Re-VISing Half-Life maps (aka I need bsp2prt for Goldsrc!) Created 2 years ago2022-10-03 10:06:14 UTC by kimilil

The other day, someone made available* a 3D skybox model. I thought it'd be a neat idea to retrofit Half-Life's maps with them.

The one issue, after editing the maps with bspguy and placing the model, is that it's not visible anywhere in the map. In normal workflow (compiling from source) VIS takes care of that, by marking the area with info_overview_point as "visible everywhere on the map", and then I'll just place the 3D skybox model in the same place. It does that by perusing the portal file generated by the previous program (CSG or BSP).
But with the released game only the final product, the BSP, is shipped.

I googled for a way to get the prt from a bsp, and found the program bsp2prt for quake. But it only takes a quake bsp. I can't cheese it into taking a goldsrc bsp masquerading as quake bsp.

So the most straightforward way for me to proceed is if there exists, in this whole wide world, in a hard drive somewhere, a bsp2prt program that works on goldsrc bsp. Any lead is much appreciated.

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p.s. I actually looked into this more technically; to find a way of actually modifying the bsp's PVS lump directly, but it's way out of my league. bspguy's source code (as in any C/++ code) is just goobledygook to me.

p.p.s. I was working on an unrelated project when I discovered about creative commons and how it's actually illegal to make derivatives of most of the stuff on gamebanana (the 3D skybox model included). I'm grateful that the forefatheres of this site saw through the asininity and not have the option to upload stuff to vault with the CC-ND clause (well, not that I know of.) I know the 3D skybox is also here in vault but now there are two licenses and I dunno which takes precedence.

ppps I just raised an issue in bspguy's github.

Well actually, the Vault has options for NoDerivatives (as well as NonCommercial and some others):Default option is All Rights Reserved™ which, yeah, is about the same as GameBanana's default. What I personally don't like is the lack of CC0, but oh well...

Anyway, I'd just like you to know that there's no "real" way of getting portals from a BSP, i.e. the original .prt file. The BSP doesn't store portals, just BSP leaves and which leaf can see which leaf. Thankfully it's mostly easy to calculate from the BSP's planes because that's what the BSP compilers do, and that's what I believe bsp2prt does as well. Only thing I fear is that VHLT or some compiler down the family line is doing this step ever so slightly differently, which may cause all kinds of issues. Hope not.

BspGuy would be a good candidate to add this sorta functionality to, because you already got a 3D view of the BSP and all.

Multiple licenses

Multiple licenses for art and software is pretty common: you should be able to use it under whichever of the licenses you prefer. Often readme files or the descriptions say something like "use it however you like but please credit me" and that can be legally binding, too. When in doubt you can always write and ask, they are probably just happy to hear that there is interest in their creations.

TWHL's Vault

I would have liked if "all rights reserved" was not the default on TWHL: I would have preferred if there was no default. The legal implications should be the same whether it says "all rights reserved" or just nothing at all, since copyright at least in many countries does not require any notice (the absence of a license is not a permission to distribute), but the social implications are different:

If someone made the effort to actively choose "all rights reserved" they really do not want anyone to use their stuff so you do not bother them about it.

If someone simply did not make a choice, it is not a bad idea to ask them for permission to use their work.

I believe that many modders have little interest in or knowledge of licensing or copyright but are happy to share when asked.