Quick Yes/No Q's for a noob modder

Faulk_Wulf

Newbie
Joined
Nov 21, 2004
Messages
166
Reaction score
0
Hello. I have some quick questions. I just desire to know if the following things are possible or not- I'll take care of finding tutorals and such about how to do the following later, right now I just need some answers while I brainstorm concepts.

Okay, it's really one big question, but I tried to break it up.

1) Is it possible to rig the game to have multiple characters?
-- I was thinking of using a menu option. (Like an expanded version of the "Difficulty" menu option, where each "level" was instead a character's name.) For example instead of Easy, Medium, Hard - use their names "Bryen Kriel, Rosko Gunner, Shadow". Then just rig the Skill settings to give each characters their properties. (Different Max Health/Armor settings, etc)

2) Would it be possible to tie a custom weapon load-out into the above idea, or if that isn't possible- could each "Difficulty/Character" trigger an individual map to be loaded? For example, make a "precinct_template" map, and then just name it different for each character, and load them into it.

3) Is it possible for a weapon to have more then one alternate function? (Specifically, I have an SMG that I need to toggle from Single, Tripple, 5-Round, and Full-Auto fire.)

That should pretty much cover it. Like I said, I am not asking HOW to do these things at the moment. I will search for those answers on my own first, and only then ask about them. I was just hoping for some quick yes/no answers from the collective knowledge of all the modders around here about whether these things are POSSIBLE, and thus give me some dirrection with my concepts.
 
Im pretty sure ive seen HL1 mods with these features (ie TFC) so i dont see why it shouldnt be possible in HL2
 
Aight, thank you. I realize that the post probably came across as "childish" to alot of people, but I didn't want to waste my time hunting for articles when what I was attempting to do wasn't even possible. Definately good to hear that it should work. Thanks for your time.
 
I'm not a modder, but these look like trivial issues if you have some good coding skills. I wouldn't see why not...
 
The answer is yes to all three, although in the third case, secondary fire would have to be used to toggle between fire types.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Yes for all.
even the thrid idea. (I'm not experienced with the SDK but I don't see why not)
 
Thanks again. Yes, they probably are trivial for a coder. I'm not a coder. I plan to stare at Valve's code for a while, and do ALOT of trial and error and soak up all the tutorials I can find (which I have a long list of for general editing). I was just brain-storming my mod, and blue-printing what I wanted to do, and didn't want to plot out a list of "really cool crap" that would ultimately be impossible to code in. Thanks again, I have all the answer I need, no one else needs to reply.
 
I also have a few questions of my own because i might start the same aswell. Maybe I could gain some experience coding while helping you with your mod (when you decide to do it) ey?

1. Whats is the difficulty level for making a gun shoot faster than it normally is? (very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard)

2. What is the difficulty level of making weapons/gernades do different damage when shot at an enemy? (same choices as above)

3. What is the coolest and easiest thing you can do with the spurce engine? (what did u start out with, that was easy and cool?)

4. How long will it take me to go from total newb to amateur? ( i currently do php, js, as, flash, html, photoshop, hammer, hl scripting, but no other object orriented languages).


so please reply to all of them or only the ones you want\can. I just wanna see if getting coding is for me or not.
 
Well I don't really need help coding. I want to get into software development anyway, so this'll be fun for me. What I *do* need is a modeler to do a handful of simple weapons. (.45 Socom, 1911, etc etc) I think it only works out to being 12 weapons. Or such. I can't model to save my tail :(
 
I just wanna see if getting coding is for me or not.

Teach yourself programming in 10 years

Becomming a decent programmer isn't easy (just like becoming a decent modeler/mapper/artist) and personally I think if you start learning to program by playing around with the Source SDK you're not really gonna get anywhere (some people would disagree though). But anyway here's some answers to your questions:

1. Should be as easy as changing a constant or two

2. See above

3. Well first the full Source SDK ain't out yet so there's no code hence I haven't done anything cool/easy with Source yet. Second cool and easy are rather vague descriptions what's cool/easy will depend very much on who you're asking.

4. Well in that little list you have there you have a couple of programming languages. If you can actually program in these (and by that I mean write a program of non-trivial length, such as say forum software in php, without undue difficulty) then all you'll have to do is learn C++. Now C++ is a huge language but if you can already program you should be able to pick up the syntax easily enough within a week or so and start coding. Mastering C++ as a language can take a lot longer
 
Faulk_Wulf said:
3) Is it possible for a weapon to have more then one alternate function? (Specifically, I have an SMG that I need to toggle from Single, Tripple, 5-Round, and Full-Auto fire.)
I'm sure that's possible, because you can script that into DoD without too much trouble.
 
craze3 said:
1. Whats is the difficulty level for making a gun shoot faster than it normally is? (very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard)

2. What is the difficulty level of making weapons/gernades do different damage when shot at an enemy? (same choices as above)
well it's very easy, cuz it's jsut a constant/variable you need to change. the hard part maybe finding that constant :p
 
Mastering can take quite a long time to do, as Monder said. For example, one of Valve's lead programmers, Jay Stelly, has been programming since he was nine - he is probably around 30-40(I would imagine). That is at least 15-30 years.

As to you craze - these questions are truly trivial for someone with 5 different language backrounds(well, html isn't.. forget what that is).
 
nbk said:
As to you craze - these questions are truly trivial for someone with 5 different language backrounds(well, html isn't.. forget what that is).

I dunno for sure, but I'd say a markup language?
 
I know Orion(hypertext markup language), but I could have sworn they had a different name..
 
yes i do all those languages and i am able to code a pretty complex website using javascript, php and html. Like a user system, users have points, customizable aim profiles, and can submit stuff to our flash portal and it gets added automatically. If the flash gets a bad score it gets thrown out. You can use ur points to buy stuff from our point shop (under construction).
As you can see I do know the language(s) pretty well.

UPDATE: I made a test mod just to fool around, and it seems really easy. Since I understand synthax of other languages, i can make this one out. If I do any of the C++ SRC files i sometimes mess up, but I'm good at TXT and CFG config and settings files. I made it so the shotgun has 60 shells instead of w/e it had b4! I'm still trying to make a automatic shotgun...but I took out the lines about "having to wait till pumping is over", but then it just doesnt work at all. Anyways, shouldnt be too hard. I'm going to go take some C++ tutorials. Thanks for your help.
 
Faulk_Wulf said:
Aight, thank you. I realize that the post probably came across as "childish" to alot of people, but I didn't want to waste my time hunting for articles when what I was attempting to do wasn't even possible. Definately good to hear that it should work. Thanks for your time.

Childish? Nah, it's good to aim high with mods! I always think about what kind of mods I would like to play to half life 2 and then I try to create simple test maps of them, a few examples... like standing on top of a building with some junk that you can throw down at people walking below, a "the cube" mod based on the movie where you are in a cube and nearly every room is rigged with a lethal trap. Then I've tryed like junk yard, fighting an Antlion in a junk yard was pretty fun, physboxes flew all over the place, then I tryed with zombies, that was pretty fun too. Also I built a guillotine :)
 
to get your started on the third point. CHLSelectFireMachineGun is a basic class where secondary fire toggles between Full Auto and 3 Shot Burst.

(its only a base class so you'd need to derive from it to add your Model and stuff, but its probably a good place to look, that and weapon_smg1.cpp).
 
Back
Top