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HL2 SDK soon
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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Monqui on Sat Nov 6th at 5:24pm 2004

Two questions, if any of you can help-

How do you make the lightmap view actually work? Everythings just showing up as white/blue cubes. I assume theres some button somewheres to calculate the lightmaps, if this view does what I assume it does. But I'm not really sure.

Also, what's up with the "3D smooth" view? Can't seem to figgure that one out. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Nov 6th at 5:29pm 2004

The lightmap view is simply showing lightmap coverage - the smaller the squares, the more lighting detail in the scene. This is set on a per-face basis in the texture application window. Meaning a ridiculously tedious step for lighting optimization.

3D Smooth highlights the smoothing groups you set on brushes, but I've yet to determine if it actually shows them in their smooth form. All it seems to do is highlight them. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 6th at 5:42pm 2004

Just messed around with displacement surfaces and I'm sad to see you are correct, its quite horribly done. Will still come in useful, but not as useful as I had hoped.

The overlay tool is great though - to scale you just scale the box in the 2D views as you would a brush. You can then use the UV coordinates in the properties to make the material repeat or only display a portion or whatever. I don't see anything wrong with how it is managed personally.
[addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Nov 6th at 5:47pm 2004

Well, glad to see I was wrong on the sizing, but it's still a square. Having to make hacked together series of brushes into a func_illusionary on the 1 unit grid for any sort of more complicated shape is just ridiculous. That practice should have died long ago. Same with this hint brush crap, though hopefully the implementation shown in the cobble map will finally dispel some of the notion that you HAVE to use just one hint face and the rest in skip. But I mean, come on, you've got freakin area portals so why not use them?? They give you far greater vis control than the toss in a brush and cross your fingers practice of hint brushes. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 6th at 5:52pm 2004

It doesn't have to be square, it can be rectangular or you can move the vertices to make it any quadrilateral. Not particularly wonderful I admit, but the point of overlays is to make a masked texture appear on a surface without the need for more brushes really.

Strange that they have both area portals and hint brushes, I'd have thought they would have dismissed hint textures now. Perhaps just in to retain some backwards compatibility with HL1 maps that use them I guess, makes porting a bit simpler.
[addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Nov 6th at 6:32pm 2004

? quoting ReNo
It doesn't have to be square, it can be rectangular or you can move the
vertices to make it any quadrilateral. Not particularly wonderful I
admit, but the point of overlays is to make a masked texture appear on
a surface without the need for more brushes really.


Yes, that's exactly the point. so why make a half-assed attempt at it? Look at the cobble .vmf file. The vine growth up the walls is the sort of thing that an overlay -should- be for, and it's a 1 unit thick func_illusionary made up of a bunch of brushes.

There's no reason for any hint brushes to exist alongside area portals. It'd be more efficient to tear them out and replace them all with portals (which would hardly take any time at all on a ported map), unless their portal system is worthless anyway, which would be extra disappointing.

And where the hell are wireframe model entity view in the grid views? All these hollow boxes is just ridiculous.

Also, gotta love the light fixtures in the cobble example. Select one and check out the giant cone o' doom spreading out to infinity outside the level. There's no reason you should have to deal with imprecision like that. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Spartan on Sun Nov 7th at 1:34am 2004

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Here are some pics. These are from someone else. I won't get to touch the new editor till around Christmas.





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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Nov 7th at 1:41am 2004

i have never seen taskbars so full of s**t

next time you all start crying about no resources, or sluggish machines... shut up

also, i would like to point out that the HL2 textures, are not quite what we are used to.. the dirt textures for instance, they have plant life already in them... i saw some with waist high grass

[addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Sun Nov 7th at 1:46am 2004

oh KFS, how could you forsake us so

oh well, enjoy using a crappy engine that can make tons of really detailed, interesting and cool shapes within the confines of a hallway!

*runs*





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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Sun Nov 7th at 1:48am 2004

Is it really that resource-intensive? Can weaker low-spec machines even handle the editor at all (say, GF4 MX), without crashes or massive slowdown? I'm curious.

... And geeze, KFS, calm down! It's just a map-editor! [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Spartan on Sun Nov 7th at 1:55am 2004

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Hammer maybe be clunky now but it will improve over time. Plus the more you use it the more you come to accept its flaws and get around them. I'm not really worried about it at all.

Edit: here is more pics.

Question: what is the blue grid in the background?





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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Nov 7th at 1:57am 2004

? quoting Campaignjunkie
Is it really that resource-intensive? Can weaker low-spec machines even handle the editor at all (say, GF4 MX), without crashes or massive slowdown? I'm curious.

i had the *taboo* editor loaded on a 700 celeron and a 64 meg pci GF4mx..

it loaded, couldn't do much, but it worked..

my 2.6 celeron and 9000 ATI runs it smooth as silk.. but seriously, i cannot see it requiring more power than the game..

and, i must be pure white trash easy to please, cause hammer is one of the best, most user friendly editors i have used to date.. i don't think i could stand a better editor..

[addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Nov 7th at 1:58am 2004

? quoting Spartan 34

Question: what is the blue grid in the background?

the new sky texture

[addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Spartan on Sun Nov 7th at 2:20am 2004

I read something about using 3D skyboxes and 2D skyboxes. 3D skyboxes are more damanding because they have clouds and stuff but the resolution for the texture of the sky is crappier. It is suppose to make level look larger though. You still have to make skyboxes around the map but I'm wondering if they have to be enclosed and if it can be just one big box around the whole map.



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sun Nov 7th at 4:59am 2004

? quoting Spartan 34
Hammer maybe be clunky now but it will improve over time.


That's what I tried to tell myself about 3.4/3.5 This is the same interface the editor has had for years upon years. It's not going to change anytime soon.

? quote:
oh well, enjoy using a crappy engine that can make tons of really detailed, interesting and cool shapes within the confines of a hallway!


Hey, whatever silly and rampant generalizations make you feel better about yourself. hehe. And I can at least build those shapes in the editor with little to no trouble at all. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Finger on Sun Nov 7th at 6:34am 2004

Well, guess I'll have to settle for making a Cs:Souce map, right now. The editor does seem a little sluggish, but I drastically decreased the 3d draw distance, and that helped a good bit. I'm only using 512 ram, so it's just another sign that I need to upgrade to a gig.

Overall, I am left feeling sort of 'hrumph'. After playing with UnrealEd, and looking at the TON of vtm's (video training modules) that came with the dvd special edition of Unreal2004, I am sort of left wanting. There is still time, however for Valve to release a very solid SDK, that really has alot of meat to chew on, and tons of example material... I know this is only a small morsel.

There's only a couple of things that really bug me, right now.

- I haven't been able to scale models, at all... is this possible? It would be nice to have a library of rocks and organics, that are scaleable. You'd be amazed at the variation you can get, with 2 or 3 objects, if you can scale and skew them freely.

- Like was said before, the displacement tool is like 'wtf'? After using editors like Sandbox for FarCry, and UnrealEd.... it bugs me to have such a non-user-friendly tool. I can't see what the hell I am doing to the mesh... argh.

- I do like the materials, 3D skyboxes, area portals, occluders, lightmap control, etc.

- I really want a good interface for models and props. UnrealEd has done this brilliantly. There editor has its own floating pallette, that lets you view model files in their own little 3D window.

- Haven't really looked to hard at this, but I would like to have my textures at 64x64 in the browser, and I don't see the option. It's aggrivating to scroll so much.

- I DON'T to fark around with XSI! I spent years learning 3DsMax, and have learned my way around Maya at work. 2 professional 3D platforms is enough... gimme some dam Max exporters!

Anyway, looking forward to mapping again. Whatever the state of the editor; at least I feel very comfortable driving it.... I'm glad the overall navigation and hotkey setup is the same.





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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Crono on Sun Nov 7th at 7:36am 2004

They are releasing a full SDK after HL2's release: "... Source Software Development Kit (SDK) Tools via Steam. A precursor to the release of the full SDK, which will be released shortly after Half-Life 2 is made available ..."

I think this SDK is just there to get people's mouths wet for HL2. Only most people pre-ordered HL2 almost two years ago and have since fully paid for them ... at a store ... and are being f**ked out of this small treat. [addsig]



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Cassius on Sun Nov 7th at 8:29am 2004

? quoting Crono
They are releasing a full SDK after HL2's release: "... Source Software Development Kit (SDK) Tools via Steam. A precursor to the release of the full SDK, which will be released shortly after Half-Life 2 is made available ..."

I think this SDK is just there to get people's mouths wet for HL2. Only most people pre-ordered HL2 almost two years ago and have since fully paid for them ... at a store ... and are being f**ked out of this small treat.

f**k THE VALVE PO-LEECE





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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Leperous on Sun Nov 7th at 2:17pm 2004

Phew, I was worried that making textures was going to be a huuuge pain in the ass (as it is now)



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 Re: HL2 SDK soon
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Nov 7th at 2:29pm 2004

? quoting Leperous
Phew, I was worried that making textures was going to be a huuuge pain in the ass (as it is now)

Phew, i was hoping just once, i would understand half a thought..

one assumes you intended to continue after the last parentheses, but...

i gather, that adding images to the materials folder is all?

[addsig]




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