Hl 2 Mapping/porting/etc
ShenTraX
Join Date: 2003-11-10 Member: 22434Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-11-10 Member: 22434Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Good, bad... heres the skinny</div> All information is quoted from the <a href='http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?faq=source_mod_faq' target='_blank'>Collective</a>. For those who keep up with the HL2 information, you can skip. For those who don't read on.
NOTE, i've included only mapping relevent information here, see the link above if you wish to know more. Further down below may be some news for the life of NS.
<b>Is mapping for Half-Life 2 similar to mapping for Half-Life 1?</b>
Map editing for the Source engine will be very familiar to those who did mapping for Half-Life. We've always tried to extend rather than reinvent whenever possible. The main challenge will be digesting all the new tools and capabilities to get the most out of them.
The rough structure of the map is still BSP-based, built from brushes, but the details are fleshed out with more props (models) that are built in XSI, Maya, or Max.
World bounds are +/- 16384 units in all directions (Half-Life's world bounds were +/- 4096). Mods can choose their own unit scale for the world. For example, 1 unit could be made to be equal to 1 foot, or to 1/10 of an inch. Physics will be adjusted accordingly, but collisions are only guaranteed to be accurate to 1/32nd of a unit.
We have found that a large part of the cost of creating a Half-Life 2 quality level is in the art production process. Building all the props and textures required for the level of visual quality people saw at E3 consumes a lot of man-hours. As for building a Half-Life 1 quality map in the Source engine, the new tools and entity I/O makes it go much faster than it did on Half-Life 1.
<b>What is the maximum map size for Half-Life 2?</b>
The maximum map size is currently set at +/-16384 units (16x the horizontal area of Half-Life 1, 64x overall volume).
Mods can choose their own unit scale for the world. For example, 1 unit could be made to be equal to 1 foot, or to 1/10 of an inch. Physics will be adjusted accordingly, but collisions are only guaranteed to be accurate to 1/32nd of a unit.
<b>What is the ratio of map units to real-life units?</b>
Unlike in Half-Life 1, things in Half-Life 2 will look proper when created at a scale of 1:1 (1 unit = 1 inch). It will be much easier to reproduce real-world environments in Half-Life 2. Gordon currently still requires 33 units of clearance to pass through a space (though this also may be subject to change).
<b>What are some of the key new features of the Hammer editor?</b>
Some of the new features in Hammer are: entity I/O, displacement surfaces, hierarchical visgroups, Half-Life 1 -> Half-Life 2 conversion path, per-face luxel density with preview, smoothing groups for brushes, graphical/editing helpers: radius, lightcone, line, text based, and extensible VMF file (no more RMF versioning!).
<b>Can you explain what the new Entity I/O system is?</b>
Entity I/O is the way entities are connected in the Source engine. It's essentially an inter-object messaging system. When certain internal events occur, an entity can fire outputs, which can be connected to inputs of other entities.
The output can potentially pass data to the receiving input, for example a wheel can pass its Position as a value from 0 - 1 to the Alpha input of a sprite, so as you turn the wheel the sprite gets brighter.
A given entity can have many different outputs, for example doors can fire an output when they are Opened, Closed, BlockedOpening, BlockedClosing, etc. which can be connected to any other entities in your map. The level designer controls all of this from Hammer, so you have a lot more power for building things.
<b>Can entities be linked to each other? For example, a breakable window on a door?</b>
Yes, we use entity hierarchy for this. Hierarchy is a way of attaching entities to each other so that they move together despite being of different entity types. For example, you can have a func_rotating in hierarchy with a func_tracktrain to give the train a rotating part, or you can parent a breakable windowpane to the train, or you can attach a camera to a vehicle.
<b>Have the compile tools undergone any changes?</b>
We've created distributed visibility (vvis) and radiosity (vrad) tools to greatly cut compile times. Distributed tools can harness the power of multiple computers (on a LAN, for instance) to increase their processing power.
<b>What are overlays and how do you use them?</b>
Overlays are a natural extension of decals. They aren't projected but live within the surface. You can vertex manipulate the corner verts, so they are totally orientable. Texturing is 1:1 and wrappable as opposed to projected.
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cut. Below are bits and pieces more relevent
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<b>Will it be possible to port content from Half-Life 1 to Half-Life 2?</b>
We’ve made this as painless as we could.
We learned a lot through our experiences with TFC, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and so on. This engine is much more mod’able than Half-Life 1 was, and the tool set has been improved a lot. We’ll also be releasing a bunch of material to help mod teams get their existing work up and running on the new engine.
The new Hammer will load Half-Life 1 levels (.RMF or .MAP source files only). You will need to retexture, and you’ll probably need to redo most of the entities, but this is a major jumpstart compared to starting from scratch.
Models will need a little touching up in QC files and also need to be recompiled in order to work in the HL2 engine. Again, you must have the original source data in order to do this. We will release all of our in-house tools for 3DSMax, XSI and Maya with the SDK.
Almost all parts of the HL2 SDK will be a little bit familiar to those who have worked with the HL1 SDK. Of course, there are a lot of new features, options, and systemic changes to explore, but overall the modding experience for HL2 is very similar to HL1.
<b>Will the HL2 SDK include tools to help convert HL1 content to HL2?</b>
Yes, the HL2 SDK will include several tools for this; for example, taking a WAD file and converting its contents to the new material format. Details and tips about converting HL1 code and content to HL2 will also be included.
<b>What's the replacement for r_speeds?</b>
There is a new system for budgeting that shows where time is being spent in the code at a high level. We are setting framerate targets for different levels of hardware capability. The display of the budgeting info is in the format of a graphics equalizer-like view of where time is being spent. This gives you a good view of where you are getting spikes, and the average performance.
<b>What's the largest possible texture?</b>
2048 x 2048. If there is a need for larger textures, we can up this limit.
<b>Does Half-Life 2 use WAD files for textures, like Half-Life 1?</b>
No. You now apply materials to surfaces instead of textures. Materials (VMT files) can refer to a number of textures (bump maps, base textures, environment maps, etc) which start out as TGA files and are converted to textures (VTF files) via a custom tool before you can use them in the game. Textures and materials are not compiled into WAD files anymore. They are stored as individual files in a materials folder. Optionally, they can be stored in a file system inside a ZIP file. You can embed these ZIP files directly into BSPS if you want.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is plenty more at the Collective. More model specific information and a veritable forrest of questions that may have been answered.
JTLYK
NOTE, i've included only mapping relevent information here, see the link above if you wish to know more. Further down below may be some news for the life of NS.
<b>Is mapping for Half-Life 2 similar to mapping for Half-Life 1?</b>
Map editing for the Source engine will be very familiar to those who did mapping for Half-Life. We've always tried to extend rather than reinvent whenever possible. The main challenge will be digesting all the new tools and capabilities to get the most out of them.
The rough structure of the map is still BSP-based, built from brushes, but the details are fleshed out with more props (models) that are built in XSI, Maya, or Max.
World bounds are +/- 16384 units in all directions (Half-Life's world bounds were +/- 4096). Mods can choose their own unit scale for the world. For example, 1 unit could be made to be equal to 1 foot, or to 1/10 of an inch. Physics will be adjusted accordingly, but collisions are only guaranteed to be accurate to 1/32nd of a unit.
We have found that a large part of the cost of creating a Half-Life 2 quality level is in the art production process. Building all the props and textures required for the level of visual quality people saw at E3 consumes a lot of man-hours. As for building a Half-Life 1 quality map in the Source engine, the new tools and entity I/O makes it go much faster than it did on Half-Life 1.
<b>What is the maximum map size for Half-Life 2?</b>
The maximum map size is currently set at +/-16384 units (16x the horizontal area of Half-Life 1, 64x overall volume).
Mods can choose their own unit scale for the world. For example, 1 unit could be made to be equal to 1 foot, or to 1/10 of an inch. Physics will be adjusted accordingly, but collisions are only guaranteed to be accurate to 1/32nd of a unit.
<b>What is the ratio of map units to real-life units?</b>
Unlike in Half-Life 1, things in Half-Life 2 will look proper when created at a scale of 1:1 (1 unit = 1 inch). It will be much easier to reproduce real-world environments in Half-Life 2. Gordon currently still requires 33 units of clearance to pass through a space (though this also may be subject to change).
<b>What are some of the key new features of the Hammer editor?</b>
Some of the new features in Hammer are: entity I/O, displacement surfaces, hierarchical visgroups, Half-Life 1 -> Half-Life 2 conversion path, per-face luxel density with preview, smoothing groups for brushes, graphical/editing helpers: radius, lightcone, line, text based, and extensible VMF file (no more RMF versioning!).
<b>Can you explain what the new Entity I/O system is?</b>
Entity I/O is the way entities are connected in the Source engine. It's essentially an inter-object messaging system. When certain internal events occur, an entity can fire outputs, which can be connected to inputs of other entities.
The output can potentially pass data to the receiving input, for example a wheel can pass its Position as a value from 0 - 1 to the Alpha input of a sprite, so as you turn the wheel the sprite gets brighter.
A given entity can have many different outputs, for example doors can fire an output when they are Opened, Closed, BlockedOpening, BlockedClosing, etc. which can be connected to any other entities in your map. The level designer controls all of this from Hammer, so you have a lot more power for building things.
<b>Can entities be linked to each other? For example, a breakable window on a door?</b>
Yes, we use entity hierarchy for this. Hierarchy is a way of attaching entities to each other so that they move together despite being of different entity types. For example, you can have a func_rotating in hierarchy with a func_tracktrain to give the train a rotating part, or you can parent a breakable windowpane to the train, or you can attach a camera to a vehicle.
<b>Have the compile tools undergone any changes?</b>
We've created distributed visibility (vvis) and radiosity (vrad) tools to greatly cut compile times. Distributed tools can harness the power of multiple computers (on a LAN, for instance) to increase their processing power.
<b>What are overlays and how do you use them?</b>
Overlays are a natural extension of decals. They aren't projected but live within the surface. You can vertex manipulate the corner verts, so they are totally orientable. Texturing is 1:1 and wrappable as opposed to projected.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cut. Below are bits and pieces more relevent
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<b>Will it be possible to port content from Half-Life 1 to Half-Life 2?</b>
We’ve made this as painless as we could.
We learned a lot through our experiences with TFC, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and so on. This engine is much more mod’able than Half-Life 1 was, and the tool set has been improved a lot. We’ll also be releasing a bunch of material to help mod teams get their existing work up and running on the new engine.
The new Hammer will load Half-Life 1 levels (.RMF or .MAP source files only). You will need to retexture, and you’ll probably need to redo most of the entities, but this is a major jumpstart compared to starting from scratch.
Models will need a little touching up in QC files and also need to be recompiled in order to work in the HL2 engine. Again, you must have the original source data in order to do this. We will release all of our in-house tools for 3DSMax, XSI and Maya with the SDK.
Almost all parts of the HL2 SDK will be a little bit familiar to those who have worked with the HL1 SDK. Of course, there are a lot of new features, options, and systemic changes to explore, but overall the modding experience for HL2 is very similar to HL1.
<b>Will the HL2 SDK include tools to help convert HL1 content to HL2?</b>
Yes, the HL2 SDK will include several tools for this; for example, taking a WAD file and converting its contents to the new material format. Details and tips about converting HL1 code and content to HL2 will also be included.
<b>What's the replacement for r_speeds?</b>
There is a new system for budgeting that shows where time is being spent in the code at a high level. We are setting framerate targets for different levels of hardware capability. The display of the budgeting info is in the format of a graphics equalizer-like view of where time is being spent. This gives you a good view of where you are getting spikes, and the average performance.
<b>What's the largest possible texture?</b>
2048 x 2048. If there is a need for larger textures, we can up this limit.
<b>Does Half-Life 2 use WAD files for textures, like Half-Life 1?</b>
No. You now apply materials to surfaces instead of textures. Materials (VMT files) can refer to a number of textures (bump maps, base textures, environment maps, etc) which start out as TGA files and are converted to textures (VTF files) via a custom tool before you can use them in the game. Textures and materials are not compiled into WAD files anymore. They are stored as individual files in a materials folder. Optionally, they can be stored in a file system inside a ZIP file. You can embed these ZIP files directly into BSPS if you want.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is plenty more at the Collective. More model specific information and a veritable forrest of questions that may have been answered.
JTLYK
Comments
just the facts that would be relivent to what we do in this particular forum, and how it would relate to NS if it were to port over to the HL2 engine
Must..build.new...computer
or those who didn't know this information was available ?
or those who didn't know this information was available ? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you've been living under a rock.
or those who didn't know this information was available ? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you've been living under a rock.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The infomation posted because i though it would benifit everyone, weather you've known about it for 2 months, or just finding it out. Everything on in the FAQ is worth a read, i just posted things i though were informative.
or those who didn't know this information was available ? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you've been living under a rock. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
He also provided a link.