Mapping Questions Megathread V6 - Developers

I know it is possible,and where can I find these tutorials cuz I have been having hard time finding them.

You can't really find tutorials for I/O stuff as its very broad, the easiest way is to just experiment OR decompile a map and see how the I/O is working.

I already said - TopHattWaffle does some IO and entity tutorials.

Probably been asked many times before so I apologise in advance: How would one go about mounting CSS and Episode 2 content for Hammer with the intention of mapping for GMod? Source Multi-Tool seemed to be the best option in the past but I can't get it to save my custom config. If I were to extract the content from the GCFs and repack them as custom VPKs would the models show up for other clients as they should in theory be sourced from the same directory?

I believe you should just copy-paste the VPKs. I dont see a reason for them to be repacked.

Ehh. That only works if the client uses the same gameconfig as you do for modding. It's about Hammer and the engine loading from the correct searchpathes. Afaik, the client gotta mount those too or they will not be able to load the content in the engine. In terms of formats and copy pasting you need a hammer that supports vpk. You generally can get away with no copy if you use and absolute search path to the game directory that has the content. Again. The client using this shold mount his own correct searchpathes to the game content. Example: Sfm's hammer loading 'alien' data (absolute path) from alien swarm (and other stuff). It sees the vpk pathes, but doesn't generally support vpk to use the models. https://i.imgur.com/gEn4LJw.jpg

Alien swarm models can be easily fixed, though they need to be extracted to SFMs usermod directory. Put this .bat into the directory and run it: @echo off xcopy "models\*.vtx" "models_vt2\*.vt2" /s for /r %%a in (*.vtx) do ren "%%a" "%%~na.dx90.vtx" for /r %%b in (*.vt2) do ren "%%b" "%%~nb.dx80.vtx" xcopy "models_vt2" "models" /s rmdir "models_vt2" /s /q Should fix the model issues.

So I could decompile TF2 version and see

Yeh. Nice. But i don't need the models in sfm. It was just an example loading 'alien' content outside of the game specific engine folder. ;)

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/161394/31d71a26-f0c6-41a2-b51c-ace7e49fd708/20180213171528_1.jpg Got it working with SMT 2.0!

Has anyone gotten Propper to work without owning any of the HL2 games? All tutorials say I need a HL2 game installed to work. I tried anyway and Propper instantly crashes. Any workaround?

Could someone upload the WC Mappack again? All the links I find are dead.

how would I go about making a bomb move with a target (bomb_mount_target works but it doesn't follow what it has been parented to)

Where did you find this entity? Give us some background information

Every time I compile my map Hammer adds brush that isnt there. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2450/6f8dc9fa-7cb0-4fed-90e0-e8ee59b0db51/wtf.PNG https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2450/ebbcb042-8078-498e-a2ae-a8ab87c94930/20180214192653_1.jpg What am I doing wrong?

Depends what you do and how you do it. This is convoy mapping? It's a func_brush for 'scrolling'? It's origin or parenting seems to dislocate it.

Its world brush Nothing else

regular func_bombtarget has this value, it works but even when i place a bomb on a moving platform it freezes

It might not support parenting. Regarding the sounds in CSS - if you mean sounds dont loop, yes, CSS has this problem. You have to name your sound, and in a logic_auto entity, make it loopable.

Will there be any problems if I viscluster the heck out of everything? I learned about func_viscluster after my vvis compile took 2 hours, and now my large map exterior is a mess of orange boxes.

you dont need half life 2 now tophattwaffle guide is outdated take this Releases · tuxxi/propper version of propper and follow this Propper to install it

Alright, here's another noob question about visleaves: what determines what visleaves are rendered? Everything say that it's dependant on whether a visleaf is visible from any part of the current visleaf you're in, but using mat_leafvis 3 in my map it feels like it's a lot looser than that, and renders some things round multiple corners, despite mat_leafvis 1 showing that the current visleaf very clearly isn't visible to lots of the visleaves being show in mat_leafvis 3, and vice-versa.

https://youtu.be/Ne59X-e-R9Y?t=1m40s Part of this tutorial explains it in a pretty comperhensive way. But the vis system, esp. on complicated maps, is aan aproximatiom at its best..

actually nvm i figured out the sound thing, you need to put ".wav" at the end, it plays regardless it seems

Thanks, guess I'll just have to try and work around it.

Back to my water problem, I'm happy with everything apart from the skybox water. For some reason, as far as I can tell it takes the water_lod_control settings and acts like its real position is its visual position, except all the water_lod_control values get multiplies by 16 (the skybox scale). This means if I set the water_lod_control to start and end at 0 then all the water is cheap and it blends seamlessly; however, if I set (e.g.) the start at 0 and the end at 1024 like I have here, it means that water in the world will only have expensive properties if you're really close to it (the silvery water is cheap), but the skybox water is acting expensive for a massive radius (the brown water is expensive), which I'm assuming to be 1024*16. This means the skybox connection is far from seamless (see image). I tried fixing this by duplicating my water .vmf (water_powerhouse), renaming it to water_powerhouse_cheap, applying water_powerhouse_cheap to the skybox water and adding "$forcecheap" 1 but this doesn't do anything, but neither did "$forceexpensive" 1. The cheap custom .vmf definitely does apply to the skybox water only since I fiddled with the fog value to make sure it was, so...not really sure what's going on with that. I could get away with using a veeery restrictive water_lod_controller that doesn't bleed out into the skybox but the values needed for that are so small that I may as well make all the water cheap. Also, my skybox is about 6000 HU below the main area, so I'm not accidentally getting too close to it or anything. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107303/cce989e6-52f3-4784-b9a0-1629dd01e6f3/Screenshot (31).png Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it's something stupid from my end.

think bigger. i know sfm tf2 does it. i'm sure you can replicate that full extend. i don't know cheap water, anymore. https://i.imgur.com/9ke7TJH.jpg

https://imgur.com/a/RDSw1 I'm having new issue where none, atleast I'm pretty sure none of my props that I place (Such as the bus, beams holding up glass, fence) are not showing up in gmod after I compile the map. These are l4d2 props, but I also notice some props from hl2 and its expansions might not be loading in either. Are they not in gmod? I'm not sure what I've done wrong.

I just looked and I found out that this happens on all new maps I make, but all the props that I'm creating in hammer are in my gmod. So, like the bus won't show up after I compile in hammer, but I can spawn it through the prop menu in game?

Post your compile log