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sorry... and please... don't think this was intended as publicity for my map... I really thought there was something wrong.

well... I've aleary been told that it just doesn't show up for me (so that I can't vote for it).

if that's the reason, then just ignore this thread (or delete it, if needed)

I didn't wanted to create a new thread just because of this, but there wasn't any other that looked related with the MOTM competition.

I just want to ask why my map "fy_twelveway", published on September 12th, 2009 isn't listed on the "Map of the Month" page.

I guess it is supposed to be automatic. So, is there anything not OK with my map?

wow... big post here!

Well... the other questions were old... but thanks for answering anyway!

About the last one I wrote, I just wanted to know if there were more than those I wrote. But apparently, there aren't.

Thanks!

Well, I didn't explain correctly what I wanted to know...

I found this on a website and what I want is a more complete list:

[i]On Targetnames:
HL automatically checks for certain targets when a client dies, connects etc.

game_playerleave   - fired by a player when they disconnect from the server
game_playerjoin    - fired when a player when they first JOINS a server
game_playerspawn   - fired each time the player spawns
game_playerdie     - fired by the player that died
game_playerkill    - fired by the player that killed another player (fire for just killing... even if you killed a team mate)
game_playerscore   - fired when you GET a frag (In teamplay, this means killing a non-team member)
game_roundtimeover - fire when the time runs out (saves usings some multimanager)[/i]

It's these in-game fired entities what I want to know about. Are these all of them or are there more?

EDIT:

other ones I found but that I don't know the meaning:

• freezer_udoor (related with func_door)
• mousetrap (related with func_door_rotating)

Another question:

Is there a place with a list (and explanation) of all the in-game trigers?

(like: "Game_Commencing", "Round_Start", "Spawned_With_The_Bomb", "Planted_The_Bomb"... I'd like to have a list of these trigers... of course these don't need explanation)

Yeah... that would be wonderful indeed!

Can I dream on that?

Well... thanks for the help (really!).

I guess I'll have to continue to replace stuff by models...

It works well... but... makes me spend a lot of time that I'd save otherwise.

Thanks

OK... finally some good answer.

Even if this is the truth (that the command doesn't work for anything), anyone could have told it earlier, right?

Thanks Rimrook

Now... and sorry for continuing to insist... but can you tell me if I could use "levels" for expanding maps for CS?

I know that the idea doesn't seem much logic because CS maps shouldn't be really big, otherwise it may take much time to find the other team, but... believe me... I creating a map where knowing about this could really be important, because it would be very useful if I could use levels... I'm consantly creating models to replace stuff so that I could continue creating the MAP without reaching the 8192 Leafs... If I could split the map... that would really be great.

Well, sorry if I though that this forum had a lot more answers than those I may get. I mean, this website is great... the tutorials stuff is just wonderful. So I thought that the answers I couldn't get from the tutorials, some expert mapper could give'em here. But apparently there aren't many people here knowing much more than I know.

Anyway, thanks for answering. And I know that Goldsrc doesn't have mirrors... but, if there are no mirrors (without coding them by myself...), why is there the "r_mirroralpha". I though someone here could have the answer, but if I'm wrong, OK... I'll try to find it out by myself.

And... I have HL... but I only play CS... It may sound strange but although I always had it, I never played it.

I just came here looking for some answers without having to try them by myself because I guess that's the purpose of this forum. Otherwise you should tell everyone "go try it yourself and figure it out on your own"... and not help them... because everything is testable... but if anyone has the answer... why not sharing it?

Anyway, I'm not blaming nobody... it's just that I don't understand why so much confusion about answering me just because I said that I could test it by myself.

Thanks for answering

Well... I don't exactly know that you are talking about... I only play CS and so I guess you are talking about some helmet on something on HL, which I never played.

But the point is... if at least one thing on GoldSrc engine has some kind of reflections, this might mean that there has to be a way of making reflective stuff for new maps... even if it involves creating a model for that purpose.

Its strange that a game engine that apparently hasn't been programed for reflections has, on the game, a command named "r_mirroralpha" which is supposed to be related to something that works as a mirror (that reflects).

I thought I was gonna find some answers here... but apparently you know as much as I do... nothing

Isn't there anyone more related with valve that could tell what exactly that command is about? or any website that could tell that answer?

I'd really like to have some mirrors on my maps, but sometimes it's impossible to do the "fake mirrored room" because there's stuff behind the wall I where want place a mirror... so if a real reflective function exists on Goldsrc, it would be nice to use it.

btw... what is the idea of a certain texture called "translucent"... is it just to be possible to enter it and see everything in lt_blue while inside it? that is a texture that is really strange because it can only be used as a world brush, otherwise it bugs because of a "mixed content" problem.

?

Btw, nobody ever answered my very first question on this topic. The one about the "r_mirroralpha" command.

Whatever... if don't want to answer it's OK...

@ATDestroy: sorry for not saying anything about your post... you understood right what I said except on one detail: of course the null textured brushes can't be "glued" with the ones I want to make visible to do what I want... they would remove those faces... they have to be 1 unit away... that's the idea. I haven't tried what I was thinking, at least not in a big scale, so that I could notice or not the performance differences.

Well... here I come with another interesting question:

This one... well... I know I could test this by myself by making a simple map just for that purpose, but it's always good to make this kind of informations here available on the forum for anyone which searches for it.

LEVELS:

So everyone knows what it is, but a big question is always related with them: do they work for CS? or it's just for HL?

And then, if it works on CS, what's the behavior when two players have two positions that see the other, but they are on different levels? is it possible to see the other player although he is on the other level? or you can't see the other player? (consider that I'm using levels to split a map that can't be built inside one single BSP file... and I'm trying to understand what happens in the "equal" part of both BSP files)

I know that these questions are logic as also may not be so logic for the most of the users who already tested levels, but it's always good to have a place where you have answers to these questions so that new mappers learn it.

Thanks in advance.

This is a topic where I want to make some questions that aren't specifically related to any specific case.

Anyone who wants to do the same, suit yourself

Well,

First one:
There isn't any reflection in Goldsrc... humm... or... is there any?
No, I'm not talking about creating a mirrored room behind a glass to make it look as a reflex. I'm talking about real reflex. Why am I asking this? Simple! There's one command that is "r_mirroralpha". This command, although I never saw it do anything, is supposed to control the reflex of reflective textures. Now, the question is... which textures? does that really exist, or this command has some other function and not what I mean?

Second question:
No doubt that skyboxing is wrong. Only outdoors should have a box around, but apart from that, nothing else should have it. But, what if I want to make some "deleted parts" from my map visible... I mean... when BSP is processed, the faces that are not part of the playable area are deleted, but, in some specific situations (actually, I'm having one), it would be useful to have something that makes the compiler process (and lighten) those faces. Well, the typical solution, is to make a skywall on the wall that it's meant to turn visible (or, to not be deleted), but that makes the same problem of skyboxes: it's rendering the sky where it's not necessary. So, at this point, I figured out a solution: "Null" texture walls. These, of course, can't be "glued" to the wall we want to make undeletable, because the null textured face itself would delete the face. But, if we make a box 1 unit away, it's enough to make that wall not be deleted. Null textures, unlike sky textures (when using light_environment), won't create light, which forces everyone to have an extra worry of checking in those walls are correctly lighted, but apart from this, it seems to be a solution for revealing a wall, without having to use the Sky texture.
So, why have I said all this? Well, I guess I wasn't the first to find this solution, and so, what I want to as is: Using Null instead of Sky (for this situation) is a better method? Is the fact that is not generating "sky" behind enough to make the map be faster, or the null texture will work almost the same way as sky and still make the map slow down? I know that, If I'm revealing faces that before were delete, of course the map will always be a bit slower, but the point is, the difference of doing it with Sky texture or Null texture is that big, or null texture isn't that good as seems to be for this situation.

I'm asking this because, although I figured out that this was possible to do, I didn't tried yet in a big scale. So before I do it, I'm asking if doing it is worthy of spending my time.

Huge question, huh?

Sorry for such a long text.

Answer without any rush. I'm going on hollydays so I won't need these answers that soon... only next month I'll return to mapping stuff

Thanks in advance for the answers.

On September I'll bring other interesting questions here.

Another completely diferent question:

Is it possible to make some players start inverted (feet on the ceiling of a floor). I wanted to have players starting on the ground and the others starting on the ceiling... of course this is not for this map of the "real place" as it doesn't happen in real life... it's for another map

I tried with Roll and with Pitch... but none of them works for that.

Roll only rolls about 45 degrees, not 180 as I wanted.

If at least it was 90?, It would be enough... but only 45, is not enough?

Any ideas (or a solution :P)?

Please tell'em

Hey... I'm not having "max portals on leaf"... no... that part is OK... my problem is the total LEAF number... which is supposed to always be under 8192... my map now exceeds it... and, so it crashes.

About VIS, what I said is that I don't run it. It takes really much time, so I don't even try to run it. What I said about the -fast option is that, I tried that way, and I could run VIS in a acceptable time. Otherwise, it takes too much time for me to wait (I guess I tried and waited 20 min and still it didn't ended).

Also... you called LEAF to what a portal is... LEAF, is the room... portal is the connection.

Here's the thing... I'm creating a map which is a real world place (and, please, don't start the story that "I should do that" or "Make it look different than the real place" because that's only my concern and responsibility, not yours).

Well, I'm doing well on creating it... it looks pretty much like the real place, but the problem is, as obviously, as the map grows, the closer it reaches to the limits. So, right now, I'm having a really boring thing... LEAFs (or leaves or however it says LEAF in plural ).

Well... I've been doing lot's of thing... since simplifying geometries and objects to reduce the map to the minimum and still look the same, which is something that should always be done to increase performance, and that I correctly done in my map... after that, the next step was making some objects into entities (like func_wall and func_ilusionary, depending on the situation), and, with that, I've been able to create even more and more stuff in my map... but... it reaches a point where it seems like there's no way out of this situation and I reach the limits without having any tip of how to improve the map in order to not reach them.

I have the -chart option in all the compiles and I can check that all the limits are under 50% (most of them, well below that value, rounding the 10% or a little bit more) but... there's this value who is the reason I'm writing here... the Leaves... always near (and now above... or else... crashing on) the 100%.

So, what I came here to, is not for you to tell me "reduce your map" or "it's impossible to create such a big map" (It isn't impossible, the whole building is complete and the most complex stuff that has to be in there is also complete and simplified) but, for the most expert of you could tell me what can be the best tips to reduce the LEAF amount in my map.

I tried to understand the concept of a LEAF... but it still is something very strange to me. For what I understand, one leaf is the definition of one map area that is tested to check which other LEAFs (map areas) are visible, and so with that, process the VIS compiler.

By the way... I never run the VIS process... it takes too much time that I can't waste on a test compile. Probably I'll run it on the final compile, but not now, and, also, I played the map on old computers and it it is fast and doesn't lag, even with 10 players (didn't made more spawn points yet).

So, what I want is some tips or trick that I may try to do in my map, in order to reduce the LEAFs number, so that I can compile it again, without having to hide some stairs or something else.

I know, one possible solution is to split the map into levels, but I really want to avoid that... I mean... at the end, I'll probably have to do that, because there's one part which I believe it will never fit inside this BSP as this will always be close to the LEAFs limit, even if you tell me some nice tips. But, I want to create the most possible in one BSP file, so that it doesn't take too much time to change levels and make my map boring.

Relevant info:

Mapping for: CS 1.6 (so, GldSrc engine :P)
Map type (not that this really matters): de_ (detonation/defusing)
Using: Valve Hammer Editor 3.5 BETA, ZHLT (the latest, 3.4 I guess), Wally for the WADs and other external apps to create the textures...
RMF size: 10MB
BSP size: 4MB
CSG + BSP process time: 10s
VIS process time: too long for me to check it (except when -fast, which doesn't take that much)
RAD process time: 150s (2m30s)

(all rounded numbers, it varies... sometimes it's less... this is worse case cenario :P)

So, please, MTV, pimp my ride... err... not!
Please, help me on this

Thanks in advance!

Thanks, thanks, thanks!!!

It still isn't perfect... but it's close to that... Now it's all about adjusting the values and adding a few new lights in the right places and it will look great!

Thanks for the help Rimrook!

Still not getting what I want.

Strider: there's no "ambient level" propriety in the light_environment. I understand you probably meant the "shade" part but that doesn't work for what I want (I tried that before).

Rimrook: the -bounce option does absolutely nothing to my MAP, whatever the value I put after it. The -sky only changes the intensity of the bright areas... it doesn't change anything on the rest.

Thanks for the tips, anyway. But unfortunately, I still can't make my map brigher on the dark areas.

Keep sharing some ideas!

Sorry for the forum mistake... please move it to the right place.

I'm mapping for CS 1.6 (eh eh... gldsrc rules... or not! :P)

Hi... I'm creating a map... bla bla bla... and I wanted help on one thing: light!

I know how to create light... I have a light_enviroment... it's all OK except that... the shadow areas (areas not hit by the light) are really dark... too dark for what I want to.

Here's the thing: is there any way of setting a minimal light level for all the non-lighted areas of the map? I didn't want to have to use the Darkulator to lighten the whole map up... I'd like to have the map itself with the correct light (as the darkulator also lightens the bright areas, which makes my map look bad!).

That's the thing that is making my map not easily playable right now... because I don't want to have to use a nightvision kit if I have daylight on the rest of the map

On the bright parts, it looks perfect, just like the real place in the real world ... the problem is the shadows and there's no artificial light in that place, in the real world, so I don't want to put it on the map.

Please, somebody, help!
Thanks in advance!

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