox. =3

"VS6's debugger isn't so great though. I'd switch to the newest version if i were you."

Fine, fine, fine...
How about Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 9 Express? I mean, I'd do the code writing and compiling in VS6.0, but your knowledge about that is x³ of mine, haha.
Also, I doubt I could run the latest one well on my 10-year-old laptop. -_-

@Windawz
Use a reference photo, that's what God said!

"So what are you better at - modelling or coding?"

Coding is my least developed modding skill, sadly.
(lol, right after animation)

So yeah, I'm better at modelling. Not far better, literally just "better".This is a not-yet-fully-textured tactical shotgun model for my Far Cry mod. :3Look at those ATVs.

Also, my first 2 models in Far Cry:

"Sometimes I even forget the date of my own birthday, lol."

Yeah, I sometimes forget which side is left, and which one is right.

"I know that everyone started somewhere, but he should consider learning the proper techniques/terminology if he doesn't want his project to be a laggy and/or crash fest."

Exactly.
In fact, let me launch VS 6.0 (after an entire year of not using it xD):"#define PDRONE_MELEE_BOTH ( 6 )"
THIS thing wasn't defined, and adding THIS LINE ended my 2-month-long problem. XD
Oh, the good old days.

The game would crash as soon as this little PDrone would see me. :3

And that's partially why I'd like to learn all that stuff so I can at least understand the problem a little bit better and hopefully solve it a little bit easier.

Edit:There we go, I at least learned how to add comments. :3

@Windawz
Correction, I used to work on a mod. (if you want an explanation of "used to" and what it means, then feel free to ask)

Yes, I worked on a mod in my good old days.
Basically, that's the time when I first met the concept of furries. I wanted to add new characters to fit this new setting and I thought that (at first) human-like gamer foxes co-existing with humans would be a cool idea.

Later I thought I should add human-like wolves etc. and I also met Jody in the meantime, but the truth is, I've never implemented ANY of those. XD
It's because my modelling skills were the ones of a 13-year-old.

Then time passed on as I kept toying around with mostly meaningless maps (i.e. test maps nobody except me cares about) and I eventually dipped into coding. Funnily enough, despite having 0 experience in C++, I was able to copy-paste some tutorials' codes and fix the errors which came with them after compiling!

And mid 2016 was really the time when I admitted to myself that I should give up on it due to my low skills. Later I confirmed that by announcing the mod's stop of development.

The development, however, got carried to another mod and it has much more potential (and success). Basically, I'm talking about Quest for Burek, the sequel to An Unknown Game (pr.k.a Admer: The Game). It's a WiP mod for Far Cry 1. I.m.o. CryEngine is a bit easier to mod for because of the way how it works and coding is much easier with Lua scripts. :3

Of course, the only downside to it is the complexity of types of models (even though there are only 2 model formats: .cga (animated) and .cgf (static)) and the software you work with to make the models. But I can cope with that!

So yeah, that HL mod gave me a lot. It made me establish my foundation for my modelling and coding skills, and I improved in mapping as well as texturing. I started composing in FL Studio, too.

Overall, it was surely fun but I eventually got bored of it and I'm hoping I'd return to it someday, at least to finish that story because the story is perhaps the most beautiful thing about the whole mod - even if it's about me saving L.o.G. (L.o.G. is a parallel, programmable universe accidentally discovered by dropping a big crystal into a concentrated proton beam, thus forming a portal into it, lol) from total corruption and collapse.

Yeah, An Unknown Game: Quest for Burek won't be about me this time, but rather about someone else. I just wish Jody was real so she could help me make the mod. :3

Edit:
Darn, she's so cute when she wags her tail and gives me that look, hihihi. :3
But seriously, if she had been real, I could've made her player model more easily. But I still didn't because I don't even have the time nor a reference photo of her (the last of which I'll never have, hahaha).

So, what if he doesn't update it as often?
My mod's ModDB page hasn't been updated with photos or articles in a year, I think. Something close to that. XD