Forum posts
I think we need a seperate topic for these South Park self portraits. :
Getting back on the topic of avatars...
I really need to change my avatar, but can't decide. Should I go with this one (see this thread to see what I'm talking about):
or this, which is supposed to be me but the hair's kinda flat:
(kinda small but I'll make a new one)
Found the prog that pepper used to make his sig ( here , if you didn't know) and thought I'd have a little fun.
I really need to change my avatar, but can't decide. Should I go with this one (see this thread to see what I'm talking about):
Found the prog that pepper used to make his sig ( here , if you didn't know) and thought I'd have a little fun.
Well, I'd recommend TekCities, who offer 5 GB, although I haven't tried them out yet. Fragmeister can vouch for you. Right now, though, I use Freespaces which offers around 250MB to 2 GB, I can't remember which. They are good but navigating the file manager and editing your pages can be extremely frusterating.
If you can settle for less, try looking around here: http://www.free-webhosts.com/
If you can settle for less, try looking around here: http://www.free-webhosts.com/
The only problem with this that I can see is that all of the decals are in decals.wad, and the only thing that differentiates the decals from the transparent textures is the wad file that they're in! So, I'm not sure if you can do custom decals. Maybe try it with a custom wad, see what happens.Nope. Tried it. No matter what I did my custom decal didn't show, even when I put it in decals.wad.
I think he's either asking how to make a mod and that he can make weapons, OR he's asking how to make the weapons themselves so he can make a mod.
18 years old. Just started community college (although taking only a math class, then a career/life planning class on Oct 25), then plan to transfer to a 4-year college after 2.5 years. I don't know what I'm going to study, but probably something with computers, like computer game design or computer programming. Basically computer science.
Wouldn't that raise the r_speeds, though?
Well, I was thinking of making it a stealth game, since 8-year-olds know nothing about weapons. However, then I'd have to alter the code to make it harder for the aliens to spot you.
Also, I think in the mod "The Puppy Years", Brendan Chung (sp?) figured out a way to make the player camera lower to the ground...at least that's the way it seemed. Though a baby is far shorter than an 8-year-old.
Also, I think in the mod "The Puppy Years", Brendan Chung (sp?) figured out a way to make the player camera lower to the ground...at least that's the way it seemed. Though a baby is far shorter than an 8-year-old.
Not saying that people have to do these or anything. Just saying that if people are stuck, they can look at these for inspiration or steal bits and pieces from 'em. But thanks. I don't like games or movies without a little comic relief to release the tension, like Shakespeare did in some of his plays (not comparing myself to Shakespeare, but you get what I'm saying.)
I thought I'd be a positive member of the TWHL community and offer some ideas for those who are stuck on an idea for a mod or just want to do some side project to blow off some time. I'm still learning how to map, so making these ideas reality on my own time isn't likely to happen (or turn out pretty). :
1. "Stupid HL: Escape From Purple Mesa" - This mod is all about the funny. You are Goober Freeman, hired to work at Purple Mesa by Adminstrator McBoingBoing (PM's version of the G-Man). After attending a lecture on the new equation proving the viscosity of Cheez Whiz, hippies from People For the Ethical Treatment of Aliems (parody of the morons of PETA. PETAliems' site can be found here: http://www.stopalienautopsies.org/ . I didn't make that), attack the base, mistaking PM for a newly rebuilt BMRF. Now that things have gone babooshka, the Half-Life Plot Cliches of Doom have decided that you are the only one to save the mentally incapacitated residents of PM and be a hero or something. If there were a Richter Scale for funny, this mod would be a 10.5
More info can be found in these files: http://savefile.com/projects.php?pid=971633 (One's a script, the other's an unfinished story I started on a day or two ago. I've stopped at the point where Goober's booted out of the PM Trolley and wanders through the employee entrance.) The script is just the basic jist of it. I planned to have more funny stuff, where the aliens come in and make fools of themselves. That way, I'd be able to have a sequel where Goober and his new Houndeye buddy Fred set out on an adventure to get Aliem Food from Petco and to find out who really did eat all the donuts.
(PS: I misspelled "Aliems" on purpose)
2. "Lost on Xen" - I started thinking (while I was out on a walk) that this mod wouldn't be possible due to Half-Life's odd time constraints, unless the LoX story is set hours before the RC incident.
But anyway:
You are Nathan Freeman, 8-year-old nephew to the great Gordon. After Christmas your parents stuck you with your Uncle while they were on their zillionth honeymoon. Just Uncle Freeman's luck. Unfortunatly, despite your constant prodding to watch Uncle Freeman do his work, he sticks you with an off-duty Barney in the lunch hall (not only because he's concerned for your safety, but he just doesn't like you.) Of course, being the nosy little bastard that you are, you wander off and began to explore the outer reaches of BMRF, eventually finding an odd-looking machine (a big teleporter), hopping into it, and getting your prepubescent keister hauled off to Xen. Fortunatly for you, there's a rebel faction of Vortigaunts in the area who are happy to take you in after a nasty runin with an Alien Grunt. After that, epic battles ensue and you eventually find yourself back on Earth. To what? ...I haven't gotten that far yet.
I also have an idea for a mappack involving a Salvador Dali-esque nightmare (as in REM), but I might end up doing that one.
So, if that doesn't really get your creative mod juices flowing, I don't know what will. Have fun!
1. "Stupid HL: Escape From Purple Mesa" - This mod is all about the funny. You are Goober Freeman, hired to work at Purple Mesa by Adminstrator McBoingBoing (PM's version of the G-Man). After attending a lecture on the new equation proving the viscosity of Cheez Whiz, hippies from People For the Ethical Treatment of Aliems (parody of the morons of PETA. PETAliems' site can be found here: http://www.stopalienautopsies.org/ . I didn't make that), attack the base, mistaking PM for a newly rebuilt BMRF. Now that things have gone babooshka, the Half-Life Plot Cliches of Doom have decided that you are the only one to save the mentally incapacitated residents of PM and be a hero or something. If there were a Richter Scale for funny, this mod would be a 10.5
More info can be found in these files: http://savefile.com/projects.php?pid=971633 (One's a script, the other's an unfinished story I started on a day or two ago. I've stopped at the point where Goober's booted out of the PM Trolley and wanders through the employee entrance.) The script is just the basic jist of it. I planned to have more funny stuff, where the aliens come in and make fools of themselves. That way, I'd be able to have a sequel where Goober and his new Houndeye buddy Fred set out on an adventure to get Aliem Food from Petco and to find out who really did eat all the donuts.
(PS: I misspelled "Aliems" on purpose)
2. "Lost on Xen" - I started thinking (while I was out on a walk) that this mod wouldn't be possible due to Half-Life's odd time constraints, unless the LoX story is set hours before the RC incident.
But anyway:
You are Nathan Freeman, 8-year-old nephew to the great Gordon. After Christmas your parents stuck you with your Uncle while they were on their zillionth honeymoon. Just Uncle Freeman's luck. Unfortunatly, despite your constant prodding to watch Uncle Freeman do his work, he sticks you with an off-duty Barney in the lunch hall (not only because he's concerned for your safety, but he just doesn't like you.) Of course, being the nosy little bastard that you are, you wander off and began to explore the outer reaches of BMRF, eventually finding an odd-looking machine (a big teleporter), hopping into it, and getting your prepubescent keister hauled off to Xen. Fortunatly for you, there's a rebel faction of Vortigaunts in the area who are happy to take you in after a nasty runin with an Alien Grunt. After that, epic battles ensue and you eventually find yourself back on Earth. To what? ...I haven't gotten that far yet.
I also have an idea for a mappack involving a Salvador Dali-esque nightmare (as in REM), but I might end up doing that one.
So, if that doesn't really get your creative mod juices flowing, I don't know what will. Have fun!
Well, couldn't you have two seperate competitons for the same topic? One for HL1, and another for HL2? Or did I completely miss the point?
All this talk about r_speeds and how they can wreck a map's playability without even breaking a sweat, I became a little paranoid and decided to check my testmap for problems (because, after all, it is my testmap) and I thought I'd be a cautious mapper instead of a n00b who thinks he's l33t. But considering how much of a worrywort I tend to be, it was a bad idea. So here's what I'm asking. (The screenshots I show are dark because the lighting sucks and I converted BMPs to PNGs using Photoshop.) And I did read the r_speeds tut, so don't point me to that.
1. R_speeds: I know that n00b boxmaps (or "crapmaps", as I like to call them) are notorious for having high r_speeds because of their emence size and a lack of entities to fill the void (not the Void), but since this is my 1 1/2th map I thought I'd get used to checking for r_speeds. It seems that the highest rating I got was 211 wpolys, and that's standing in the rightmost corner (at the beginning of the level), and having a FOV of everything, as in this shot: http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/6205/rspeeds0012qz.png (Sometimes I get a max of 202 by stading up next to the teleporter.) In the second room there's a max of about 160something. I want to ask: Is this normal? For a boxmap, anyway? And if not, is there a way to change that instead of deleting all the stuff in my map? I'm quite fond of my teleporter in the second room (shot here: http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/7343/mappy0013bp.png ) and the radios (my first good prefab, although the antenna splits up the speaker its on in gl_wireframe mode).
2. epolys: Next, the epolys are a little high, but that's usually normal when you have entites (ie monsters) in the picture (max is 1040 epolys, 1160something when the player breaks the grating over the button on to open the portal cage in the first part.) But the thing is when I turn away to face a wall, I still get a reading of 329 epolys. Isn't it supposed to be zero, or do the epolys also go up when the player is holding a weapon?
And last but not least, gl_wireframe. When I first used gl_wireframe, I was shocked to find out how much the floor and ceiling were split up and I realized why I got a reading of 883 faces during compile. After some tinkering, I managed to shave 21 faces off that amount, but it still was high, so I had to delete this little number (my experiment with func_trains): http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7776/decor1wc.png and then came up with 765 faces. Unfortunatly, the ground still looks fractured: http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/5247/wireframe7xl.png . I know this looks wrong because the floor is a flat surface with no VMing or anything. I forgot to mention I tried moving things 1-unit away from their surface (ie the metal prongs in the teleporter room), but it looks like those objects are just hovering above their surfaces.
Also, do you guys know where I can go with this map? I'd like to make something of it other than a crapmap. I was thinking a DM map, and make the teleporter room a trap and have walls and stuff players can hide behind. And does anyone have ideas for better lighting, because I was afraid of long VIS times being the mark of an abnormal map as well.
Anyway, I felt I had too many questions to post my map in the Map Vault, so after a struggle I finnaly found a place to host my file after TheFileHut became borked. Here's the map (with titles.txt and sentances.text). You may hear the PA announcer say "blue is a <garbled>" because I tried to make him say "color" but I'm not good with the commands yet. Also, there's two radios in my map that are supposed to play tunes. So to prevent any conflicts with 56kers, I put them in a seperate rar archive:
The map: http://www.freewebs.com/boxtopstuff/mappy.zip
The song clips Fragmeister is going to attempt to host. If he can't do it, then I'll see what I can do with the zipped version. He'll post the link in here. The first song is some smooth jazz tune, and the second one is called "Make Poop" by Mr. Safety of SMPFilms. However, these songs are optional (I think). Just for ambience.
Anyway, thanks for your help!
1. R_speeds: I know that n00b boxmaps (or "crapmaps", as I like to call them) are notorious for having high r_speeds because of their emence size and a lack of entities to fill the void (not the Void), but since this is my 1 1/2th map I thought I'd get used to checking for r_speeds. It seems that the highest rating I got was 211 wpolys, and that's standing in the rightmost corner (at the beginning of the level), and having a FOV of everything, as in this shot: http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/6205/rspeeds0012qz.png (Sometimes I get a max of 202 by stading up next to the teleporter.) In the second room there's a max of about 160something. I want to ask: Is this normal? For a boxmap, anyway? And if not, is there a way to change that instead of deleting all the stuff in my map? I'm quite fond of my teleporter in the second room (shot here: http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/7343/mappy0013bp.png ) and the radios (my first good prefab, although the antenna splits up the speaker its on in gl_wireframe mode).
2. epolys: Next, the epolys are a little high, but that's usually normal when you have entites (ie monsters) in the picture (max is 1040 epolys, 1160something when the player breaks the grating over the button on to open the portal cage in the first part.) But the thing is when I turn away to face a wall, I still get a reading of 329 epolys. Isn't it supposed to be zero, or do the epolys also go up when the player is holding a weapon?
And last but not least, gl_wireframe. When I first used gl_wireframe, I was shocked to find out how much the floor and ceiling were split up and I realized why I got a reading of 883 faces during compile. After some tinkering, I managed to shave 21 faces off that amount, but it still was high, so I had to delete this little number (my experiment with func_trains): http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7776/decor1wc.png and then came up with 765 faces. Unfortunatly, the ground still looks fractured: http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/5247/wireframe7xl.png . I know this looks wrong because the floor is a flat surface with no VMing or anything. I forgot to mention I tried moving things 1-unit away from their surface (ie the metal prongs in the teleporter room), but it looks like those objects are just hovering above their surfaces.
Also, do you guys know where I can go with this map? I'd like to make something of it other than a crapmap. I was thinking a DM map, and make the teleporter room a trap and have walls and stuff players can hide behind. And does anyone have ideas for better lighting, because I was afraid of long VIS times being the mark of an abnormal map as well.
Anyway, I felt I had too many questions to post my map in the Map Vault, so after a struggle I finnaly found a place to host my file after TheFileHut became borked. Here's the map (with titles.txt and sentances.text). You may hear the PA announcer say "blue is a <garbled>" because I tried to make him say "color" but I'm not good with the commands yet. Also, there's two radios in my map that are supposed to play tunes. So to prevent any conflicts with 56kers, I put them in a seperate rar archive:
The map: http://www.freewebs.com/boxtopstuff/mappy.zip
The song clips Fragmeister is going to attempt to host. If he can't do it, then I'll see what I can do with the zipped version. He'll post the link in here. The first song is some smooth jazz tune, and the second one is called "Make Poop" by Mr. Safety of SMPFilms. However, these songs are optional (I think). Just for ambience.
Anyway, thanks for your help!
Hey, if you need any help, I'm here. I've used QBASIC for a while, too (I still have my first QB program on my computer) and just got the hang of FreeBasic a couple months ago.
Fragmeister: http://www.thefilehut.com
I win.
Heh. The only time I use clipping is to cut holes in walls. Other than that, I use VM to shape solids. Haven't had a problem yet.
Yeah, it's Shift+X, not Shift+F. But speaking of clipping, do you guys know if clipping too much ups the r_speeds? I'm kinda paranoid about that.
My avatar is my own widdle experiment with custom textures. Whee. Who doesn't love Post-It notes?
Hahaha! That was good for a quick laugh. I tried to do something similar, only with Half-Life sounds (link to the song is in my journal.)
Make more, though. Acidplanet needs more comedy songs, like Baconbits 3000 or AOL "You've Got Mail!"
BLARG!
Make more, though. Acidplanet needs more comedy songs, like Baconbits 3000 or AOL "You've Got Mail!"
BLARG!
It did? I thought...although I didn't get this...that by playing endless rounds of tic-tac-toe with itself, the computer realized that there was no victor at all, especially in the Global Thermonuclear War program, so it just ditched the game and asked to play another one.
Pretty cool tune. Left a review. (<---- Jerky_Pal)
I take it you have Acid Pro 4, correct?
I take it you have Acid Pro 4, correct?
You guys are nuts 
Although that probably isn't news.
Although that probably isn't news.Well, you can go the cheapo route (like I did) and purchase Acid Pro 4 and a few of Magix's Soundpool loop CDs, then just cut, paste, mix and match. That's basically what I did with all my songs here: http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=211395&T=8212
However, if you're willing to toss some cash, I'd look into Reason (the program). It's a synthesizer program that works well with a MIDI keyboard (keystation is good.) It's what I used to make the byte "Mystical."
Of course, go with whatever you want. You probably know more about music than I do. Sowwee.
However, if you're willing to toss some cash, I'd look into Reason (the program). It's a synthesizer program that works well with a MIDI keyboard (keystation is good.) It's what I used to make the byte "Mystical."
Of course, go with whatever you want. You probably know more about music than I do. Sowwee.
Wow! Very nice storyline. As for making this into a mod, I'd say go for it, although it looks like a lot to do.
I think I forgot to mention I have Windows XP (RAM eater) and that I have a PCI (NOT PCI Express) card. In my opinion, it sucks worse than my old Intel Extreme Graphics chip, especially in Unreal Tournament. Heck, I can't even run UT2004 on thing without major slowdowns!
I've been hunting around for a new system. Any ideas?
I've been hunting around for a new system. Any ideas?
I know, but if you read what I said, I didn't like the model because it was too blocky and the textures were extremely blurry and 32x32, preventing me from putting anything funny on 'em.
On second thought, forget about the can. It's not important right now. What is important is that I develop my mapping skills and familiarize myself with the mapping tools. Thanks for helping, though.
On second thought, forget about the can. It's not important right now. What is important is that I develop my mapping skills and familiarize myself with the mapping tools. Thanks for helping, though.
Well, I think our very family computer (and the slowest, plus my first after I deleted "DOS" from the Windows 3.1 folder out of "curiosity") was a 486DX, which was as slow as hell and only good for word processing. I really wish I didn't format that computer. I had some great nostolgia (sp?) from my writing past. 
Anyway, the next computer I had was a 166MHZ. Pretty good (still didn't have Half-Life then), but there was no 3D card (so I was disappointed I couldn't run Descent 3, and my mom was too paranoid about putting it up on the family computer) and it only had a lousy 3 GB on it. Heh...and I remember an article in PC Gamer about PC Gamer's history, stating that my computer might've been the "dream machine" in 1994.
Anyway, the computer I have now is still a piece of junk, but I'm able to run half-life on it (although I still get some graphical error junk and it crashes in some mods).
Specs:
256MB RAM (useless)
1.8GHZ Intel Celeron Processor
A crappy 128MB RADEON 9200 PCI (zing!) graphics card
And, I think a 50/60 GB hard drive
Man, even though I spend my entire life on computers, I really hate them.
Anyway, the next computer I had was a 166MHZ. Pretty good (still didn't have Half-Life then), but there was no 3D card (so I was disappointed I couldn't run Descent 3, and my mom was too paranoid about putting it up on the family computer) and it only had a lousy 3 GB on it. Heh...and I remember an article in PC Gamer about PC Gamer's history, stating that my computer might've been the "dream machine" in 1994.
Anyway, the computer I have now is still a piece of junk, but I'm able to run half-life on it (although I still get some graphical error junk and it crashes in some mods).
Specs:
256MB RAM (useless)
1.8GHZ Intel Celeron Processor
A crappy 128MB RADEON 9200 PCI (zing!) graphics card
And, I think a 50/60 GB hard drive
Man, even though I spend my entire life on computers, I really hate them.
Yeah, I skimmed through the vending machine tutorial, but it only tells me how to make a vending machine that shoots out env_beverages. I'm talking about the actual can itself, with its 32x32 (I think) texture that stretches over the five faced can. I think I might have to make a small prefab of a rounder can in Hammer, then use custom textures for it. Yeah, I think that's what I might do, because I really only want the cans as decoration. Thanks anyway.
Now it's just the RAM that's screwing me up. I really wanted to use Spirit for my future mod (extra stuff, plus bryce_boi's new mp3 add-on that I haven't tried out yet), but not if it keeps crashing half-life.
Now it's just the RAM that's screwing me up. I really wanted to use Spirit for my future mod (extra stuff, plus bryce_boi's new mp3 add-on that I haven't tried out yet), but not if it keeps crashing half-life.
RAM: 256. And I read the custom tex tut and it didn't really help me that much. Nor did the decals tut.
I believe I also forgot to mention I was looking for soda cans, not trashcans or vending machines...sorry about that.
I believe I also forgot to mention I was looking for soda cans, not trashcans or vending machines...sorry about that.
I have two questions:
1. When I make (or attempt to make) a custom decal, save it in my own wad using wally with the "{" prefix and then use it on an infodecal in my map, it doesn't appear after compiling. However, when I use a decal from the decals.wad file, it does. Does the infodecal only work with decals.wad? Because I was practicing making custom decals for my future comedy mod (seriously, seeing "Surrender Freeman" isn't as funny as seeing "Eat Poo Freemen")
This question probably goes in another fourm, but while I'm here:
2. Whenever I load Spirit and open one of the example maps in Half-Life itself, after five minutes or so Half-Life crashes. I'm thinking it's HL's RAM usage, because it does the same thing in Scientist Slaughterhouse, too. I even tried changing the screen resolution and OpenGL to DirectX but it doesn't help. Any way I can alter Half-Life 1's RAM usage? I know it's not the frame rate.
Also: When I make a custom texture (in Photoshop), what do I have to save it as to import it into wally? 8-bit? 16-bit? 256 colors? Because sometimes when I copy and paste into Wally I just get a big black box.
And: Anyone know where I can get a good soda can prefab? I'll look around myself, but maybe some of you saw a good one. I don't like the old one because the textures are stretched and blurry, and I was planning on taking an idea from Black Mesa Source and putting it in my mod (with permission, of course.)
1. When I make (or attempt to make) a custom decal, save it in my own wad using wally with the "{" prefix and then use it on an infodecal in my map, it doesn't appear after compiling. However, when I use a decal from the decals.wad file, it does. Does the infodecal only work with decals.wad? Because I was practicing making custom decals for my future comedy mod (seriously, seeing "Surrender Freeman" isn't as funny as seeing "Eat Poo Freemen")
This question probably goes in another fourm, but while I'm here:
2. Whenever I load Spirit and open one of the example maps in Half-Life itself, after five minutes or so Half-Life crashes. I'm thinking it's HL's RAM usage, because it does the same thing in Scientist Slaughterhouse, too. I even tried changing the screen resolution and OpenGL to DirectX but it doesn't help. Any way I can alter Half-Life 1's RAM usage? I know it's not the frame rate.
Also: When I make a custom texture (in Photoshop), what do I have to save it as to import it into wally? 8-bit? 16-bit? 256 colors? Because sometimes when I copy and paste into Wally I just get a big black box.
And: Anyone know where I can get a good soda can prefab? I'll look around myself, but maybe some of you saw a good one. I don't like the old one because the textures are stretched and blurry, and I was planning on taking an idea from Black Mesa Source and putting it in my mod (with permission, of course.)
I hate to post in a probably dead thread, but I can't shake the disappointment that you forgot the most worthless site of all: http://www.something.com