The Howdy's Ideas Thread! Created 18 years ago2005-11-13 19:11:59 UTC by Howdy

okok, so after getting flamed at the shoutBOX i desided to get flamed here aswell... lmao.
ok, so here is like a few things i miss on this site.

#1: Source Tutorials
i just recently started with source mapping and had to google for tutorials and entity lists. i find this rather pointless as in i should be able to find a few things on TWHL. what i want, or would like, is a Basic Source Tutorial. like simple basic stuff. lighting and stuff. ive seen threw a few external tuts and decided to propose to write one myself. though im pretty sure theres people on here thats way better in that than me.
it would be quite cool with a few things like "how to master the physbox thing" or whatever. theres alot of posabilities in source! GRAB SOME PEOPLE!

#2: Source Entity Guide
another thing i miss is a Source Entity Guide. i mean... theres one for HL and CS. wheres HL2? theres alot of odd stuff in HL2 mapping that i have no idea what is. i had to google that aswell. lol. sad, isnt it? i mean, this site is called The Whole Half Life. wheres Half-Life:Source?

i cant really come up with any more stuff at the moment. but ill prolly find something to add later. feel free to comment and stuff peppz! im not afraid of critics

PS: sorry bout horrable typos and grammar.

A Great Thread! Wow!

Whoever told you to make this thread is a genious!

Hmm...

In order to have these things done, someone with a good level of source experience would have to invest a lot of their time...

After the disapearence of Andy, Im not sure who would do such a thing. I mean, he did write all the basic tutorials for HL1, and wrote the HL entity Guide...

Who's gonna step up to the plate?

theres a few things here. i dont see the harm in ripping a few things >.<

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:Level_Design

Uh, but you said yourself, the beginner stuff is officially well-covered.

Moving tutorials from other websites to your own is called stealing. That's why TWHL doesn't do it.

If you want to see something new, write it and submit it!

I wouldn't rip anything...

TWHL is such a good source of information for newbies because of our HL entity Guide, and the step by step noob tutorials...

I think Howdy is just saying we need the same thing for source, even if there are tutorials out there...

It helps make TWHL a bigger, better, stronger resource for mappers, and helps out the mapping community as a whole.

Well I don't mind writing tutorials.

how to master the physbox thing"

I wrote a physics tutorial and the mods have been fixing it up for inspection.

I've been mapping for Source for about a year nearly and I think I know a far amount.

Just PM entities you need help with and i'll see if I can write a few.

a Basic Source Tutorial. like simple basic stuff. lighting and stuff

Surprisingly, most of the Half-life tutorials are still valid when it comes to basic mapping in Source. I dont see the need for basic Source tutorials.

Neither do I. Maybe one for the input/output system and a generic overview of phys_ entities or such, but those are covered elsewhere already too. Source tutorials are a bit scattered over multiple sites though so a links page wouldn't stand wrong here I think, but hl2worlds wiki has a usefull entity list and most other stuff is covered somewhere on the Valve wiki (I still don't like wiki's because they're so generic (feels poor) to navigate, but anyway, luckily there's a search option).

And Googling may seem like too much work but I don't think I would've learnt so much as I did without Googling now and then. It has an advantage in that you can occasionally stumble upon an undiscovered source of tutorials or inspiration. That's the nice aspect of Googling. It doesn't limit yourself to one site, too.

thats odd, you all say its all there, please... pretty please show me. cause i cant se any helpfull source mapping tutorials on TWHL for beginners like me.

PS: using other peoples tutorials as inspiration for ones own is not stealing, its called RESEARCH!

:

ive offered to help with some of the stuff, though i havent gotten any reply.

ill also be more than happy to help out with the entity guide if people would LETT ME! but i guess im not "experianced" enough for the responcibilety.

all im saying is; i would bloody well like if i didnt have to resort to google cause i dont know how to get the water to work in source and stuff, i had no idea i had to use a odd entity (env_cubemap) to get the water to work.
i would like it if i could find a nice tutorial on here. source have been out for how long? and all i can see is some tutorial about how to edit models and stuff. thats kinda cool, but maybe prioritize the biginners levels?

sorry if all this seem a bit "hostile" or "agressive". its not that im pissed of. i love TWHL, thats why im just trying to help out with the site and stuff.

Nobody's said that you can't work on the entity guide :|.

Really, though, there are so many tutorials on the basics, and it's mostly like HL. There's no point in covering it again ? especially when we're talking about official resources. The HL2world wiki has an entity guide, too.

You want tutorials for Source? Check the following sites:

The Valve Developer Community - the official Valve wiki
Gamewag - a long list of tutorial links
Interlopers - tutorials, and a problems check page
Halfwit-2 - tutorials
Edit Life - tutorials
Hl2word wiki - entity guide

There's more if you search for them but this is probably enough for now...

Meh, I writed about 10 tutorials, I might post one? The rest are pretty the same in half-life..

Only 1 shows the power of inputs/outputs and triggering : Creating A Starfield.Pretty simple thought, but I thought it was fun to know..

Nice. Propose it with more details.

Will do some time, I also got a "Spawning Stuff" tutorial, it was the most succesfull tutorial on my forum..

Shows the use of a point_template, func_button and a prop_physic.

HL2 World has one thought, but mine is a bit more detailed. (I Just readed it)

yea, i would love to see a couple of tuts on the source section.
i dont thing having too many tutorials is a problem, i mean, if they were sorted in a handy system or whatever... i dunno. i think its better to have too many tutorials than to little. aslong as it isnt total caos ofcourse.

PS: i would be more than willing to help out on the Entity Guide 7th. gimme a few and ill digg right into them lol

PPS: thanks CP! really helped me alot, guess i could have googled it myself, but... yea... easyer making you do it for me

I've found those sites while ago anyway so why not post them for you...

I suggested them to get into the Links page but that still hasn't happened...

Meh, I writed about 10 tutorials, I might post one? The rest are pretty the same in half-life..

With Grammar like that, are you sure people understood them?

yea, ok. now that ive satisfied my needs and desiers ill stop bothering you peppz. well... untill i find something else to whine about

but hey, seriously. there should be a Source Entity Guide. and as i said, ill be more than happy to lend a hand with some of the less painfull stuff

Well, does anyone want to do the harder stuff?

When hl2world has a nice and fine entity listing, and Valve's wiki seems to be building one too, I don't see the need for so much work to give TWHL it's own guide. Don't you think so? I mean, doing a little research is essential if you want to get any further so a link to those sites should suffice.

We didn't built an error page like Tommy14 either, simply because he already had the best out there and it'd be a lot of extra work to get anywhere near that quality level...

i know, theres alot of info out there... im just sigesting to gather some of the most important stuff and putting it under one "roof". but hey...

could atleast be nice having a couple of external links and stuff. directing you to the error pages and entity guides.

im just throwing suggestions here. dont you guys want TWHL to rise on the "user friendy" graph?

I'm for a good link page, yeah. I'm not for redoing a lot of existing tutorials. Hence why I'm for a good link page...

A hint, methinks?

the current tutorial page could use a good tidying up though.

what about changing the names of some of the tutorials.
like for example instead of "Adding Atmosphere" having it named just "Atmosphere"?
makes it a lil bit easier to navigate.

or grouping them into groups like "entity tuts", "brush tuts", "tips and tricks" and so on

its already in difficulty groups. witch i think is great! i also like the search/find thing. great job there, thumbs up! though its kind of a bit discrete.

thats all really i can think of at the moment... lol

Hey Now,

I think Andy named it "Adding Atmosphere"...

I'll stick up for Andy any day

yea, i know, though it makes it less confusing looking threw the list having the names simplyfied