Post your screenshots! WIP thread Created 16 years ago2007-12-16 00:58:58 UTC by doodle

those models seem to be just thin detail on top of brush pillars

those models seem to be just thin detail on top of brush pillars

yep, its just that
you can do some funn things if you use some tricks with models

image upload no size limit

Very WIP, but I'm pleased with how this is turning out. Needs a HLFIX compile, for sure.

Is that GoldSource? It looks too good.

Here's a pic of my TWHLworld map:Practically done, just gonna fix some bugs. Largest map I've ever made.

MOOMINADE !

light

Nice particles arch, how on earth are you managing to do that in GS? ( or is it Spirit? )
Are those models with baked animations or brushes; there's quite a few mini seams on the closest ring!

Looks cool as hell though

Very WIP, but I'm pleased with how this is turning out. Needs a HLFIX compile, for sure.

Archie, do you need custom prop models for that scene? I can make some if you want. That would fix some floating point error post-compile (if using HLFIX still don't fix it).

Now tell me how much would you love to have a func_instance entity on Goldsource?

I made something Half-Life 2-ish

The lighting in the second shot is pretty damn sexy.

It's quite nice but I personally don't like the lighting. It's too grey, and for some reasons it makes me think of Raven Shield (I think the lighting is quite grey as well in it). I also don't like pure yellow like that.

Looks like there is a custom renderer or something (the light on the hand) ^^

I love the HUD, it's simple and it's clear.

I like the lighting as it is, I just have the feeling that the red light on the roof is a little bit weird.

hmm looks really decent, maybe add a dark green light in the middle of the trees? will be a bit brighter and could support the color of the trees.
BTW what mod is it?

I really like the design and lighting, though I wonder if the scene could use a more lit focal point without detracting too much from the gorgeous dark ambience.

The film grain really doesn't work for me, though. Just looks like bad JPEG compression.

!WARNING! Ridiculously big resolution screenshots incoming !WARNING!A little update on the HLDM map I'm working on. :3

Looking good!

A lot of func_breakable's.
This part, the U-turn, is mostly complete.

@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.

@23-down

Don't worry about the repetitive textures, I'm going for the method used in the first DOOM games.

In fact, here's some more screenshots:And when a lot of it is broken:And a realistic approach to light bulbs:Behold! The latest and greatest lightbulb tech!
Shoot one, and it's off until it re-spawns

So this is for CS?

@DiscoStu

If you refer to my map, ts_untergrund is not a map for CS, but rather for TS, another great Half-Life mod.

And that's the exact reason why I'm putting so many func_breakables in there, so you can have more fun when you kill an enemy in-air, and then the enemy's body falls into the fragile crates, and breaks them. And of course, bullet time!

But, this will be the first map of mine to have a port to other GoldSrc games, so it's:
-25% for The Specialists,
-25% for Half-Life,
-25% for Counter-Strike,
-and 25% for Sven Co-op if it gets a port.

Oh yeah that mod. I played it exactly once.

Don't worry about the repetitive textures, I'm going for the method used in the first DOOM games.

Psuedo-3D?
Hidden areas marked with discoloured sections?
No Filtering?
Sector-based lighting?

There were a lot of methods used in those two, you're gonna have to be more specific.

@JeffMOD

Pseudo-3D? I'm not sure what that is, but I guess it's the 2.5D feature of DOOM, because it was essentially 2.5D, but rendered as 3D.

There will be hidden areas if I make them fit into the map (and probably I will, such as a mini-cinema).

No filtering? Maybe if you turn on Software mode.

Sector-based lighting? Heh, GoldSource doesn't probably support that natively, however I could convert each "sector" to a func_wall, and then control their minimum light level. But no.

What I really meant by the mentioned method, was actually this: "every floor; different wall texture".

It implies that for every new floor/sector, there has to be a different wall or floor texture for each floor.

Anyways, here are some more photos, now in-game:The map is now in beta, a week after I began working on it.

Can't make out a thing in that first shot. 640 x 480??? Really?

The road is cool, but it's barely wide enough for one lane, let alone two.

It's 800x600 But still too dark

A standard lane is 3m wide. Except in the US where it's more like 4m. At ~40 units per metre, each lane would be between 120 and 160 units depending on whether you want International or American size.

[Edit] Joke's on us. IT'S A BICYCLE PATH!

Definitely 640x480.

A standard lane is 3m wide. Except in the US where it's more like 4m. At ~40 units per metre, each lane would be between 120 and 160 units depending on whether you want International or American size.

By the way, have you heard of this FAN-TAS-TIC tool allowing you to convert meters to hammer units?
More seriously, it might have to be larger than that. I'm saying that because I noticed that if you strictly apply the correct dimensions to Half-Life maps, they look vertically squeezed! Vertical dimensions look correct, but horizontal don't. You even can't go through a lot of doors! I think everything in the Half-Life engine is larger than in reality (doors, characters), so you'd better use another conversion factor for horizontal dimensions, may be 50 units for 1 meter?

Half-Maths: Dimensions ^^

@Loulimi : I think it also depends on the camera and rendering stuff for the horizontal line thingy.

As much as I remember it was 800x600. That stupid bangs head into wall, integrated bangs again, Intel breaks skull, frickin' GMA... the lagggg!!!
And now I'm dead for hitting the wall with my head.

And don't worry, I already made the roads wider, before anyone told me.
Also, my settings are different, I have a bit more gamma and contrast (the sliders in the Video tab). Therefore, I'll use my phone's screen to see what you see.

Testing some reflective floor using a combination of brushes and a model with its texture set to "Chrome" and "Additive".Any thoughts or suggestions?

Yes, here's a suggestion: If you want it reflective, try making it reflective.

Are you saying this because you can't see any fake reflection, or are you simply implying to add specular and normal maps to HL?

You can't really see the full effect since you'd need to move around the model when the "chrome" effect is applied to it. Those bright parts on the tiles is the fake specular effect, by the way.

EDIT: This should explain better.

That looks lovely!

Thank you SugarMan. :3

Any real suggestions now?
About toning down the specularity effect strenght, I'm working on it btw.

@Alberto309

This could be used for fake water, or even simulating mercury (the liquid metal).

However, in its current state, the tiles seem to be reflecting clouds.

In my opinion, you could maybe trigger an env_render entity, to set the Render FX to something like 50, which would certainly lessen the effect.

I tried this once for some glass and metal trims. It looked great until I shined the flashlight on them and the reflection became unusually bright. Have you found a way around that?

A friendly advice: faking reflective surfaces/mirrors/specular is bad, winners uses true reflective surfaces/mirrors/specular ^^

The flashlight will kill everything ^^

This could be used for fake water

Tried that 2 years ago already. Didn't work that well since the model needs to be animated to give the needed effect (I don't know how to animate).

you could maybe trigger an env_render entity

Good catch! Will try that soon.

the reflection became unusually bright. Have you found a way around that?

Since Half-Life models have a single point-light origin, if you point the flashlight on it, it will be brighter. To avoid that just move the model away from the origin (in a modeling software) and let it be lit by a light entity placed on a place that the player can't reach (like a hollowed brush outside the map with a light in it). That way you can decide which light color and brightness amount you want your model to have without being affected by any sort of light, either dynamic or not.
Also, don't worry about the model's size, because the thing that really matters is the actual origin, so you don't need a big space to put it in. You can simply make a hollowed brush a bit bigger than a light entity and you'd do the trick.

winners uses true reflective surfaces/mirrors/specular

This is literally not possible as that would mean I'd need to make a mod and release a map for it since vanilla Goldsource doesn't support that stuff.
Also, it's bad only if you fail in your intent. I will not.

I only use vanilla Goldsource. Standard Half-Life copy on Steam.

My goal is to achieve a nice effect on the vanilla engine.

If you don't know how to animate, then don't do it for GoldSource. Instead, look for some tutorials on general animation, and then expand that knowledge to GoldSource.

And as much as I know, vertex animation should be used for fake water, if GoldSRC supports vertex animation (I highly doubt it does, since it's a 1998 engine).

@Admer456 : Nope, it's "skeletal animation". Unless you are ready to write your own animation system (and model renderer because you won't be able to achieve that with a format such as MDL), you won't see that in Gold Source.

Also I wouldn't say 1998 engines can't support vertex animation - Half-Life was, if memory serves, the first game to use skeletal animation. Quake had vertex animation ONLY, for instance.

Half-Life and Quake both use vertex subdivision for water surfaces. That's how func_water wave effects work. It calculates waves using the current time, so it's not animation exactly, just a sine wave. Half-Life pioneered skeletal animation in video games using meshes made up out of vertices, whereas Quake only had the simpler vertex stuff.

Here's a video about Half-Life's skeletal animation system that explains the advantages over then-current techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rvRENAT0Cw

If you don't know how to animate, then don't do it for GoldSource.

I never wanted to animate for Goldsource, indeed. So I can't understand why you say that, since I've never stated that I want to animate.

Instead, look for some tutorials on general animation, and then expand that knowledge to GoldSource.

Probably not gonna happen. I want to focus myself on level design, not modelling. If I'd really need a specific model for a map, I'd ask help to someone else that's definitely better than me in accomplish such task.
Reason why videogames made by a group of people are most of the times better than the ones made by only one person. Everyone focuses on what he can do better. In my case: level design.

@Alberto309

Well, you made your point.
I, however, will be a 1-man modding machine, because of the numerous advantages: making my own music, textures, sounds, models and other assets by myself.

To be, or not to be? That is the question.

To be a man with free time or not to be a man with free time? That is the question

I prefer to focus on what I can do best instead of doing everything myself and compromise the quality of the final product.
If you really want to make your own music, textures, sounds, models and other things, then you should spend a lot of time on all of these to get better and better. The main point is: would you like to spend the amount of years of your life you used to learn the thing you can do the most just to learn how to do every single thing you said? I personally have almost 12 years of level design experience. That would mean spending 60 years to be the best at everything. That's a no-no for me.
It's not only something that you can learn in books, it's mostly about experience.

To be a man with free time or not to be a man with free time? That is the question

That too, indeed.

Please do stay that way, for me it's too late.

Meh, I only have 2 years of mapping experience, 1.5 years of texturing, 1 year of music production, 6 years of video-editing (man, since I was 8 years old), and only 6 months of modelling experience.

But at the very least I know coding. I only spent a few weeks in coding, but luckily I wasn't lazy enough to find tutorials and try to learn basic programming

To be a man with free time or not to be a man with free time? That is the question

I don't know about you, but I never have free time even when I'm not at my "beloved" laptop. There's always something.

Hello guys, if you use metarenderer than you can metahook -game <yourmod> -lightmaps 512 +map your map ( over than 100 % allocblock is full from 64 )

Never managed to get this working on both my laptop and my desktop PC.

That is like to Xash 3D - I know Valve doesn't support because initial Xash released to Steam than Valve Software stopped to Xash. They are very sad because Xash is like vanilla half-life. I know reason because Valve Software is a very stubborn cowboy unhappy -

Xash3D is NOT like vanilla Half-Life, there are a lot of differences between the standard Gold Source and Xash3D itself.

I have tested meta renderer 1.5c and it works fine with standalone mod spirit of half-life 1.9.1

SoHL is dead since Laurie Cheers abandoned it, the Gold Source modding community killed it. People should downgrade to 1.2 (or 1.5 because it's the only not messed up community release) or even better, not use SoHL at all.

spirit of half-life 1.9.1 = So close Source Engine with -/+ 32768 or -/+65536!

Does SoHL 1.9.1 has Havok ? Does it has HL2 arsenal and NPCs ? No, so your comparison of Gold Source VS Source Engine is invalid (especially the word "so close"). Question about the map size, that "additional space" works for everything or just for a "Source style skybos" ? Because in the past, someone already extended the map's limits but only world brushes would work (player/entities were not "allowed" in that space).

meta renderer has support to up 2048x2048 testures details

2048x2048 is just pointless, you are wasting a ton of CPU/GPU memory for something that the player won't stare at it for 15 minutes. Even if we do have in ARRANGEMENT an enhanced PARANOIA renderer and such, we're not some crazy details maniacs, we still limit ourselves to 512x512 and 1024x1024. Nobody would like to play a game with 1 FPS even on a very recent hardware.

If you create custom shader vertex and fragment example fire effects or aurora effects and it can render to normalmap and specular to models...

Unless I'm drunk (or stupid), Aurora is the name of particle system within SoHL, so I don't know how you could render normal maps and specular maps on particles.

How do we get flashlight from shader? If somebody knows to write fragment- and vertex-shader - If who knows than it sees awesome vanilla half-life mod smile -

Friendly advice: keep the standard HL flashlight, make a VGUI overlay (similar to PARANOIA), it will only cost you a TGA image and it will look pretty. It also saves you the time of writing the shader.

Why do we love "vanilla half-life" because it is stabler than Source Engine, right?

No, I love HL1 because it's one of the first FPS games I've played and modded and I have little (not none) interest with Unity/UE3/UE4.

Thanks for suggestion with meta renderer because meta renderer can crack lightmaps

What do you mean by "cracking lightmaps" ?