Posts by twiz

  • Collaborative SP game?

    Quote from Kabelen

    Sounds like a great idea.To make it from a combine point of view has already been done as mentioned, but we could do a better job, right?

    And how much space does each one get? 512x512 units is a bit small I think.. I'd let everyone joining in have 1024x1024 units, cause then you get room for a little more than just one single room or extremely small outdoor area.

    I'm in!

    Originally I had just planned on everyone doing a decent size level, so we can get some sort of plot going. If everyone does really small ones, I don't really think it'd play well. I'm not going to put a limit on map size, it should be make whatever size you want to make it. This way people won't shy away from it because they don't have time or want to make a full map, but if someone wants to they can. If we get a handful of rather small levels in a row, we can always combine them into one larger level to cut down on load points.

    I'm going to start on the first one soon, tonight or tomorrow probably, I just have to think up a way to start it. Of course I'm always open to suggestions. I was thinking of making you part of an 'elite' squad who's job is to take out key Rebel positions, and such and such happens where your team and transportation is taken out, you're the only guy left. You have to work your way back to a combine base or something. That should leave it open enough for someone else to take it and run with it wherever they feel it should go.

    On that note.. I'm not sure if we should go about sharing our ideas too publicly, I'd like to keep it as spontaneous as possible. I only posted my idea since it is the beginning of the 'game', and since this is going to really dictate the general plot, I thought it'd be good to get everyone's opinion on it. That way if someone doesn't like it, has a better idea, or wants to improve on it before it gets started they have the chance to voice their opinion. After all, everyone is making this game so I think everyone should have an input on to what its going to be about.

    However.. To keep things moving along nicely, I think the person currently mapping should disclose their little plot to the next mapper, so they can start brewing ideas early and possibly start on it before the previous map is finished. Also, the previous mapper should at least send the next mapper the last bits of his/her level so we don't have to waste time re-mapping the end of the previous level to make it continuous. Either that or we do some cheesy thing like ending in an elevator every time like wolf3d and a zillion other mid-90s shooters. That would kill the whole idea of a continual plot.

    I like dissonance's idea too, but I'd rather not discuss that in here, I'd like to keep it on topic... in another thread I'd be happy to talk about it.

    So, do you guys think thats a good basic plot?

  • Physics Objects

    Forgive me, I am noob... but I'm thinking you're saying the problem is the prop_physics models(cushions) are jittery when sitting on the prop_static model(couch). I'd be inclined to believe that the problem is you have a model sitting on a model? What about making an invisible brush in the approximate shape of the couch, just slightly taller than the couch, so the cushions would sit on that instead of on the couch model itself? Are the cushions jittery if you just place one as a prop_physics on the ground(on a brush).

    In the CSS version of office they have a similar item, in the paper/storage rooms, they have prop_static shelving with prop_physics items sitting on it. So its possible. Unless those shelves are brushes...

  • How many years have you been involved in mapcore?

    Quote from Phish

    Wow. To think I've been around here since the days of Anarchy Designs. That makes it 7 years for me as well.

    Yeah but I come and go. My visits have been getting less frequent and shorter in the past few years.. but I'm still kicking around, I can still model and pretend to map(more like make a hundred brushes and give up)

  • Collaborative SP game?

    Quote from insta

    That's not necessary, just use an ai_relationship entity in Hammer and set the rebels to hate the player and the combine to adore him.

    Well that makes it easy. Thanks insta.

    As for how is this collaborative, its just that everyone writes their own little 'episode' of the game. Collaborative story telling I guess you could call it.

    I just think it'd be interesting to see where the game goes.

  • Collaborative SP game?

    Quote from Polaris

    Both combine and rebel point-of-view mods have already been done. Though I have to say Combine Destiny got a pretty bad review at Planet Half-Life so it may be worth another try.

    d'oh, well who cares lets do it anyways, it makes the most sense.

  • Collaborative SP game?

    Ferrett, I agree with you its not easy to do. As spartan said environments can tell a lot about what is going on. We could do some voice acting, even if it sounds like shit, who cares? I have a great digital recording device(M-Audio) and some pretty good mics, I wouldn't mind recording some small stuff. But it is the small stuff that drives a good storyline, the marine chatter in HL1 was a huge reason it was so good... Honestly when I got to Xen it got a little tired.

    I was thinking of doing one of the different perspective add-ons, like Opposing Force or Blue shift, like you mentioned Spartan. We could do a Combine one, I don't think that has been done yet. That way we could use all the HL2 stuff and the basic background story, and write our own series of events that happened to one combine soldier along the way. However to do this we'd have to have someone do some coding, we'd need the rebels to act like enemies and the combine guys to act as teammates.. I don't know how hard that'd be to switch them around.. maybe as simple as re-naming the models so they get switched in-game? I like this idea, it gives us a good open setting to start from, we have all the models, weapons, and textures already made for us(although custom stuff is always welcome)... I like it.

    If we have even a couple guys interested, I'd like to try it. I could make new hand-models to look like a combine soldier.

  • Collaborative SP game?

    Didn't know where to put this, but I figured this would be the best place...

    I've seen a bunch of continue-this-story based threads.. so I thought it might be an interseting exercise for us to do a little continue-this-game kinda thing. Since I guess most of us know how to map for HL2, we should use the source engine.

    I don't expect it to be anything fancy.. I doubt people will want to put a few months effort into a level.. Just keep it simple, doesn't have to be really pretty, just good gameplay and interesting plot. I think the easiest way to do it is just to sorta write our own HL episode, just use the baddies and weapons from HL2. But I'd really like to see something completely different from HL/HL2, just poach the enemies. Entirely different storyline, etc. If someone wants to model in a new weapon or bad guy and someone wants to code it, that'd be super cool.

    I don't care if the plot has holes and shit, thats bound to happen with somethin like this. Just thought it'd be a neat lil project to work on, I personally have never done any single player stuff and I'd like to. Obviously we can't have 8 people working on the same level at once, so we'd have to designate who goes next.

    Horrible idea?

  • photosynth

    It takes me a couple seconds to load a picture off my hard drive into photoshop, let alone search the internet, run a few algorithms to find similar content, import the image to the software, then run a few more algorithms to stretch/skew/zoom the image to get it to line up right. I'm guessing that computer is rediculous top of the line unit with a retarded ammount of ram, and the images in question already loaded up with all alignment algorithms already executed. The idea of having this be useful real-time over the internet seems like a huuuge stretch for current technology.

    However! I do think it would be a great idea for search engines like google to use a similar algorithm on the image search. Say you search for whatever, you get a zillion results, a bunch of the results are completely wrong, but one is correct, but you want a higher resolution shot... Have a link next to the thumbnail that says "find similar" or something like that. So instead of spending ten minutes clicking through page after page of wrong results, you can cut right down to the ones that are similar.

  • Female warrior (Alex)

    Looks alright, can't really see much with that render... Her fingers and hands don't look right at all. Thumb on the right hand is misshapen, pointer, index, and middle finger look like they're missing a joint, and theyre too spread out. Your fingers stay touching each other when you hold something round like that. Also the base of the thumb where it joins to the palm looks like its missing a chunk. Elbow on left arm looks to rounded, your elbow is pretty pointy. Her forearm looks a tad too long, and has an odd bulge on the inside near the elbow. For some reason her top near her shoulder is not laying on her body? Looks like its stiff like armor or something. The shoulder looks good as far as I can tell.

    On the black trim on the bottom of her top, it seems like it isn't attached to the top right at the front, I can see some light coming through between them.

    Just bein nitpicky, but the main problem is the hands, they just don't look right.

  • Awesome movies (no mainstream)

    Battle Royale

    "In the near future, when the society of Japan is crumbling, forty-two students find that their field trip is actually a military-sponsored game known as "Battle Royale". The kids' sadistic former teacher Kitano sends them to an isolated island and gives them three days to kill each other until only one remains. Two of the kids, Shuya and Noriko, stay together and further develop their already-formed bond. A transfer student, Kawada, sympathizes with the two and chooses to help them. Others develop a plan to bring down the military game, try to find their crush before they die, or lose their minds and go on killing sprees."

    http://film.virgin.net/player/play.asp? ... in&sec=trl

    It sounds like a retarded idea, but its really done quite well.

  • Putting a light inside a model.. doesn't look right.

    I think I figured it out!

    This is what I did.. I created a small hollow box, open at one end. I butted that end up against the wall, and textured the whole box in the light_block texture. Stick a light inside the box, and bam! A nice bright spot on the wall in the shape of the box. It still has a little light soaking out, but in my test I had just the standard white light. If I dim it down a good bit it should look right, after all shadows aren't perfectly crisp. I can always turn the light grid down a bit to get sharper shadows, right?

  • Putting a light inside a model.. doesn't look right.

    Quote from KoKo5oVaR

    This ain't doom3 foo ps: and give smoothgroups to your model

    I had smoothing groups in my model, but when Rick_D was helping me get it compiled he imported the SMDs into 3dsm and re-exported them, I'm assuming the groups got lost in that process.

    I think I have a way to make it work, or at least appear to have worked. I created a spike shaped brush(4 sides at one end, a point at the other). I put the point at the location of the light source, and put the 4-sided one on the opposing wall. I manipulated the vertices until I had a square who's sides were touching very outer edges of the eye socket as they passed through the model. I then created a square brush in the same dimensions of the square end on the wall... I textured it with the skin of my model, and fudged with the scale and location until I had the eye socket centered and just barely fitting on the brush. I then created a few brushes to match the outside of the eye socket, deleted the skin-textured brush, and repeated for the nose and mouth. I now have the entire wall covered in a big brush, which I'll texture black and make translucent. I'll have to do this for the entire hallway... but it might look funny when the players appear brighter than the shadowing on the walls. But if I make the effect as minimal as possible while still looking somewhat realistic/cool, it'll probably be okay. I don't want it to be terribly drastic because then the hallway would be much too dark.

    I actually had another idea to help prevent the brighter player models. What if instead of coating the walls in translucent black "shadowing", if I just made the non-shadowed parts(eye sockets, nose, mouth) a func_brush and set Render Mode to Glow, and use a very low FX Ammount? That way I wouldn't need to create a big black coating everywhere, and it actually might make the players light up a little as they ran in front(although on the wrong side... meh.)

    Or I could just throw this one in the scrap file. I could still use the skull as a random prop somewhere I'm sure. Its a graveyard after all.