Forum posts

Uh great tips the303...

You're right in every capacity. I'm somewhat rusty by now as I haven't touched blender in a while but these tips of yours should get me back on track.

I will let you know of my progress thanks.

You can't if memory serves me correct. Eventually try a env_render entity and target with it your func_conveyor to turn it invisible and visible again. You can't turn it's moving animation off and on but only let it vanish.

If you're working on some sort of moving terrain in general with you sitting on a train or chopper check out my tutorial regarding that exact thing:

http://twhl.info/vault.php?map=6115

Hey folks after my last successful release of the very 1st ever to be released Black Mesa Helicopter set:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/hl-opposing-force-firestorm/addons/black-mesa-helicopter-set-reskinned

Which had been made possible thanks to vast influence and aid by @Tetsu0 I managed to get those choppers out to you. So here I am hoping that the same lightning might strike once again.

This time I'm working on female Scientists.

https://imgur.com/S0cVP8P

As you may or may not see in this screenshot the textures aren't properly aligned yet and the 2nd head in the body group wont remain properly attached with the main torso while playing animations. I must be missing something.

Anyone willing to help and aid feel free to download it here: I hope that we can get this model pack out to the remaining hl1 modding community. Combine that with a custom code or Spirit and implementation should be fairly easy. All that then remains is a native American voice actress.

Credits to the model female proportions go to the "Science and Industry" mod team. I used their model as basis and converted it into a regular scientist arriving with all proper default SP animations and texture sets.

Current problems:
-Textures messed up
-2nd Head of the head group wont remain attached to it's animation nodes.

Dl links below: In case one of the sites wont work for you I uploaded the open source files onto several pages.

dl link1: https://ufile.io/15hst
alternate dl link2: https://files.fm/u/fs7wfppp#_
alternate dl link3: https://en.file-upload.net/download-12793766/fem_sci.rar.html

Looking forward to it... I partially remember the original and it was a good mod.

@SourceSkyBoxer: While the walls in your first screen look rather cool I would change them. That's an overkill of architecture no architect would construct something like that. It's also to cramped perhaps extend the distance to the walls then it might work out.

Other than that nice work.

Keep in mind though when doing that you will have to redo all decals you may have had before the shifting.

I certainly know the feeling with exception of the toddler.

You guys get back to it when you get back to it - so no pressure. Good luck.

Look here to understand how it is done.

Example map included.

http://twhl.info/tutorial.php?id=19

Yes for the time being Hl Enhanced is the best option. My coder and I are still waiting for the moment it is entirely finished before we continue on our work of Half-Life Opposing Force SDK.

https://github.com/Hammermaps-DEV/SOHL-V1.0-Refresh

It's a somewhat outdated version but still rather epic as it contains some of the best monster op4 recreations I've seen to date. Only Svencoop managed the same quality of recreation. The thing here is that the coder managed to access the files and values of the original op4 entities and just duplicated em. So they behave almost exactly as the Op4 monsters in Opposing Force.

Once Hl Enhanced is completed we will release an enhanced version of Op4 based not just upon the Op4 entities but about everything the community came up with over the years as well as own additions be it female scientists (models already present based upon cross&green in scientist coats.) and so on.

Another possibly make a steam integrity check. I had to do that recently myself as my weapon selection was for some reason bugged either due to a steam patch or me overwriting some file. I had 10 weapon slots in hl1 instead of 5.

The check is a good fast way to restore files back to their original state if the checksum differs from the current up to date file. Might be a corrupted dll. or missing dll.

Define how exactly you're trying to play the music...

That aside did you make modifications to the mp3 music? While I'm not sure it would make any difference perhaps that's why.

my mp3 in hl have the following setup:

44100hz, 192kbps, stereo

@ChickenFist: Nice screenshot looking forward to that worldmap competition release once it's done I wish I had the time to join it.

Either way I would eventually make the red light larger and place it in the middle of that stripe textured brush. Also I'd make the light shine a little more.

In addition I'd change the ground let the rock or ground intersect round shaped instead of square shaped into one another..

@Admer456: Not bad not spectacular either. The chosen textures are to repetitive for my taste they all look very much alike "grey". The ceiling for a structure this size needs support pillars or other supportive constructions of sorts to make it believable.

Also add some vents or pipes up there you can never make something wrong with that. Look how @Chickenfist did it in his screenshot. Other than that perhaps some larger gates to the right of the boxes. And some forklift model props or containers even. Stripes and signs - walk ways - drive ways. Some high-level racks.

The first premise is good though for a WIP screen.

Hm I assume you set the Cue's (loop points) correct on the sound 1 at the beginning say name "a1" one at the end "a2".

If the sound is not working for what ever reason this may have several reasons.

One of the things I often do when creating voice sound files for example (or ambient like in your case) is to just open one of the original voice sound files and my custom sound and delete the trace of the original and afterwards pasting my own trace in it and saving it under a different name. That way I took over all the original sound output settings and they work (even npc lip synchronization does.) Try the same with any ambient sound of your choice as long as it is an original sound.

The 2nd option that comes to mind why your sound may not be playing. Does your map in the console shows "to many visible entities" ? If so I noticed that often newly placed entities get ignored or don't work correct as they should. You need to fix that error in that case but since your map is for CS and your map is FY_ which means pathetic mapping but good game play I doubt that this is the problem here.

3rd possibility again unlikely in your situation due to the fact of it being a MP map is that you start this sound in a multi_manager. If there are like 15+ entries in the MM at some point it bugs out. Best is it to never have more than 10 entries per m_m.

don't mention it. One hand washes another.

The gravity effect is within the dlls coded. You can't change it's effect without custom code. But it's fairly well made anyhow so it should be just fine. Play with the values.

But seriously I suggest you begin with the basics first before messing around with gravity or any sort of ambitious ideas.

Learn how to place and use brush based entities first. Another tip I can gladly give you. Place a Barney onto the map when you build your rooms. My very first map I build would have been perfect for giants but made my npcs look like insects in comparison. Make sure to lower the size of the grid the minus and plus icons top left corner in hammer editor. Makes it easier to build in the right size.

Here you go buddy:

http://www.filedropper.com/movieenhanced <<< smallest size lowest resolution.

http://www.filedropper.com/helivid <<< slightly higher resolution.

http://www.filedropper.com/widescreenvid <<< wide screen resolution.

To me all videos were a little pixel like even your original when watching it in full screen. So choose the one which in your opinion suits your eyes best in full screen. Since I'm using a very old flat screen monitor I can't really tell. ^^ I don't need nor want a large cinema like monitor for my computer.

Hm I just released see here:

http://www.moddb.com/games/half-life/addons/black-mesa-helicopter-set-reskinned

But yes a patch for it might be good to make it perfect. I spent the last 2 hours trying to fix it so I guess I need you once more. Thus far I have never really tried to create own UVs because my imaging expertise sucks. So I rather tried adjusting the UVs to the textures than vise versa. PSP is giving me a hard time in overwriting certain settings or adjustments when saving the file etc..

As for the polygons yes I noticed that too yesterday. I fixed it on my end by reversing to the original mesh. I totally forgot about that. You had an older mesh to work with. Damn. But shouldn't be hard to fix. Perhaps with the connecting vertices method?

Ps: As for your video I should be able to scale the volume up for you and upload it in filedropper. You would just have to re-upload it? Since you made the vid as general tutorial I think it shouldn't be wasted. Shall I pursue the matter? Shouldn't be a problem.

Neat... Checking your video out.. Btw. one thing I can already tell.. Your voice is barely hear able.. I'm wearing headphones and maximum volume and I still barely hear you.

I recommend to take the video file and scale the volume up a little with any random vid or audio tool.

Other than that nice work on your latest creation. You're getting quite a video collection here..

As for the chopper: I'm still missing around with it.. I discovered an evil little texture misalignment on the mirrored side which I fixed by scaling and moving the UVs around a little. How ever once compiled it is as before sometimes even worse.

Any idea why it wont save the UV position while exporting? I hope I wont have to adjust the texture. Finding and fixing that or even creating a 2nd texture set would be awful.

EDIT: I just watched your video. I had to download it on my computer and watch it through VLC player in order to hear it.

It's really amazing you've got not idea how often how close I was in getting this done myself. I can't believe it.

But I learned 2 very - very interesting things from your video.
I was well experienced it several times that the model just moved away from the grid again having a completely different facing.

Ctrl A - apply rotation , location eventually scale and the same for bones. Wow if I had just known that you've no idea how frustrating it was to realign that many times. Eventually I just kept it was it was and adjusted the bones to that new rotation.

The second very interesting thing is the way you rigged the bones. Your top rotor was directly connected with your body bone while I kept all 3 bones separated. Not sure if that's bad since you can still assign the body bone as parent for the other bones per offset but still.

Very informative indeed. Thank you for that & for the model. You made my day Sir. As for my texture problem I can't get it fixed but what ever I think I'll release it anyway after all you will see these choppers mostly in the distance for scripted_sequences anyway so who cares?

Absolutely stunning. I will study it carefully the files you provided under tutorial.

I await your video... Once I release that I will definitely add you to the credits without you that chopper wouldn't exist. Brilliant.

I agree once things are working and you get used to the controls etc. it's kinda fun messing around with it. And as it goes for every mapper or modder in general. Creating something new and unique is always fun.

Is Guistudio still working for you? For me it stopped working ever since I'm on windows 10. It never finds the QC despite the fact that it is in the same folder.

EDIT: I checked through the files.. Fantastic work making 4 pieces outta1 or formerly 2 in the original state.. I will most certainly remember that.
I was wondering how to do that with the bones when the chopper would be split into pieces.. You just kept em there in every mesh on the same place. Fascinating.

Also thanks for that lovely compile.bat I never considered using one for modeling. I never considered it.. Very nice to have a 2nd compiler once more along with JEDS I'm afraid gui-studio is out of commission for good.

Amazing.. I'm looking forward to both... I can't stress enough how happy you made me today.. thanks.

Now with this out of the way thanks to your effort I'm already prepping the next birds. Thankfully these work as they were pre designed.

I think I gonna release a small BMRF chopper pack on moddb soon. I just wish I started messing with Blender few years earlier. Most hl1 compatible models are gone by now. There used to be whole model databases in the net. CS alone had models for everything from simple bushes to helicopters and planes. Kinda sad that this is all gone.

I suppose my next step regarding models will be to actually create models myself other than editing them.

Wow really !??! Cool I can hardly wait!

I'm especially curious about the details because I want that know how for future references... I said it before I say it again "You're a god!" In a funny way this model belongs to you now considering you made it work I didn't. Well feel free to use it as you desire. It's been almost 18years and as far I know this will become Black Mesa's first released Aircraft in model format ever. Very well done.

---

I myself was just editing my previous post. I almost reached the stage of development you were in couple of hours ago. I received the "to many verticies" error. I was currently investigating for some experimental model compilers I read about which allow you to even compile 20k poly gone models for Hl1. Apparently arrangement released some beta at some time.

Once again congratulations my friend. Who would have ever guessed that such a small model would keep us occupied for 2 full days.

Looking forward to get the model and the details relaying to your breakthrough.

Really you managed to get it compiled and partially animated ? Very nice. Feel free to upload your version over then I will aid from your file version on in the attempt to get it entirely animated...

I'm still struggling to get my version compiled over here. I can either use the default asset which came with the model to get it compiled but without any working animations or I attempt to make mods in the hope to get the anims working but then it wont compile at all..

It's typically me. If there are 10 easy models to choose from for a Black Mesa re-skinned Helicopter I of course have to select the hardest one causing trouble. Anyway I will keep working on it. I got a feeling that you're close to a solution.

Good luck to both of us.

Cool thanks for your assistance.. That you get the compile error is odd (In Blender or modelviewer?). For me it seems to compile just fine (in blender) with the exception of the Animations not playing.

I did try something else by now. I deleted all my bones and replicated the file and bone structure with that of this AH1 chopper I showed you yesterday.In Blender everything looks alike and when I compare the 2 models and their structure everything looks good. So I compiled the model of course it just wouldn't want to compile no explanation given by Jeds modelviewer. It just says grabbing the chopper.smd and then it exits.

This is truly getting frustrating. How ever the fact you said there would be to many verticies makes me think. In it's original design the chopper indeed came in 2 meshes the body separated in 2 half pieces.

Here's the original chopper model if you wanna take a look for comparison:

http://gamer-lab.com/eng/mdl_goldsrc/e135Heli

Yes use the entity.

trigger_gravity

Just type a number between 0 & 1 in the gravity value.

0 is zero-g while 1 is maximum gravity and earth like.

Hm I've got in the Armature tab 4 more entries in it:

Armature0.14 containing the bone "body"
Armature0.01 containing the bone "rotor_top"
Armature0.02 containing the bone "rotor_rear"
Chopper containing the Chopper mesh while Armature0.14 containing the bone with the name "body" is the designated parent for that chopper mesh.

Is that right or wrong? In either case I guess and will wait for your return tomorrow. I don't seem get to it working. My theory is that you can't have 2 separate animations linked to a single parent bone not sure.

But I suspect you're right I bet it's just some huge noob mistake I just made I too feel like we're getting closer to the solution. Just few hours back for example I noticed that my parent bone wasn't even linked with the chopper mesh itself. ^^ I fixed that by now but it's still not working.

It also comes with a distasteful side effect. My rotors will offset now when I'm attempting to have them plus the parent bone inside my animation rig. I can move em back by hand of course but I'm not sure that's supposed to happen at all so I aborted the test run. See you tomorrow. Hopefully you can find the issue at hand. I'm getting desperate here. Good night.

Hi...

Ya the export works fine and thus far I tried different approaches in regards of exporting the animations.

The QC looks like this:

$modelname "e135Heli.mdl"
$cd ".\"
$cdtexture ".\"
$scale 1.0
$cliptotextures

$bbox 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
$cbox 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
$eyeposition 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000

//reference mesh(es)
$body "body" "s1"

$body "body" "s2"

// 1 hit box(es)
$hbox 0 "kHED" -211.500000 -220.520004 0.000000 291.369995 222.509995 148.380005

// 1 animation sequence(s)
$sequence "seq" "seq" fps 30 loop ACT_IDLE 1
$sequence "rotors_on" "rotors_on" fps 30 loop
$sequence "top_rotor" "top_rotor" fps 50 loop

// End of QC script.

As you can see very simple and only 1 hitbox kHED (bone?) is defined here.
The other bones you created in your tutorial which I recreated including their names aren't listed here just yet. Not sure how to add that.

But as said before the Animations itself also don't seem to list my bones:

rotors_on Animation:

version 1
nodes
0 "blender_implicit" -1
1 "rotor_rear" -1
end
skeleton
time 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 -0.000000 -0.000000 0.000000
time 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 -0.000000 -0.000000 0.000000
time 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 -0.000000 1.047198 -0.000000
time 3
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 0.000000 2.094395 0.000000
time 4
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 0.000000 -3.141593 -0.000000
time 5
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 0.000000 -2.094395 -0.000000
time 6
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -8.887785 -0.904976 0.579222 -0.000000 -1.047198 0.000000
end

As you can see it shows only "rotor_rear" up there and I don't even have a clue what "blender_implicit" is supposed to be. Normally it should list the bones "body", "rotor_top" "rotor_rear" in it as I had all 3 separate key frames and the 2 rotation sequences added in "rotors_on" through the Action Editor. But it looks as it just took the rotor_rear animation sequence while exporting I don't understand it.

As for S2GSC that should be the right one. It does give me my fixed files and I also rigged own custom made animations based on your tutorials you created me some while ago. That works.

I'm saddened to hear you wont be on your Computer for the next day but ok no problem.

Hey I did that... It didn't do the trick.. The animation simply is not playing... Can you take a look please. I uploaded you the chopper with my implemented animations.

EDIT: For a moment I thought I found the issue at hand. By now I discovered that the Animation frames are underlined in red. Indicating that they're not working.

Then I found this interesting Article:

http://aligorith.blogspot.de/2010/11/f-curve-first-aid-identifying-and.html

But the red lines reappear the moment I fix the F-curves so it has to be something else I guess.

Now I even attempted to use your method of animating still no luck. As last resort I can only imagine that it is not working due to the fact how the actual body group is set up. The good news is that the red lines are gone now. So it's a small step into the right direction.

My guess by now is that the QC and the body meshes might be responsible for my Animation not firing up.

In it's original form the chopper came split in 2 different meshes which are the actual body of it. (without bones)

Now I'm unsure how I would have to rig (especially bones) my 1 mesh chopper as a replacement for the bodies S1 & S2. Perhaps having 2 body meshes and later my 1 mesh helicopter is something the QC file doesn't like?

Speaking about the QC file. That's another strong possibility for why my Animation ain't working. There are no bones defined except 1 (which sits on the exact same spot where I centered the view for Blender earlier today).

But we're having actually 3 regular placed bones. 2 Rotating bones and the body bone in the middle of the model.

The original model itself never had any bones. Do you know how to edit the QC file to integrate the bone names? I wouldn't know what numbers to type in.

Another odd thing. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the exports didn't contain my bones. That fact alone makes it impossible to work as intended. I figured that out in the model viewer.

EDIT1: I've uploaded you my latest internal build using your Animation method.

http://www.filedropper.com/bmrf

I think it's getting clear that not the QC or even body group are responsible but me. I'm doing something wrong while exporting considering it is not exporting the bones when I export my animation. So it just can't work. Perhaps the way we rigged the bones was wrong seeing that even some scripted sequence choppers such as this one got a whole connected bone structure. ???

Other chopper for comparison:
http://www.moddb.com/games/half-life/addons/ah1-ah1-mini-cobra

Latest internal build:

http://www.filedropper.com/bmrf

Any ideas what to do next Tesu0?

Tetsu0: Wow you're truly a god! Thanks for that.

I will immediately try replicating your steps and then report back to you.
It's actually interesting that's originally as I had it at first. 3 separate meshes but someone told me that they need to be linked together as 1 mesh in order to work in Hl1. That's when I created the vertex groups and made the chopper to 1 mesh.

The way you animated the rotor was very fascinating too. I didn't even know about this generator window & graph setting you were in. In the Helicopter case I had 6 frames and manually shifted them step by step by 60 degrees 6x60=360. Good to see that this can also work other ways. Just like in your example the last frame would be on the same locrot as frame 1 would be.

Questions:

1.) How can I show the grid again? Can I make it larger?

2.) How do you extend bones up a 90 degrees angular? When I do it while holding down ctrl it goes smooth but skewed in side view. Yours went straight up and you too were in side view.

3.) How did you make a copy of that one bone? You simply took the original and moved a new bone straight outta it, how?

4.) I did it!! I successfully animated my helicopter! Fantastic and that is all thanks to you Tetsu0. You're amazing!

Now I've got only one problem left bothering me. How do I export everything as one scene instead of 2 animation sequences? It'll be annoying if the mapper had to use 2 entities in order to fire up the rotors.

Ok I figured that one out per action editor. Next problem: Once I implemented my Animation sequence and compiled the model the animation isn't playing. It's acting static.

Any idea what I might have done wrong here?

See my latest progress:

http://www.filedropper.com/animatedblackmesaheli

Hey Solo I'm just trying to get a sequence animation going. The Helicopter will be used per monster_generic.

As for Keyframes I tried that as well. But for some reason instead of spinning around they went larger and smaller once I inserted the key frames into dope sheet. No clue what caused this behavior but I couldn't fix it. Which is why I began creating the bones with the Apache and it's Idle 1 sequence as inspirational source.

In the latter case, you'll have to assign the blade vertices to a bone that represents the rotor axis, then attach a bone controller that can move the rotors.

Yes that's what I did. My problem is that I can't get the angular right as the blades don't rotate smooth but instead look as if they had a buckled wheel to throw in a comparison with a bicycle.

Open your mod .FGD file with a program such as wordpad, notepad or notepad++.

In this example we do it for Barney:

@PointClass base(Monster,TalkMonster, Sequence) size(-16 -16 0, 16 16 72) studio("models/barney.mdl") = monster_barney : "Barney" [

Search for a line that looks similar to the one I just posted. It defines Barney as button within the Editor so that you can select and place him inside your maps.

What your lines will most likely miss if they are just displayed as blocks is this line:

studio("models/barney.mdl") = monster_barney : "Barney"

The studio line links to the actual model which allows you to see it inside your map editor. You will have to do that manually for every single model that's only displayed as block in your editor. Make sure you link to the correct models when doing that. And make a backup of your .FDG file before messing with it just in case you mess things up.

No clue it's been some while since I played DOD. How ever I suggest you download SprView.exe and check it out yourself. But if memory serves me they are somewhat called with "Rain" in it.

EDIT: Oh you meant the flags.. Hm Axis, Allies, Flag something like that.

- Textures still WIP.

Hi for 2 days now I'm attempting to get a rotor rotation animation going for my re-skinned Black Mesa chopper. So what I did is creating a bone structure and assign 2 rotation bones one for each rotor - the rear rotor & the front. So far this works charming and I can rotate the rotors within the vertex groups.

My problem is that the rotors move with the rotating bone instead of just spinning around with it. That naturally doesn't look very pretty and I hereby request urgent help. My modeling skills are still somewhat lacking it seems.

For real model artists such as Tetsu0, Qwertyus and anyone else qualifying: This should be a matter of 2 minutes for you guys considering everything is already setup. I'm confident that you can find my error.

Model Dl: http://www.filedropper.com/missingrotormodel
I provided the Blender files and in addition 3DS and OBJ. Formats in case you don't work with Blender. Please help me somebody I'd appreciate it!

Lovely screens Archie.. This almost looks pre cascade?

Never mind I solved it by creating a 2nd Osprey with the proper rotation set prior to the begin of the scene.

If you dislike Gold Source mapping so much why don't you do some mapping for Source Engine then or perhaps Unreal Tournament Engine? It's true that Gold Source but Source too for that matter are a true struggle to get along with. No other Engine for instance has this damn leak story and so on. It is what it is. An Ancient game engine that was made for a different time.

I've got a similar question right now.

Currently I'm having an Osprey model riding on an invisible train.

Is it possible with some entity to rotate the angle of the model as I can target only the invisible train for the route.

I'd like to simulate it crashing just as it was the case in Point of View there though they used the actual monster_osprey while I'm using the mini_osprey.mdl.

Any ideas?

I'd be tempted to join depending on the deadline (what is it?) but I'm still unsure what the exact agreement is based up upon now.. Is it a fantasy themed project or a Spirit based Item collection approach on numerous worlds to return home to Black Mesa?

@Tetsu0: Please Update your 1st post with the actual data to add some structure to this almost 8 pages long discussion.

That put aside I suggest you folks to download these:

http://www.moddb.com/games/half-life/addons/scientists-219-animations-for-mappers-intended

I released em couple of days ago. They contain almost all animations of all 4 Hl1 offical games and might come in handy for every mapper here. The only downturn on them is that 2 of the sub models got lesser good textured eyes (not my doing) but that aside they are typical HD models with aligned textures even.

Sorry I was busy...

You're right I was actually mistaken. You can't view sub model body groups (not that I know about) inside the editor only the major models are getting displayed. So only submodel1 of any model. How ever it really shouldn't matter. If you're unsure what body you chose just start a quick compile and check it out.

Or give the npcs specific names which you can remember for certain unit skins. Name_Green1,Name_Green2 for any monster that's well "green" textured etc. Another thing you could do is by creating a test map in which you place each model along with their sub models ready for copy and paste usage into your main maps. Basically having a selection just like with prefabs.

I tried tinkering with different settings inside the FDG but I couldn't get sub models displayed within the editor sorry.