Half-Life related Question

Merry Christmas all

Anyway I found out somthing new a few weeks ago. Its called Open GL. Dam it was cool but I noticed that there where some major diffrences (bad Spelling) between the to. For Example in Standard if you have to many Brush based entities they will dissapear, also in Open GL the lights in my level dont flicker and Open GL dosent like distance ( Levels where there is a long line of sight)

Since I am making a major MOD called reddawn, I was wondering What people use more so I can build my MOD according to the video mode. The standard mode or Open GL. There is also another Mode called Direct 3d or some shivers but reddawn will not be using that mode. But tell me if you use direct 3d.

Also could you smart bunch of peoples could tell me the Pro's and Con's of the modes. So far My Mod is being built for Standard Mode but that can change.

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Aaron's Stuff

I want to say something first: Neither of these libraries are unique to half-life or Quake engine, which is what HL was built on. Nor are they to ANY other 3D application.

I think I should fill you in:

OpenGL and Direct3D are programming libraries. They can be used with a multitudes of programming languages and take care of many things you can do on a graphics card (drawing objects) besides shader effects (which you use a shader language for). So, when using "direct 3d" or "open gl" mode in ANY game, you're telling the game which functions you want it to use. The point was, at the time, graphics cards really favored one or the other, not both. Now, it doesn't matter since both libraries are fully supported on any major graphics chipset.

Software mode in any game assumes that there is no 3d hardware acceleration available on the video card, so it simulates it on the CPU, of course, it can't be nicely defined since the CPU can't be bogged down with those calculations all the time.

In light of this news, I implore you to just make your mod without ever figuring this in UNLESS YOU PLAN TO ADD MORE GRAPHICAL CAPABILITY TO THE GOLDSOURCE ENGINE because otherwise: it wont matter one bit.

Please research topics before hand if possible.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

But Crono I noticed some diffrences for example:

*Lights in some levels dont flicker in OpenGL

*To many brush based entities in Software mode will cause things to disappear

*OpenGl Dosent like long Line of sights

*In direct 3d you look left for example and 2 seconds later it goes left

I was wondering if its just my Graphics Card or thats the way it is. I was Also Wondering if there are other effects like that

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Aaron's Stuff

They are all different APIs and determine how your video card interprets the data to render. It is a client option, so it doesn't matter how you develop your mod, as long as it is complient with them; which it will be b/c its HL. Plus any modern video card (actually more like any video card that came out after the year 2002) can run any HL type graphics with max FPS. So don't worry about the API you want to develop for, it should be your last concern.

Its late, im tired, if that not coherent english i appoligize.

Ok thanks rs6 :smile:

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Aaron's Stuff

When will your mod reddawn be finished and announced:confused:

Hello Bitch I mean ash. Sorry man. First of all I am on Hamachi, Secondly Dont tell anyone about my Mod because You are one of the few people I have shown. They dont know about it yet so shhhhhhh. Anyway Its current release date is 22 Dec 2008. But really man please dont say anything.

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Aaron's Stuff

Now we can battle it out with the entire Nicaraguan army. Just what I always wanted.

Let me make some things a little more clear, because you didn't understand what I said if someone said the same thing and then you got it.

Software mode is a lower graphical option, because it's all emulated. Simple as that. So issues like:

*Lights in some levels dont flicker in OpenGL
*To many brush based entities in Software mode will cause things to disappear

Are explained by that.

Things like:

*OpenGl Dosent like long Line of sights
*In direct 3d you look left for example and 2 seconds later it goes left

Sound like an issue with either you card, drivers, or some other piece of software. They should look identical and neither should be sluggish. I mean ... how does the mouse have any connection, hardware wise, with the mouse? They're controlled individually and any lag you notice is because of a piece of hardware else-where.

What I was getting at, really, was you shouldn't associate these environments with HL specifically.

I don't look forward to writing several versions of code to accommodate so many different graphical abilities. I guess that's one place where overloading functions comes in incredibly handy. (Seems like it'd be the only place though!)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

ok. Thx CRONO MAN

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Aaron's Stuff

Crono said:
Now we can battle it out with the entire Nicaraguan army. Just what I always wanted.

Made me LOL.

Cyas gents. I'm off to Pennsylvania. Be back by the weekend.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I think most people run Half-Life in OpenGL, Direct 3D support was as I recall a bit buggy (and added later on...?).

There are some people out there still running in Software mode because they don't know any better. However, anyone that clueless is probably too out of it to download custom content. So I wouldn't make your maps etc. with them in mind. Hell, if stuff starts disappearing on them maybe they'll start asking around and figure out what's wrong lol!

It is mostly r_speeds on maps when it comes to how this stuff limits you. This is basically, how many polygons are drawn at a time. There's a tutorial here that your mappers should definitely read:
Hornpipe2's R_Speeds Tutorial

You also need to keep player and weapon models within certain polygon limits, but that's a question to ask people who do that work (we're 95% just mappers here).

Good luck with the mod. I assume you know how to code, model, or map? I've seen so many kids with a "great idea" for a mod who want to be "team leader" and tell everyone else to do. You have to master one of those primary skills to have anything to offer a mod team, or convince anyone to join you. If you don't know one of them, learn one first before you think about trying to start a mod. If you don't have the patience to learn how to map or model, why should anyone take you seriously as a team leader?

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

Software mode only allows 800 polys to be drawn at any one time, which is why bits sometimes disappear. It's also the reason that keeping r_speeds below 800 was important to many mappers. But, as Crono said, it's for crap PC's now.

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i eat paint

I always tried to keep them below 800, but I'm considering letting my personal limit float up to 1000 for my final HL1 map.

/me hides from orph

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

I wouldnt concern yourself with this issue. In HL1 you were given an
option on how you wanted to run the game: software, openGL, direct3D,
depending on how your video card (or non-video card) handled these.

Now with HL2 you don't have an option, you just run it in DX9 (Direct
3D - or does someone wanna correct me). This is assuming your "mod" is
for the HL2 engine, not HL1.

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Posting And You

I wouldnt concern yourself with this issue. In HL1 you were given an
option on how you wanted to run the game: software, openGL, direct3D,
depending on how your video card (or non-video card) handled these.

Now with HL2 you don't have an option, you just run it in DX9 (Direct
3D - or does someone wanna correct me). This is assuming your "mod" is
for the HL2 engine, not HL1.

You can run using DX7, 8, 8.1, 9, and 9.5. Each one will use specific graphical techniques (library functions) to each of the releases.

Most people couldn't run DX9 shader effects when HL2 came out, I had a card that specifically supported DX8.1 techniques (and everything below that).

Also note that DirectX contains Direct3D, that is to say, they're not the same thing. DX also has interfaces for keyboard, mouse, audio, etc.

Also if you don't think it's an important distinction. Set HL2 to a level DXLEVEL much higher or lower than your card. You will notice some changes (the shaders will look like ass, or the game will not run well, or possibly crash!)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I think OpenGL can do the fog. At least underwater? If I remember correctly ...

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Why snark works.

mmmm interesting folks. By the way the mods for Half-life1.

Many people have wanted to help out for the mod but I have had to say no. Its just me working on Singleplayer, Weapons, Textures,Splash all that stuff. Ash aka gears_of_wars_man is making some multiplayer maps for me later on but he needs to get some more experiance because he's new to mapping but at least he reads the tut's I give him. Mr brother is also working on some multiplayer maps for reddawn, sometimes he also builds models in hammer for me, so far he has built me a pretty good futuresitc train and space ship. He also give me some ambient sound from time to time, I tried some voice acting with him,... The microphine is not his freind.

By the way if any one wants to do some voice acting let me know.

And I din't know you had to keep polygons low on models. I have a almost 3000 polygon machinegun (9mmar) in reddawn. Is that do high, it dosent lag but the levels take heaps long to load up now. Uhhh I wish i knew how to model.

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Aaron's Stuff

I would suggest always making models with as little polygon count as possible. It will only allow you to add more detail to the game in other areas. Of course, don't make it look like complete ass or something like that either.

For some references hl2 model poly counts

More information.

LOD in particular is pretty important and something any game-modeler should look into.
Some of the information can be dated, but overall, it's relevant.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Hay is there somthing wrong with this website.I click on the place where it says who is online and it just says that I am online although it says "8 users online" and in my pm's it has all these people online when It says I am only online.

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Aaron's Stuff

This does not belong here. Put it in the proper area.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.