L4D Modding Group

[violent]

As many of us know, the L4D SDK was recently released. Question is, who plans on using it? I'm currently going through the tutorial (link) and I've already gotten a few things working together. I plan on learning this thing as much as possible and eventually move on to an actual product. Ideally, I can collaborate with others here who are interested in doing the same. So who's doing this?

[iHap]

I've been putting together a map, I'll probably create the level design then figure out all the spawns and crap later.

[violent]

Are you familiar with the Hammer tools or are you learning as you go?

[Katslover]

I've always wanted to learn how to make maps for games, but I loaded up the UT3 map editor (the only reason I bought the PC version) and couldn't really make heads or tails of it 8-(. Good luck with L4D, and be sure to share anything you make!

[Spectre-7]

I'm not in any rush to get started with Hammer, but I'm available to model props and maybe do a bit of texture work. I could use the practice, so lemme know if you need anything.

[violent]

Originally Posted by Katslover

I've always wanted to learn how to make maps for games, but I loaded up the UT3 map editor (the only reason I bought the PC version) and couldn't really make heads or tails of it 8-(. Good luck with L4D, and be sure to share anything you make!

Follow that link in my first post. It's really not that bad.

[iHap]

Originally Posted by violent

Are you familiar with the Hammer tools or are you learning as you go?

I'm sorta learning it all. Because I'm lazy i plan on just creating the terrain, trees, buildings etc. then I will go back and play with zombie spawns, and everything else.

[Jackel]

Sadly I really don't have the time to dedicate to making anything..as work and family responsibilities take priority.

I will however find the time to help test out and play any creations you guys make. I'm really looking forward to the custom content for this game.

[Libuke]

Food Nipple was making a map before well waiting for SDK.

[Telefrog]

I'd love to help if Hammer would ever actually start on my PC. For whatever reason, it always hangs and crashes.

[Food Nipple]

Originally Posted by Telefrog

I'd love to help if Hammer would ever actually start on my PC. For whatever reason, it always hangs and crashes.

The first time you boot up the beta tools, it can take a minute or two to do some one-time-only configuration. Let it run in the background for a few minutes before you end the task.

[Zrikz]

I've always been interested in messing with Hammer.. I should have quite a bit of free time this summer, so I might have to check it out after I move this week.

[Food Nipple]

Here's a couple of things I've picked up along the way, some of it is specific to L4D, but some of this may be obvious if you're already experienced with Hammer.

- Texture everything with the "Nodraw" texture by default. There's a bunch of special textures that give special instructions to the game engine, nodraw tells Source that this face isn't visible. This is one of the easiest optimizations you can do to ensure that more of your level isn't being rendered than is absolutely necessary. It's much easier to designate textures to the faces that you want drawn that it is to go back an designate which ones you don't want drawn.

- Start by creating an extremely simple level: make it horseshoe shaped and make sure you can complete it in under a minute. This is so you can learn how to make a proper safe room at the beginning and end of the level, and how to get zombies to spawn. After you've got the level up and running, this becomes your test level for when you want to start adding in more complex elements.

For example, the elevator in No Mercy 4 is made up of dozens of elements. My first elevator took several hours to get up and running with all the necessary elements, it's much easier to work this stuff out in your simple test level than it is to sit through the entire compile time every time you need to tweak something.

- Some important measurements:
* Interior walls are normally around 8 feet high, which is 128 world units in Hammer.
* Interior walls should be 8wu thick, bullet penetration is handled automatically, and I believe that bullets stop penetrating walls thicker than 12wu.
* Individual stairs tend to be 8wu tall and 12wu deep.
* Doors fit into a hole that is 104wu tall and 56wu wide

- Remember that zombies need to be out of sight in order to spawn, L4D levels require lots of nooks and crannies, with plenty of side rooms and vents so that the director has places to spawn enemies. Include as many spawn opportunities as you can by adding lots of side passages. If you've got zombies spawning on the other side of an opaque fence, put an invisible ramp on the back side so they can run over the top of the fence, rather than having to climb over it.

- Test your level constantly!

[Dr. Quasius]

Originally Posted by Food Nipple

Some very helpful information.

Thanks for taking the time to post this! I actually copy/pasted your post into a text file so I'll have it on hand.

[Food Nipple]

One of the ideas that I've been fooling around with is making a map whose path is randomized. The idea is to have branching paths, and then block off all but one of the branches randomly each time the map loads.

I took my standard test map, and moved the safe room a few meters farther down the hallway to make room for an alternate path, which I then made. I now had two hallways that the survivors could take, each hallway has an entrance and an exit, so I need a total of four brushes to block the routes.

After creating the four brushes, I selected all of them and hit CTRL+T to convert them from world geometry to brush entities whose properties I can edit. To make these brushes solid walls which I can destroy with a trigger, I changed their type to func_brush. I changed the name parameter so that one set was named path_a and the other set of walls was named path_b. Naming the brushes in pairs will make it easier to keep track of the scripting cases, if I issue a "Kill path_a" command, it will now kill both brushes. Also, note that the solidity parameter of a func_brush is by default set to "never solid", you'll want to change this to "always solid" for this example.

Next, I created a logic_case entity, and named it path_selection. Here's a picture of how I set the outputs:



I then added an output to the director entity to fire path_selection once, as soon as the map loads. Path_selection will randomly pick one of my two cases, which will kill the corresponding set of func_brushes.

Here's an in-engine shot showing the two paths, as you can see the logic_case killed the func_brushes blocking off the longer of the two paths, so the survivors have to take the longer way around.



One important note, I'm not sure how the navigation mesh handles func_brushes, but I'm assuming you'll need to have all possible paths open when you generate the nav_mesh in order for everything to work properly.

My next step is to test if zombies continue to spawn when the two routes become more spatially disparate. Also, I'd like to be able to make the junctions be a bit more interesting a real map. One idea is to have a room whose floor is caved in half the time, forcing you to jump down into the floor below, but the other half of the time, the floor is solid and your route continues on the floor you're currently on. The problem is that zombies that spawn down in the hole may try to jump and climb up even though the ceiling is solid. The next iteration of the test map will test for both these cases.

[Libuke]

Alternating routs sounds like a good idea and I hope you get it to work Food.

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by Food Nipple

The first time you boot up the beta tools, it can take a minute or two to do some one-time-only configuration. Let it run in the background for a few minutes before you end the task.

That wasn't it. Hammer would literally crash to the BSoD (when was the last time you had one of those?) and my PC would require a hard reboot.

On a hunch, I installed the Source SDK, Orange Box SDK, and Source SDK Base, and now the L4D Hammer editor starts properly. I have no idea if that really did the trick, but it's working now.

Messed with Hammer for a few hours this morning. I was surprised at how much is the same from using it back with the original Half-Life. Hopefully, this means my ramp-up to getting competent won't take as long as I feared.

I went through the first four tutorials this morning. Good stuff.

[Codicier]

If we want to get together and design something (new campaign?), or if someone just needs something for their map, I'd be down to cover a programming role. Haven't used the Source engine yet but there's a first time for everything.

[violent]

Hammer has been a little buggy for me too. Luckily nothing as bad as a BSoD but it will just crash unexpectedly every now and again.

[Aggort]

Food, that's definitely an interesting approach, especially weapons/ammo/health placement wise. Also taking a different side to different gameplay where Valve made it different spawns and such you're taking it a whole new level.