Question about Mods
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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Fortune2 on Tue Sep 9th at 7:59pm 2003


Heylo all. I'm working on a test mod, just seeing to create them and what work needs to be put into them. I have two questions, thanks in advance.

1) How do you pak a mod. What program is needed to do this.

2) How do you make Sound play on the menu screens. What needs to be coded for this.

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Cash Car Star on Tue Sep 9th at 8:05pm 2003


This isn't really a mod design forum. It focuses mostly on maps. Don't expect to get good answers...



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Vash on Tue Sep 9th at 8:15pm 2003


For sound do you mean sound when you click a button, or music? Because music is not possible on the menu screen yet. Basically I think to make sound for a button, you replace current sounds in your mod, or code them in your sumthin..

 

To make a .pak, just get PakScape and click New pak file i think

(PS:Family Guy rox0rz! The evil money)

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Fortune2 on Tue Sep 9th at 8:44pm 2003


? posted by Vash

For sound do you mean sound when you click a button, or music? Because music is not possible on the menu screen yet.

Then how do you explain NS =\

(FG is rockz0rs though)

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gorbachev on Wed Sep 10th at 11:38pm 2003


honestly don't make a .pak for mods...it's not worth the time. You might as well just keep the folder structure (a la almost every mod... i.e. tfc, cs, dod, dmc, etc.) [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by warlord on Thu Sep 11th at 2:45am 2003


i havent downloaded ns yet but if it has an animated logo like hl and tfc does then they may have included music in the avi file that displays the logo

and as for the sounds replicate how valve did thier sounds and just use your sounds in thier place in its mod folder  (i cant word that any better)

and to make a pak file use wally as it is almost an all around halflife extractor and you probaly use it for wads  so use it for paks too  that way you dont have to deal with another program





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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gorbachev on Thu Sep 11th at 2:49am 2003


it *could* be in the .avi but most likely not, whenever the new half-life patch comes out it'll allow for a more dynamic menu (so far as I know DoD retail already has this function, but I've yet to see it myself) so that means music. Just look at some tutorials on mod creation, and try and follow a directory structure similar to any mod. modname/sounds; modname/sprites etc. etc. [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Fortune2 on Thu Sep 11th at 10:01am 2003


Thing is, dosn't the moving logo only move on the first menu? NS has it on all of them last time I played. [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Sinner_D on Fri Sep 12th at 1:45am 2003


first off, gl on the mod, im currently trying to figure the in/outs of moding, ive gottin most of the menuscreen GUI modded, im currently looking for a list of files needed/ possible to mod, i have found some interesting things, i would suggest getting the latest version of the SDK(standard development kit) that helped me figure out alot of the files editable for modding.

as for your direct questions:

(1) i know that Wally (can be found on this site) its a texture editor, and doubles as a .pak file generator, however im not sure how you tell HL to use your pak file and not HL's pak file, or if you even need to, i did however notice that none of the mods (retail: BlueShift included) have pak files, i know not why that is, maybe they got lazy  

(2) i believe the sound is withing there logo.avi file (name of avi file not sure) would be the simplest way of doing that. not sure if this is the method valve took though.

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gorbachev on Fri Sep 12th at 2:41am 2003


People don't use .pak files because they are a waste of time. Why not just let people add custom stuff easily rather than put it in a pointless and more time consuming to edit .pak? [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by ReNo on Fri Sep 12th at 11:35am 2003


I can see why game developers use systems like pak files - it certainly hides the complexity of a game, which can be nice for non-developers who wish to use things like custom maps and whatnot without being faced by hundreds of folders and files. [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Sinner_D on Sat Sep 13th at 6:36am 2003


as far as i know, the reasonning behind using pak files is that they are like zipfiles, in the respect that they are archived files, but it seems that pak files need not be extracted inorder to use there contents, im not sure about this, but i have noticed some servers using HL vox speech for annoucements and such, weither they extracted the files or not, im not sure. another reason i assume this is that the HL pak file contains most, if not all the the files editable for modding, yet if they arent changed they are defaulted to HL content, even content not existing within HL dirs.

if this is true, then pak files can be very useful for large games, or mods which need there content, but dont want to be bogged down with bunches of directories, and files, and such.

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Bewbies on Sat Sep 13th at 7:10am 2003


Ever try to move 1000 files that total 1gb? Ever try to move 1 file that is 1gb? Which do you think takes longer? hehehe

Also, I believe it keeps those files from being tampered with by the common player. If you have enough sense to download a pak explorer, you at least know what SOME of the files are for. But - if you're some 12yr old kid who just got his brand new copy of Half-Life.... He might be tempted to try and start editing files with notepad and such! Anyway.. there's a lot of reasons, but the idea of using packed directories was PURE GENIUS!

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Sinner_D on Sat Sep 13th at 7:25am 2003


good point...

anyways, is fortune gonna accept an answer or what? i sure hope he picks me

OH PLEASE... Pick me Pick me!!!

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gollum on Sat Sep 13th at 12:11pm 2003


If you plan on extending this project into a mod. with any custom coding at all, then it's worth knowing how to set up and compile the Half-Life sourcecode.

For that, you need:

  • A copy of the SDK 2.2 or 2.3
  • A C++ compiler, ideally MS Visual C++ v6

Extract the sourcecode into a directory, and use the compiler to open sourcecode/dlls/hl.dsw, which is the workspace for the server dll.  Compile this (build hl.dll in one of the menus).

The server dll goes inside your mod. folder, in a subdirectory called dlls (i.e. Half-Life/myMod/dlls/hl.dll).  You also need a liblist.gam file in the main mod. directory, which tells HL what files your mod. uses.  Copy across the valve one; edit it in NotePad if you want to change the name of your server dll (since the names must match up), and also to choose what your mod. is called in the menu system.

Similarly you can compile the client dll by opening the sourcecode/cl_dll/cl_dll.dsw workspace and building the dll.  This goes in the mod. cll_dlls folder.

 





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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Vash on Sat Sep 13th at 7:33pm 2003


Gollum Always has to out do us with his bullet buttons, formatted paragraphs, and different color text > : ) [addsig]



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gollum on Sun Sep 14th at 3:56pm 2003


Bah, you give in too easily



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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Sun Sep 14th at 7:13pm 2003


Well, you know, it's not exactly difficult to:

  • Format paragraphs.
  • Add bullets.
  • And colorize text.
[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Vash on Sun Sep 14th at 8:29pm 2003


Well Wtf do you think I am?

  • Smart
  • Catchy
  • SEXAY!

Hah, I could Never do that stuff that gollum does...

[addsig]




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Re: Question about Mods
Posted by Gollum on Sun Sep 14th at 9:26pm 2003


Guys, you're missing the point  

The Point:

  • It's not what you've got, it's what you do with it that counts.






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