Need help getting started with hl2

[Socketman]

I have a buddy who is interested in getting into game coding. He is interested in doing hl2 and wanted to know where to start. He is fairly fluent in C++. I read here that VC++6 will be the language. And that it will probably be set up similar to HL1's SDK. If this is so, can anyone help me out by pointing out where i can get HL1's sdk? Or anything that may help my friend get started coding (even for just games in general). He is comp sci major in his junior year but wants some hands on stuff.

Thanks guys.

edit: guess i should mention we are after the basics: changing classes, remaking some rules, editing a little physics etc.

 

[hasan]

Half-Life SDK Download Link
http://dev.valve-erc.com/?go=hl_sdk

If he's having any trouble, there are plenty of tuts on the net, though alot of them are copy + paste, but you can always find some useful ones.

This is an excellent one:
http://planethalflife.com/hlsdk2/

 

[Socketman]

thanks a ton hasan,
I'll forward all of that to my buddy.

 

[we11er]

Just a question - if I do play around with the code, is it safe to replace the dlls in the actual halflife valve folder? Will steam let me do that, or will it think I'm 'tampering' and not allow it?

 

[we11er]

W00t, just compiled. I'm using VC++ Express 5 Beta

There were a few probs though - some enum constants were being referenced incorrectly - I assume VC++ 6 just allows this though.

e.g.

Class A {
    enum Values {one, two, three}
}

They referenced the enum constants as

A::Values::one

when really it should just be

A::one

 

[Ti133700N]

Copy the valve folder, and paste is right next to it in the Half-Life folder. Rename your copy to anything you want exept "Valve" lol, then replace the dlls in that directory by yours. Open up Steam and you'll have a new entry in the games menu.

 

[we11er]

Yeah figured that out - although you need to create a liblist.gam file for it to appear in steam, since the valve folder doesn't have one.

I've been make the gman mortal, but I need to create a model for his death animation - don't know if I can be arsed now!

 

[hasan]

maybe you can just stop him from animating and turn him 90 degrees or something so that he is lying on the ground rather than standing up.
I think you can do that in the code.

P.S. try
http://www.thewavelength.net

has tuts for setting up a mod and debuggin on steam.