Gabe: Valve spending "tremendous amount of time" improving mod tools

[Ennui]

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...rce-engine-sdk-will-be-less-painful-for-devs/

Valve has promised that it is spending a "tremendous amount of time" improving its Source Engine SDK.

Gabe Newell admitted that for both Valve and those who employ its development tools, Source has become "painful" to use, as it makes development difficult.

The interface of Valve's Hammer Editor, the SDK's world-creation tool, has not changed significantly since its initial release alongside the original Half-Life in 1998.

However, the exec revealed that's all set to change - as Valve beavers away on a slicker package for third-parties.

Newell was asked in the latest Steamcast: "Will Valve ever update the Source SDK, especially Hammer?"

He replied: "Oh yeah, we're spending a tremendous amount of time on tools right now. So, our current tools are... very painful, so we probably are spending more time on tools development now than anything else and when we're ready to ship those I think everybody's life will get a lot better.

"[It's] just way too hard to develop content right now, both for ourselves and for third-parties, so we're going to make enormously easier and simplify that process a lot."

It might be a bit fiddly, but Source has been responsible for some of the greatest games on the current generation, including Valve's own Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal.

Not really that much info, but it's cool to see that Valve is spending some significant time on the tools. Last time we saw a major update to the Hammer and SDK interfaces was pretty much when the Source SDK first came out like 5 years ago featuring Hammer 4.

It makes me a little giddy thinking about possible updates to the engine (especially when I've been spending time lately working with UDK and have been witnessing the GLORY of the unreal engine 3 workflow) but I'll keep it in my pants until we get some more info since otherwise I'm afraid I'll be disappointed.

Still, what would you like to see Valve improve in the SDK? Probably most people will have ideas about hammer, but if you want significant updates to other aspects of the SDK feel free to discuss that too!

I'd personally love a visual scripting system for logic and i/o a la Unreal Kismet. I'd also love some more advanced/modern terrain tools, and better in-editor management of textures/materials in general.

 

[ríomhaire]

Pi might even smile for the first time.

 

[Barnz]

old news. they don't even have anyone to work on the SDK, so it's a lie. portal 2 is going to have a tools pack (hammer/hlmv), not a sdk. only hl games are getting a sdk (which was stated by a valve dev). we still don't have the code for the 2010 version.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

we still don't have the code for the 2010 version.

Perhaps the reason we don't have the 2010 version is because in Valves eyes it will become obsolete the moment the latest iteration of the SDK is released? Might as well steam ahead to reach an intended goal, rather than dividing your devlopment team and providing support for older tools and builds; slowing progress.

Gabe Newell admitted that for both Valve and those who employ its development tools, Source has become "painful" to use, as it makes development difficult.

I translated that to an improved displacement map tool

I would love if they imployed a logic view or a visual representation of what a trigger does from within Hammer, rather than go into the game proper and check that you applied the right settings for your trapdoor-of-eternal-pain-and-suffering

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I'd love it if they actually scrapped the whole ****ing thing and started again from scratch after looking at some decent tools.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Perhaps a app in the SDK that allows you to create models and animations. Probably just for creation of placeholders, but still allows for importing/exporting between that and external modeling suites and an easy way to insert those into your projects.

Would be interesting to find out if Valve are still using external software for cinematic physics generation or if they have now created the means independently

 

[Barnz]

that's never going to happen. valve is using a third-party maya plugin for the cinematic physics.

 

[Shinobi]

yeah I will believe it when I see it. Even then I doubt I'll use them primarily. Crytek has blown Valve out of the water. Not to mention countless other middleware developers.

What I would have also liked to hear is "we plan to stop breaking your codebase with SDK updates"

 

[tschumann]

I don't use the Source SDK much, but working tools would be good.
Faceposer seems to only work on Windows XP, if at all, for example.

 

[Shinobi]

I will give valve this though. Their BSP tools are are pleasure to work with. When they do make the new tools I hope they keep them.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

BSP is the least annoying part of the SDK, I'll grant you that. I wouldn't call it a pleasure, though.

 

[Stormy]

Mark my words... they are going to release a new engine! And would expect all these updates would be in that rather then a massive update of the current sdk.

 

[Kadayi]

Good news I guess. Albeit I've not played around with the engine in years, the sheer horror of the SDK was hard to forget.

 

[Shinobi]

BSP is the least annoying part of the SDK, I'll grant you that. I wouldn't call it a pleasure, though.

compared to the rest of hammer it's a pleasure

Only thing I like better for quick layout is Dommbuilder2

 

[JFry]

Too little too late? This is something I think they should have focused more on around the time hl2 came out. I think they missed an opportunity to have a thriving mod scene for hl2. Not that it was dead but it never seemed to reach hl1's success. The mod teams that did manage a release mostly seemed to be concerned with putting out a polished product, rather than a fun game. Not really blaming them, but the end result is there just weren't many fun mods to play imo.

I wouldn't really have expected/demanded better tools from anyone except valve, because frankly I think they owed a big part of their success to the mod community.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

It would be great if this year, they showed the new updated engine, akin to when they did it in 2003 and have our minds boggled once more