Need help on making a simple SP-mod

Alec_85

Alec_85

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Hi!

Dunno if this is the right place to post this but I need help with a 100-hours school project. Now this isn't a cry for help so someone can do my work for me :) We are 3 complete n00bs who wanted to do a HL-mod. We deciced to do a SP-mod that takes place inside our school. BUT I don't know anything about coding in HL or how to make a mod. Now I have worked with Hammer some.

So my main problem is simply, how do you put several maps together into a working "game"? Our mod will be extremely simple so there will be zero new elements that do not exist in the Original game. I believe I would need the SDK either way right? But I don't know how to work that thing either :D Mayeb I should check out the VERc site some?

Can someone help a fellow forumer (though rather absent)? ;)
 
By the sounds of it all your gonna need is Hammer. Just build your maps so they work together nicely and thats yer lot. Unless you plan on adding something not already in HL2 then Hammer is really all you'll need.
 
In your school? I'd avoid fps-ing in a likeness of your school, at all costs. That's why I refuse to make a cs map of our school for the whiney juniors in my comp sci class.
 
FictiousWill said:
In your school? I'd avoid fps-ing in a likeness of your school, at all costs. That's why I refuse to make a cs map of our school for the whiney juniors in my comp sci class.
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why, you say thats why you refuse but you don't actually give the reason why :D
 
Mapping alone, which is all you need to given your intent, doesnt make a mod. Code some new stuff, even if it's just making weapons more powerful or something, will be more fun that way :)
As to why you shouldn't make a map of your school, well, if anyone found out it would probably be over the newspapers.. "local children kill each other in virtual school yard" etc, fueling angry mother's flames against chess being racist cos the white pieces go first and stuff :D
 
Oh please, those are the lamest excuses ever lol. Honestly, everyone is off making games gloryfying the killing of Germans and Arabs, but you make a fecking school map and suddenly everyone is up in arms about it.

If you want to map your school, map it and if anyone bitches about it then thats their problem. Kids are gonna kill each other with or without your map. Do-gooders are gonna make anything they don't like a scapegoat whatever you do. Hell the same people say calling your hard drives masters and slave drivers is now bad, or using the word black in any sentance is racist. If you listen to people like that you'll end up doing nothing

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to recalibrate my MASTER and SLAVE drives on my BLACK computer while playing DOOM and watching JACKASS while reading a NEWSPAPER and laughing at old episodes of FAWLTY TOWERS.

and if the do-gooders don't like it, they can bloodywell try sue me.

[end of rant] :p

Edit: Oh and yeah, im gonna go play chess now with onions using BLACK and WHITE pieces, thanks for that :D
 
I thought blacks went first...Then again i havent palyed chess in, uh, ever. Well ive played it when i was little but never really got into it.
 
Fenric said:
Edit: Oh and yeah, im gonna go play chess now with onions using BLACK and WHITE pieces, thanks for that :D
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Watch out for the black rook, he is a lazy f*ing n...sorry guys, Ron Atkinson is on my computer (people from the UK will understand ;))

Anyway, mapping your school/house would be a good idea as you will be familiar with the geometry and layout so that makes it easier. As for the PC-ness of making a school map, just stick monsters everywhere......unless your school is full of monsters then i can't see anyone having a problem with it.
 
Thanks Badger. How the hell did this thread get onto racism?

Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that mapping a school would induce school shootings, of course not. But when my ap comp sci class plays CS for 15-20 minutes a day in school mostly during lunch breaks, I can't imagine it going down well with school administrators if we virtually blow eachother's brains out in a virtual replica of the very building we were in. I just don't want to cause trouble with admin, seeing as they let the class even play CS during break in the first place.
 
FictiousWill said:
Thanks Badger. How the hell did this thread get onto racism?

Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that mapping a school would induce school shootings, of course not. But when my ap comp sci class plays CS for 15-20 minutes a day in school mostly during lunch breaks, I can't imagine it going down well with school administrators if we virtually blow eachother's brains out in a virtual replica of the very building we were in. I just don't want to cause trouble with admin, seeing as they let the class even play CS during break in the first place.
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Given a choice they'd rather have you shooting each other in a game than the real thing. Besides its just a game, if their gonna have issue's with it they need their heads tested. I mean really. Your gonna have a game shooting your mates on CS, thats hardly gonna make you want to do it for real is it. As Murray points out, it'll be useful for learning to model. A school has lots of interesting area's and you could learn a lot from mapping it as accurately as you can. If you want to model it go ahead and model it, if anyone has a problem with that, shoot em in CS when its done :)
 
They play CS at school? We hardly had 2 working computers between us, and even then it was only in the final year.

Im sure you are right though, playing a violent game set in the school may not go down well. However, i personally would see a problem with that (I even mapped my own house :D)
 
I'm not saying it causes anything, just I want to avoid administrative repercussions, for whatever reason. I don't think I'm being over-cautious.
 
At my old school some of us got together and created a CS map of one of the buildings. It was nice, included the gym ,aud, classrooms, etc. It took us a good bit of work to be honest, and in the end it wasn't anything to scoff at. Of course, as soon as the administration found out the computer club was playing horrible, violent, evil CS, a game sent directly from satan, in a replica of one of the school buildings, we were disbanded for the year. However, this is the school that wanted to suspend me for visiting this site on one of their machines, and was convinced D&D was an occult activity, so it's not exactly normal.
 
qckbeam said:
At my old school some of us got together and created a CS map of one of the buildings. It was nice, included the gym ,aud, classrooms, etc. It took us a good bit of work to be honest, and in the end it wasn't anything to scoff at. Of course, as soon as the administration found out the computer club was playing horrible, violent, evil CS, a game sent directly from satan, in a replica of one of the school buildings, we were disbanded for the year. However, this is the school that wanted to suspend me for visiting this site on one of their machines, and was convinced D&D was an occult activity, so it's not exactly normal.
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Yup, that be a screwed up school :D
 
Wow lots of responses. Thanks. First of all, this is being done in HL1 atm & will most likely be continue to be made there. Secondly, The school plus our IT teacher has approved the idea (he loves FPS games. He's scary sometimes). And I live in Sweden ;)

The school area will be the main event so to speak. But, the story we had in mind is that some "evil" company has this secret lab underneath the school (kinda like Umbrella perhaps) so the only things we had in mind to fight are zombies, most likely soldiers & some Xen beings. And we wanted this "mod" to be rather scary so the most powerful weapon you would be able to find would be something like a shotgun. Tops. Oh and the flashlight. Think Silent Hill sort of.

So I would only need to use Hammer to do all this? 'Cause we don't actually work at school that much since it's a 100 hours / persion homeproject & it would be nice if we had a separate installation needed for it.

I think the only difference this game would have over HL1 is the use of the game_text entity to tell parts of the "story". HL1 doesn't that that much. We just want to finish this as painless as possible :) We lost a lot of time this Summer because of lousy info about HL2. And the situation is now, with only 1 week or so left that (maybe some more if we're lucky), I might be the only one working on it :(

I think I'm trouble...
 
Well it would appear that it will be up to me to finish the whole project now :D Now I kinda plan to just build a couple of "squareish" rooms that look like my school (well the whole school is built around squares really). The main problem is that I don't know how to link 'em together. And can you make an install file through Hammer only?
 
Well it's just maps atm but it's a SP-game without anything new added so it would be just like HL1 & that thing requires an install :) Anyhow, I don't want to show off the "game" from inside Hammer, map by map, even though my teacher said that would be okay too. I'd like it to be continous like a real game/mod.
 
Just zip it up and when you want to show it extract it to your /maps directory.
 
I just want to know how the hell you justified a map making exercise in Half-life as a school project. Damn, if I could have pulled that one off I'd have been laughing.
 
Andy said:
I just want to know how the hell you justified a map making exercise in Half-life as a school project. Damn, if I could have pulled that one off I'd have been laughing.
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I once thought about mapping an Egyptian temple for a school project. Didn't have the time.

All you need is some teacher who is interested or doesn't know what the hell you're doing, and thus is very very impressed... :thumbs:
 
The Thing: Well both those alternatives kinda apply here :)

Andy: Well I go to a Technology school so about 50% of all courses revolves around computers & digital design etc. And the rest of the courses are the typical, math, religion etc. And there you have to use the computers to get a lot of work done too :)
 
Well guess who had to write the report & do all the mapping then? :( Well I made 1 room that resembles our school somewhat & modded a friend's room that he sent me (he did the layout which sucked anyway & I did the rest on it). So now I just hope our teacher will buy it (not BUY it who you get it).

You DON't want to play this I'd say :) I guess you can delete/lock this thread now. It's all over :)
 
No wait...we have to see how it turns out. :)
 
HAHAHA anyone want to see a map of My school? One of my brothers friends made it so I cant say it runs very well. There's 2 versions; CS and DOD I'm uploading it right now 4mb zipped I'll post when it finishes.

btw My school is called "The Heights School" or THS for short. This map is missing alot of stuff like half the Junior school (the building with the canteen and science labs, upstairs is the junior school) The Middle School building has only got a big wall and a balcony where the terroists spawn I think). The Gym is missing and so is G block and lastly the Tech, Art and Home Ec building is missing. Alot of detail like brick borders and seats are missing along with all the wooden borders. I was going to do a revamp of this map becuase I have the source but I couldn't be bothered.

Heres the overview map
 
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