August 4th Update: Expanded

Restart Steam.

That's right, after many long days of waiting the update has come. Not just any update, but the update. Now every single player mapper who wants to add just a little more flare to his maps can, with HDR.

Just as Durand (the Valve rep.) promised:

* Half-Life 2: Episode One enhancements.
* NPC behavior enhancements.
* New Game Content called 'Source SDK Base'.
* Many other improvements and bug fixes.

Meaning Episode One content: entities, NPCs, sounds, materials, models, etc. That would include the citadel skybox prop from Ep1 as well.

Quite frankly
:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

See the HL2 wiki for full details.

Some people might notice programs missing from the sdk/bin folder, just start up the sdk and they'll reappear

Another problem is that models of the new npcs aren't showing up in Hammer, I don't know what to make of that. They don't work in-game either.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Some awesome changes I noticed that I didn't see in the changelog when I checked it:

• Model browser completely reworked, now with realtime searching/sorting rather than a huge pause whenever you change the search string; also viewing seperate skins within the browser.

• Resizing brushes in 3D views. Each brush now has these corner/edge handles that let you resize the brush in a 3D view alone, and they snap to grid. Great to have.

• Overlays have a new transparent blue box representation instead of an opaque pink one so you can see through it and discern it better.

• infodecals and move_ropes/keyframe_ropes have larger, much easier-to-select icons in the 3D views; I used to have trouble selecting these, they used to be so small.

Lovely update.

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-- midkay

So this is the reason why my Steam is having trouble to start(I fire it
up nothing happens for the first two tries, third time it starts
working) again. This happens on every update. :smile: Strange behaviour. I
just hope that they fixed that annoying "swapping" between the blended
materials. I just hate it when alphamaps turn upside down during
compile or when you open your map.

Edit: Aww... f**k! Not this
again... HL2DM started downloading from scratch for some reson. I hate
Steam updates. They're starting to be worse than ATI driver updates...

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Never had such third-try-restarts/alpha blending issues/HL2DM from-scratch downloads... maybe Steam's not the problem.... :wink:

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-- midkay

I whined about the alpha blends switching(the texture on the bottom
goes up and the other one goes to the bottom) on another forum and they
said it's a known problem. :smile: I guess it happens. Steam sometimes
downloads the whole thing when it's supposed to only upload the old
thing. I don't know what causes this, perhaps it's file fragmentation
or something like that the HD is okay though and I have no problems
with any other software of the same fashion so I blame Steam. :razz: The
third try restart thing has something to do with my firewall I guess.
Steam.exe runs, but it just stays there without starting up untill you
kill the process and fire it up again(waiting doesn't help, I once let
it be for a whole day and it still didn't start up properly :razz: ).

Steam is just Steam, :smile: everyone gets all sorts of fun problems with it at times.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

This update is coming just in the right time for me. I had a mapping rush yesterday, thinking of all the things that Hammer should fix and I'm looking forawrd to this version (just downloading). I hope textured shaded mode now works again.

Nope, the update just created a bunch of new errors. 3D view is no longer visible, and you have to change the Steam ID for all the associated SDK tools.

It's just a pain in the ass.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

satchmo, try clicking on one of the 2d windows with the camera tool selected. this fixed it for me, and a few others too, afaik. and you only need to change the steam ID for mods that you have made yourself, which for me was none.

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i eat paint

satchmo, try clicking on one of the 2d windows with the camera tool
selected. this fixed it for me, and a few others too, afaik. and you
only need to change the steam ID for mods that you have made yourself,
which for me was none.

The camera thing worked just fine for me. i was about to be pissed as s**t. thanks lol

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yeah.. I said it. I snort pixie stix, and its exactly what it looks like, no matter what the situation or the excuse, its always what it looks like..

Yea, I get a "logic" few in my 3D window at startup. It shows entities in a weird tree or diagram. I have no idea what it is but the textured/shaded mode works fine for me now (I have to switch at start-up)! I like the new model browser search function, buildcubemaps seems to be better ( I don't get the "lump 49" error anymore). I like it.

I cant run my maps anymore. i tried 3 times, and it says it cant be loaded. lame..

<div class="abouttext">Message submitted 14 minutes after original post:</b></div>
OK, THIS IS PISSING ME OFF!! every time i run a map it gives me this
message unable to load c:\program files\valve\steamapps\account
name\counter-strike source\bin\filesystem_steam.dll

WHAT THE f**k!?!

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yeah.. I said it. I snort pixie stix, and its exactly what it looks like, no matter what the situation or the excuse, its always what it looks like..

Just launch HL2DM/CS:S once before you start compiling maps, that'll fix it.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

try reinstalling your sdk.

Make sure you've run CS Source at least once since you've loaded the new SDK.
EDIT: Yikes, all three of us within the last minute!

re: 3D view, Ctrl+Shift+E snaps the 3D view to the selected object. Very useful.

thanks guys, works fine now. lol super prompt response :biggrin:

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yeah.. I said it. I snort pixie stix, and its exactly what it looks like, no matter what the situation or the excuse, its always what it looks like..

Nice update. At least Hammer still works for me and I've got no problems loading maps.

Considering textured view still isn't shaded, inverted alpha still isn't fixed, textures don't show envmap effects anymore, and wasd camera movement still doesn't work, wireframes don't work in the model viewer and neither do normal maps, everything looks normal. Nothing to worry about, everything will be just fine...

In other words, it's cool they're updating their tools, but it'd be much cooler when they either did it right (which I can understand is a huge problem given the many different systems each with their own quirks) or when they gave Steam a 'roll back updates' option. That last one would probably be the smartest thing for now. Things like these don't encourage mapping for Source, I think...

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I should start HL2 mapping - I have the SDK and all, but ive never started a map :rolleyes:

Hmm.. textures 3D shated works fine for me. It actually helps alot in discerning the different planes on a brush.

Here's the official topic on the chatbear forums.
http://www.chatbear.com/board.plm?a=viewthread&t=80,1153946379,4409&id=997331&b=4986&v=flatold

Check it out, if you've got a problem, odds are someone else is, too.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Meh. Hammer 4.0 seems to be lagging my system to hell now (or just as much as it used to) and they still haven't fixed the confliction issue between Hammer 3.5 and 4.0. Plus numerous other niceties that they still haven't corrected/added back in so it feels more like Hammer 3.5.

:sad:

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

I'll go back to Source mapping when the tools work. They did the job fine with the first release.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

So, how many people still have the inverse alpha blend bug for displacements? That was the only thing that annoyed me before, and I can't check to see if its fixed on my Hammer, at least not now.

So, how many people still have the inverse alpha blend bug for displacements?.

/raises hand and groans

Raises hand too.

EDIT: Anyone else whose wasd controls are broken in Hammer? There's a Valve employee put on the SDK issues, and I told him I've got problems with that, but he hasn't heard anyone else about it so far.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

So, how many people still have the inverse alpha blend bug for
displacements? That was the only thing that annoyed me before, and I
can't check to see if its fixed on my Hammer, at least not now.

Still getting it. I feel like taking some time off the new Hammer although I just started using it. :sad:

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

btw, can anyone here use the lighting preview window?

btw, can anyone here use the lighting preview window?

Nope, from what I've read, it's not functional yet - in fact, we aren't supposed to be able to access it really. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

btw, can anyone here use the lighting preview window?

What the hell are you talking about?

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Posting And You

The lighting preview is a feature that they forgot to get rid of before releasing this latest update. It doesn't fully work, it's just there.
I don't recommend trying it, it supposedly crahes Hammer.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I'd stil like to try it out (even if it crashes). It would save so much work. I don't even have a button for it (or haven't found one). How do you activate it in theory?

How does it work in theory?

In theory, it applies light from entities to faces in hammer. Since it isn't fully implemented yet, it probably won't perform this function. I havn't tried it out yet, and I don't plan to.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying