Simple Elevators

Hey, if you have played killbox for HL1 DM, you know how fun it is. I just made an identical killbox for HL2 DM with some added source engine jazz. The gameplay so far is exactly the same and is a complete replica. One thing is stumping me. The damn elevators!!! I just need simple elevators to when you stand on them they go up to a point, wait, and go back down to the starting point. I have tried everything and nothing is working. Could someone tell me how or point me in a direction?

Here is what I have done:

Made 2 path_corner entities. One at possition #1 and one at possition #2.
Made the object for my elevator and attached func_tracktrain to it
In the func_tracktrain I selected possition #2 as first stop target (I have tried changing that to 1 but it didnt work)

Thats it. Please help!

P.S. Anyone had any luck creating spawn points for HL2 DM?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Drominix</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Hey, if you have played killbox for HL1 DM, you know how fun it is. </DIV></DIV>

Oh, the horror! Make the voices stop! If there is ever a time when that smiley is appropriate, this is it.

I'm quite torn actually. It's kind of a duty for those of us with more experience to help newer members of the community, but on the other hand, I can't condone blasphemy. This is almost a serious ethical dilemma. It's like deciding whether to teach someone how to shoot a gun when you know they are going to go around blowing the heads off of puppies.
Just for your personal edification Drominix, "killbox" is something of a swear word around here.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Tracer Bullet</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
Just for your personal edification Drominix, "killbox" is something of a swear word around here.

</DIV></DIV>

Your such a killbox Tracer. I'm going to killbox your mother. Look at those killboxers over there.
Hmmm doesn't really work to well for me Tracer.

How about: that map is practically a killbox! Works for me. Maybe "insult" would be a bit more accurate of a description though.

You guys are real helpful . I submitted v1 to the maps section. Check it out. But I still need help on elevators.

You seem like a good guy even if you are making a killbox so here goes. I'm not much of a HL2 mapper yet, but from looking at the ents here is what you want to do:

Use a func_door as the platform. Set the move direction to "up" or "down" depending on what you want. Now set the "lip" value to the number of units you need your elevator to move. This setup should be functional as is, but if you want the lift to come up to the upper level when a player aproaches it(or down to the lower depending on your default position), you need to use trigger_multiple ents to target your "elevator"

Also func_movelinear should do the trick...hmm, totally unrelated, but I just noticed the SetPosition input of the entity. Interesting...

KILLBOX YOU MAN!!!

lol.

Wow, func_doors as elevator's, i dont know much about source yet, but surely there is another way? I tried to call my bank, and got an answer machine. Surely there must be another way.

I'm sure there are a myriad of other ways. This just happens to be the simplest solution for a two level elevator.

The elevator building technique you should be pursuing is drag-clicking your killbox.vmf file into your desktop Recycle Bin. Once that is complete you should open the Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin from the toolbar. Congrats, your problem is solved!

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Yak_Fighter</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>The elevator building technique you should be pursuing is drag-clicking your killbox.vmf file into your desktop Recycle Bin. Once that is complete you should open the Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin from the toolbar. Congrats, your problem is solved! </DIV></DIV>
I should think "shift+delete" would be a bit more efficient, if equally effective.

You know, as funny (and as off-topic) as this may seem, I haven't yet seen a killbox map listed on hl2dm servers... :/

give it a week

Tracer, thank you very much. I will try that in a second. And I shake a fist at you all!! shakes fist

I was bored, so here is an example map showing how to make a lift with either a func_door or a func_movelinear. The func_door solution is less complex, but the func_movelinear seems somewhat less problematic. your choice.

DOWNLOAD

Edit:

With both of these solutions, I end up with a sort of stutter where it seems like the lift vibrates when I am on it. This may simply be due to the fact that I am running at less than the minimum system requirements for HL2, but I don't know. I'd appreciate notification should anyone else experiences the same problem.

Might as well turn it into a tutorial since you went through the bother :wink:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Yak_Fighter</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>give it a week

</DIV></DIV>
Yes because for noobs it takes about a week to figure out how to hollow the box first.

Lol, yeah, seems like a week is a bit long...

i tried making an elevator not too long ago and got the stuttering
movements as well. i recall elevators in hl2 that worked... on to the
sdk docs! and... they contain nothing on elevators! on to google...

Could you not make the elevator using physics or something? I remember there being a few parts where that was done in hl2, though I don't know much about physics entities so I can't give much help.

WHOOO HOOO. The door method works like a charm. Case closed.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Neural Scan</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>You know, as funny (and as off-topic) as this may seem, I haven't yet seen a killbox map listed on hl2dm servers... :/</DIV></DIV>

thats because, so far the editor is smarter than the Idots who make/play killboxes.

hammer is not quite as easy to set up as it was before. its levels above these people.
as yak said, give it a week, or perhaps a month.

except I finished it yesterday orph........I guess I am an idiot for teaching myself most of hammer on my own.

I get shuddering as well trace. With both methods. And all other maps with elevators in them

Yes, but in HL2-SP there are lifts that work fine

I'm betting you will have to use a func_tracktrain or something similar to get it working smoothly, but I can't be bothered at the moment to figure it out.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Drominix</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>except I finished it yesterday orph........I guess I am an idiot for teaching myself most of hammer on my own. </DIV></DIV>

you sound offended, that was not really my intention. i realize that, that is normal, but truly not my goal.

the HL2 engine, and quite frankly the HL1 engine as well is capable of so much more, that anyone who would willingly limit themselves to a killbox map is an affront to me, and to almost everyone i know.

we do however all share a common belief, that the author should feel free to create whatever they wish, and as tracer tried hard to do, he was attempting to be gentile with you on such a horrid subject.

push yourself, just a tiny bit, and you will come to realize the full satisfaction of creating something to be proud of.

i can assure you this much, when you finally create a real map, you will wish that you could remove any killboxes with your name on them.
my advice, do not release anything till you work past this killbox thing.

sigh I just remade the original map and tried to stay true to it. Because i personaly liked it. It wasnt like I wanted to win the map award for it or anything. But Thank you for your concern orph.

we stand at a crossroad, go one way, offend worse, go another and the other party is left ignorant.

i think i will stand at the crossroad and not proceed one more step.

good luck.

/me bows out.

Perhaps the stuttering is because it treats the elevator as a physics
object? In HL MP the physics aren't full-on and generally want to
kick you off of physics objects you're standing on. This causes
stuttering when you're squarely on top of a physics object.

If so, certainly there's got to be a better way. To treat
elevators as physics objects and cause stuttering is to be worse off
(for this one function) than very old FPS MP games. There -has-
to be a way to create a regular old elevator sans stuttering.

I'd love to hear about it if so..

Ah Killbox maps, brings back memories of sweaty seats and ridiculous frag counts.

I know to all you serious mappers that the killbox represents something you created when pissing about with Worldcraft for the first time. These maps don't need to be taken seriously. The truth is the first killbox was actually quite good, its pure simplicity. A player never gets lost and gets plenty of practice shooting a variety of weapons, its total madness, no tactics are needed. I still wander on to these types of maps occansionally just to vent some frustration.

The stuttering is probably caused by incorrect prediction by the network code.

It seems for elevators it predicts that the thing should stay still, but doesn't.

For the hovercraft it predicts that it should move at constant
velocity, so it only stutters when it accelarates or changes direction.

The buggy/jeep works fine though (except for the gun), so there will probably later be some fixes to HL2DM.

You might try doing an actual physics elevator, if you can figure out how to do the cables, pulleys and motors.

Hey smarties outthere i need a big amount of tutorial on how to make an elevator in HL2 On many levels and and to make it able to go from the 1st floor to the last whithout stopping on intermediary floors. and also opening the doors and what entities do i need. PLease pretty please.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting alingrecea</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Hey smarties outthere i need a big amount of tutorial on how to make an elevator in HL2 On many levels and and to make it able to go from the 1st floor to the last whithout stopping on intermediary floors. and also opening the doors and what entities do i need. PLease pretty please. </DIV></DIV>

not a problem, i made this awhile ago, but need to change some stuff around before they will post it on this site
http://eq2info.net/hl2stuff/elevator.htm
this should do everything you want, if there is any questions or need some additional help, feel free to email or IM me.

The stuttering is caused by multiplayer world physics. In single player source engine is set to use higher FPS and more detail per second, such as movement, FPS on sprites and models and higher DPI on model skins. In Multiplayer, Everything is scaled down. Including all movement factors this is to help with the lag problem that is boundto accompany such a complex game in MP. What they didnt take into consideration was that when some things are scaled down as such, they miss vital frames so instead of going up in frames 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, in singleplayer, you go in 1,3,5,7,9 in the same amount of time so it's just like taking the FPS down in a video file.

I've done some careful tests with physics objects.

It seems that what actually happens is that the player-prediction and
the physics prediction are seperate from each other (understandably).

When the player pushes a physics object, this creates an
impulse/force/something that causes it to move and the prediction
handles it from there using the physics engine.

Physics for players however is much simpler and works
differently. When a physics object hits a player the client waits
for a message from the server to tell it what happened, without doing
any prediction. The jumpiness is caused by the delay while its
waiting.

I think it may be possible to fix this with a mod, rather than a
patch. Unfortunately I haven't delved into the modding side yet,
so I may be wrong.