Forum posts

oh dear... 100%

it makes very little difference. func_brushes have more inputs.

Yeah, alpha channels are far better for transparency because you can define specific parts of the texture which are more opaque than others.

I only use func_brush as either a solid parent between two physics-enabled entities or as a replacement for a func_illusionary, i.e not solid.

Func_detail everything that isn't sealing the world from the void.
Displacements don't seal the world from the void.
Water doesn't need to be tied to an entity, just texture every face except the surface in Nodraw.
Triggers no longer have targets. They have outputs.
Almost any entity can be a trigger.
All Source2009 engine content works in every Source2009 game (to answer your last question).
Subdivide is the best button ever.
Cubemaps should not be used sparingly. Go nuts.
3D skyboxes should be 0.0625 x lifesize scale.
Soundscapes kick ambient_generics butt.
func_brush kicks func_wall's butt.
func_brush kicks func_illusionary's butt.
light_spot kicks textlight's butt.
light_spot kicks light's butt.
env_sun is really counter-intuitive but when you realise that where you place it in your map makes no difference it's like discovering the meaning of life.

That should be enough to get you started.

Some bloggers got it, as did the main writing staff for rock paper shotgun, escapist and kotaku.

I read this entire thread on interlopers, drooling over every picture. Then I came over to TWHL and read this entire thread again, drooling over every picture.

You owe me a new keyboard.

I probably wouldn't say that too loud...

Ach it's only a fiver, I'll just get it.
cheers, though

has anyone actually made an entry for cz? I'll have to buy it if that's the case...

Light entities are so configurable in Source and when you're working with a high-res lightmap grid you really need to be able to control every aspect of them. Textlights are fine for quick fills, but it's leaving too much to chance when you can't set the constant, the falloff, the inner and outer angles or the focus.

The examples Strider gave make sense because they're either being used as a fill over a large area (lava) or are so small that individual light entities would simply be inefficient (skirting lights). As the primary light source of a room? No, not configurable enough.

edit: But for goodness sake use them in Goldsource!

Lol'd at "no water"Another great sunrise on my way to the train station this morning.

Love it, hotdog! More single player maps!

You know the drill by now.
Bonus points for including mobile devices.

3 monitors, one of them a touch screen? That's just showing off.

I love it.

Never use texlights in Source. Ever.
Make your light texture UnlitGeneric (rather than LightmappedGeneric) in the .vmt and use light_spot entities.

The light entity should only be used with a very low brightness to simulate spill. The light itself should always be a light_spot.

Sounds atmospheric! Can't wait to play some of these.

Oh look, Archie was on another completely bizarre shoot, photos of which will be entirely inexplicable without context.

Nope. Never allow witnesses.

A single guard in every hold/town died to complete my collection

Clearly by the very nature of the experiment you were wanting to judge the quality of the images produced by either camera, not the aesthetics of each, so of course a high-res image is required.

You know fine well both that pixel dimensions don't amount to physical print sizes and you know fine well that the open in a new window link below each image allows it to be viewed full size.

I am so sick of your bullshit.

edit:
You edited out your sentence about comparing the on-screen images to prints. Wise.

Definitely blend them more with the sky, then. Add some fog and darken them a bit.
It's way too obviously 2D as it is.

Blitz, why have you made a 2D card mountain range when you can make an actual mountain range in your 3D skybox?

hmm, quite nice. What might have been really awesome would be to do a similar shot at night with a torch illuminating the ice and barely no light on the leaves.

They sit alone in basements, the detritus of their previous snack only landing on their laps on the off-chance that it makes it past their overhanging stomachs. Dim illumination from their monitors provides a view of the cheesy crisp dust surrounding their unwashed, spotty faces as they raid dungeons with their level 50 Dire Owl Panther. Independent or ‘indie’ game designers have a commonly believed stereotype regarding their lives (or lack thereof,) but as the major companies in the video game industry care more and more about cost and profit and less about creativity and innovation, it is left to the indie developers to remind us that a truly original concept will be far more memorable than Generic Shooter 12 or Another Football Game 2010.
The vast majority of best selling games have indie roots before they’re picked up by a studio. Left 4 Dead – one of the best sellers of 2009, for example originally existed as nothing more than a nameless modification, or ‘mod,’ of one of the most popular online first-person shooters– Counter-Strike.
Such an impact on the game design industry and responsibility for so many game concepts which show genuine flair and ingenuity couldn’t originate from such cheese-encrusted roots then, surely? Perhaps we were too quick with our assumptions about indie game designers.
Leslie Young, M.D. is a well respected paediatrician, husband and father from Long Beach, California. Since immigrating to the United States from Taiwan in 1985 and subsequently becoming a physician, Dr. Young now spends much of his free time playing and designing levels for first-person shooters.
“Of all the genres, first person games capture my imagination the most. The immersive 3D environments literally create an alternate reality.” He categorically answers when I ask why, “Designing levels for these games allows one to escape into another dimension and allows others to be immersed in the world you created.”
However, being a doctor – arguably one of the most time consuming occupations known to man as well as a husband and parent, Dr. Young faces quite a challenge to complete any level design projects he undertakes.
“Two approaches work for me. Either spend a few days intensely mapping - spending about 6-10 hours a day - finishing the level in less than a week or spend 4-6 months making a map, spending only a few hours on it per week,” he explains before adding, “I definitely prefer the intense binge style, but that can really hurt my relationship with my wife. So now I am opting for the latter style.”

Before parting ways, I ask what he thinks of the stereotype given to indie game designers.
“I am an amateur body builder and runner; I’m training for a marathon in October and I’m more sociable than my wife who is a computer programmer,” he discloses, “It takes some maturity and patience to be a good level designer.”

Every rule has an exception, though, so it’s possible that Dr. Young was just a one-off and that other indie designers do live up to the stereotype. To find out, I spoke to Andrew Morris, a 23 year old website designer from Knighton, England who has been independently creating levels for games for eleven years.
I asked him why he is interested in creating game worlds.
“I guess partly because of my knack for storytelling and also partly down to my love for actually creating something which people can interact with.”
So why is he willing to do it for no financial gain?
“It would be a dream come true to create levels on a professional level,” he replies, “I used to design websites as a hobby and now I have made a career out of it. While I do still enjoy it; working from someone else's specifications is a lot more challenging and unfortunately you can find yourself doing things that you would never do for one of your own projects. I would probably need to be left to my own devices in order to succeed in a professional level design environment.”
When queried about the stereotype, Andy gets notably frustrated.
“What it essentially comes down to is people failing to take a step back to see the big picture. Many of the designers and gamers I know do it as one of several hobbies,” he exclaims, “when they are not sat at a desk, chatting to fellow designers or building levels, they will be out socialising, exercising, writing, reading or any number of other activities. The entire gaming community is subject to an endless amount of controversial slander, even from political figures, and it is something that needs to stop.”
So what can these bedroom designers do when they want to take their hobby to the next level? 19 year old Antanas Budvytis from Lithuania took his love for unique art and design - previously invested in graffiti art - and learned how to create immersive 3D environments. Years later he wanted to take his passionate hobby to the next level and moved to Dundee, Scotland where he now studies Computer Games Technology at Abertay University. I ask him why he continued to invest hours and hours of his life into game design before there was any possibility of him taking it to a professional level.
“I would keep going as long as I knew someone was actually playing it.” He replies honestly.
These are three people from completely different backgrounds who are all connected through the art of indie game design. They all take something different from it - be it an escape from a stressful job, a way to make it in to the industry or a simple desire to create something for others to play but without exception, they are all highly intelligent, friendly, sociable people. Stereotypes, it would seem, are not entirely accurate.

• For a journalism class, Feb 2010. Seemed relevant.

What exactly are you trying to do?

I don't expect anyone here to steal them. WIP shots like that are put on the snc games twitter as well.

the bridge is cut cleanly by a laser, not due to force.

Progress...

Love dedicated textures like this.

Same - I feel like I have a really good workflow sorted out where I can just close hammer for 20 mins, make a texture I need and be using it within half an hour.

a quarter would be enough and the texture would weight 4 times less.

True, but this way I can put it on one brush, rather than 4. Also the bevel wouldn't tile very well if it was just a quarter which would lessen the 3D effect.

I wonder if we can achieve the same effect in Source?

Yes, a lot more easily because you could use alpha channels rather than indexed blue.

you should improve a bit more on that area and make a wallpaper.

I'll be improving the area for The Core, but all my media shots are 1920 x 1080 so if people want to use them as wallpapers they can!

Thanks for the feedback! <3

I had a floor grating made out of loads of separate brushes and it suddenly occurred to me that I could have pretty much the exact same effect just from a single texture. Worked out really well!
Ignore the area around the texture - excessively WIP.

Liking the art style. Maybe make the brushwork work with the textures more - for example that table/surface thing isn't aligned with the floor tiles below it, and that sort of thing can make a big difference.

I really don't understand what you mean by check point. CS doesn't have level changes.

But what is it you're actually trying to do?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

If you want to make level changes, read this tutorial.

If you want to activate something in one map which effects something in another map, read this tutorial.

If you want to add an autosave point/checkpoint, use this entity.

entity limit is for visual entities only, isn't it?

it's a script I was having the most trouble with since it was the only one absolutely required to go up the stairs. Putting nodes on the centre of every step seems to have done it, but it's hella messy in Hammer because the 3D in-editor model for nodes is fucking massive.
Keeping in mind that this is for The Core, and cenoff1 (the map i've shown most in the WIP thread) is basically one massive staircase, this is a total pain in the ass.

Tried that, dimbark. Didn't work. Trying putting a node on every step now.

So despite working almost exclusively in Goldsource for the past 6 months, (thanks very much, The Core) I still find myself forgetting how I used to do things back in my HL1 mapping days.

So I have some NPCs who simply refuse to climb a set of wide stairs despite there being nodes at the foot, middle and top of them. If it was Source, I'd use an NPCclip brush to make the stairs into a triangular slope as far as the nav mesh is concerned, but I just can't remember how to solve this in Goldsource.

The stairs are standard Source dimensions (12b x 8h)

displacements are always hollow, CT. It'd be simple enough making a brushwork interior of the displacement fuselage. The difficulty would be windows & doors.

Dimbark, stop posting your unrelated, unfunny, unoriginal shite.

Took some photies on my trip to Markarth. Bought a house here - it's nice. No conspiracies whatsoever.

Inclusion of the iconic crashed plane would certainly score you some points with this totally impartial judge.

...Just sayin'

I will post all the inspiration photos i've taken after the core is released. Don't want them stolen before then! :3

Yes. The idea is that you take an existing map's theme and put it to better use. If you think that a better use for the de_downed theme would be a map where you assault a building then go for it!

Either it's a brushwork trim or the texture has been modified in photoshop using a grid.

You're just going to end up with 51 sub-par maps.

Heh, I know. Just messin' with ya :3

I'm fairly mis-matched this month, but I really like both of these wallpapers.

Why are you mapping for WON HL?

Regardless, find your SAVE folder and delete its entire contents. Either you have a CS save (back from the days when CS even created them) which HL is getting confused about and is trying to load or your map has some sort of reliance on CS content which suggests that Hammer or your mod directory hasn't been set up properly.

Use steam. Avoid problems like these.