Interesting questions Created 16 years ago2008-08-14 23:02:42 UTC by BlueDragon

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.

Lolwut?

Im not sure i completely understand the second question, but ill take a guess anyway.

It seems you want these deleted faces to be revealed, ok, now you want to know wheter to do it with sky, or NULL textures, and whether either one will have a performance effect.

The compile difference would be minimal i think, unless the faces that would be deleted are part of complicated geometry. It could possibly double your compile time in that respect. The ingame performance you could easily test yourself, use the r_speeds console command, record loading times, whatever.

While im baffled at why you want these normally deleted faces to be revealed, there is the question as to whether NULL would even work this way, since everything thats nulled isnt rendered. It will have to be something to test.

Hopefully i understood what you said above, otherwise my longwinded post doesnt mean anything.

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.

@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.

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.

Then why don't you just try it out for yourself and report your findings here on the forum?

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

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

Maybe Barney's helmet?

?

Barney's helmet is kinda' reflective if I remember correctly, maybe that's what r_mirroralpha is controlling.

Or maybe not ? any testings ?

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.

If you want mirrors in your map, start mapping for another game cuz goldsource doesn't have mirrors. Maybe you could implement it yourself in a mod but that's completly different question...

And why not look through the HL source code and find out what mirroralpha does yourself?

BTW, mirroralpha didn't seem to have any effect on Barney's helmet, and his helmet wasn't reflective anyway, more like some chrome-effect.

Bottom line:

Goldsource = no mirrors.

you can only make an illusion to make that effect, but I'm sure you know about that. Copying the stuff behind glass. Of course that has its limitations, but its the best you can do.

I say again.

Goldsource = no mirrors, without some hefty code manipulation, which I don't know amnything about.

Also, the way you word your questions, it seems as if you don't own half-life. If you do have it, what are you asking us for? We don't know anything. You should test it yourself, try r_mirroralpha in the game, Google it, whatever.

I'm pretty sure you could have found an answer to all of your questions already by testing for yourself, instead of waiting for us to give some educated guesses.

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

R_Mirroralpha is a left over command from early HL and/or Quake. There's dozens of commands like that. This one doesn't work just like half of the other commands.

However, Spirit can add a glossy factor to a surface if you like.

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.

Ummm... OK ... Yeah ... Good ... Well ... Whatever ...

These maps should usually be an "arena" or deathmatch type . Or a de or cs or as map . But these explications are useless .
Can you think a little : 1 player walks through the trigger_changelevel while the others are in another part of the map ? Oh and the map changes and the round restarts with full 100 life .

Absolutely not possible . It would be wise , thought , if someone from valve releases an update for hl1 and its mods to increase these mapping limits and increase the compiling speed .

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

The only thing Valve needs todo is release the counterstrike source code. Just like with the Quake games. There is so much possible when the source code is availibe. And ofcourse there will be deeper cheats/hacks. BUT, when you know the source code you can also write the best anti cheats. And thats a good thing!

Also things like mapping tools, movie tools and stuff would be very handy to make with a full open source! To bad there is only around 20% of the source code availble. And those codes are not even 100% done.

ZHLT is open source AFAIK, if you want faster compiling times, start coding!

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

This is a forum, not an instant-messaging chat.

You guys are using the latest version of the compile tools, right? The ones made by some members of the mapping communities (ZHLT, or whatever version is currently considered top-notch)... because the old tools are seriously outdated and limiting.

As for using multiple levels in Counter-Strike, I think you're out of luck there (and you're probably either using limited compile tools, or you're not optimizing your map sufficiently, or you're trying to cram too much into one level). I'm not exactly sure how level-changes are handled by CS - if they are at all - but it certainly would be inconvenient to wait for a level-load in the middle of a game. So don't bother trying.

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)

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)

Even if you wanted to change levels in CS, that would take some massive CPU power. Think about it, lets say the server (the person hosting the map) walks into the changelevel trigger and moves to the next map. All the other players would still be on the first map so the server would have to load both maps AND manage both. Unfortunately, while this would be an awesome feature, Goldsource just can't support it, that and you won't be able so see the people on the other map, its not possible.

On the note about the CS SDK, it was never released, because it wasn't actually made by valve. Two guys made it and submitted it to valve to approval and they liked it so much that they branded it. CS was made by Gooseman and cliffe.

With those 'game' triggers, they are the only ones that you can use in a map. Why you ask! Because although those other triggers you want do exist (in code) they are not open, as in, the map cannot alter or even give them an input. So they are unusable. As for those other ones (freezer_udoor and mousetrap) i have never heard of them.

Also with a mirror effect you want, this is possible. The Spirit of HL mod has actually developed real-time reflections, this uses MASSIVE amounts of processor power on the old Goldsource engine and the small tester map i saw had awful framerates. Whats more, Spirit is not CS so again, not possible.

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!