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An Ode to Hammer
Posted by Riven on Fri Sep 18th at 3:02am 2009

Something I typed up in an hour for you guys. -Enjoy! smiley

An Ode to Hammer


O Valve Hammer Editor, how art thy faithful ways.
Keeping close to heart and mind the many hours of days
I work and toil to carve and hollow my thoughts of environments and scenes
only to find those aspirations nullified with hurtful error messages plastered on my screens.

"**** leaked ****" It says; I screwed up! Oh no, what ever shall I do?
Not to worry said the man on the wiki, Valve's got a solution for you!
It's easy as one, two; just look in 'Map' and you'll find your trusty tool,
It's there waiting for you, the pointfile, way better than that old block method rule.
I'm finally in business, everything's A-Go! F9, check normal; developer in command,
No activity, what's the hold-up; what could go wrong; was it those models from props_wasteland?

Dot-by-dot, Rad inches along; I wait with glaring eyes,
At long last the game is starting, Good thing I've set it to full-size.
The map runs beautifully, I'm enjoying myself, but the lighting could use some work.
There's another issue there too. I'm gonna be here a while, might as well skip the homework.
Back to Hammer, must make changes, apply new values and work out all the knots.
Almost there; bug list checked; but ready to push the button? no, I have last minute thoughts.

Why am I so engaged, involved and downright addicted to this program with which I spend more hours than with friends?
Does it bellow from within where my secret desire to have godly powers from which forth it extends?
Or is it much simpler than that? Need I only look to the top of the page where I happen to be releasing this strife?
It must be because of the community, the community revolving around good old Half-Life.


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Long Hiatus Over
Posted by Le Chief on Sat Aug 29th at 2:10pm 2009

Today I spent a good few hours working on Night Terror, the last time I spent that long on Night Terror would have been a double digit number of months ago. Now that I'm free to work on Night Terror (no more exams or major projects), I'm hoping that I can release the mod by this year or early next year.

The first thing I did was delete a large space I was working on for an arena styled encounter that just wasn't working out and I started to flesh out the spaces that are going to take it's place. I then made two new concrete wall textures which will be replacing some of the default Half-Life 2 textures I used but the textures I made don't suit the areas I intend to use them very well so I'll play with them a bit more tomorrow.

I then was re-arranging some props in the exterior spaces at the beginning of the mod and tweaked the lighting a bit.

Later that day (technically today, actually it's 12am now..) I installed 3D Studio Max, downloaded the smd export/import plugins from Wunder Boy's website and spent probably 20 minutes refreshing my modeling memory, mainly remembering what settings and such I needed to compile the models. I've now got a page of points on my desk on the basic things I need to do to create a static prop from scratch for Half-Life 2.

I think I'll have a shower now, feed my fish and go to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to have a crack at modeling some foliage and keep working on the Night Terror maps plus if I have time I might take a look at the Half-Life 2 Source code and see how much more sophisticated it is than Half-Life 1.

G'night!

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sp_torque beta released
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Fri Aug 21st at 4:11pm 2009

My long-belated entry into the ill-fated dm2sp mapping contest has reached beta. The beta map can be downloaded here and the beta thread is here. I would greatly appreciate any criticism you are willing to give.

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