A Title
Someone from the staff interviews someone else, and they say some really neat stuff. And this tagline is a lead into that.
— The writer
[13:26] sigh
[13:26] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn: its not possible to add new members to entvars_t structure is it? thats why iuser1, 2, 3 where made for mod right?
[13:26] lol okay i didn't want to start an argument
[13:26] CS is gaining more fans though, so as the vets leave because they've played it for so long, tons of other players are starting to play it
[13:26] simms, no, that's why we included the iuser stuff. In tf2 it's totally open-ended
[13:26] A much much better system
[13:27] Yahn: I have stopped coding for Half-Life but plan to make a mod for TF2. Am I going to be hoplessly outdated compared to everyone who will already be familiar with a lot of the things that will be in the TF2 SDK?
[13:27] thats a good question
[13:27] Yahn, Will the Full engine source ever be released for half life?
[13:27] just one question: will a virtual machine setup ever be used (similar to quake 3's setup) so that mods don't have to be recompiled for other platforms?
[13:27] I sooooo want valve to see my mod.. and i soooooo dont want to be kicked.
[13:27] Question from pev: Yahn: what type of education do you have before you came to valve?
[13:27] No, your basic understanding will go 90% of the way there. If you've done a full mod you'll know where it was frustrating. Those are areas where we tried to improve things.
[13:27] We're also exposing even more functionality to the game and client .dlls
[13:27] yahn: will there be more iuser,fuser ... stuff in a later SDK
[13:28] WhiteDragon (non-voice) What ever happend to the support with the Mod Action Half-Life did you guys help them or just give up with them
[13:28] biggs, I have a chemistry degree from harvard and a law degree from florida and I was a patent attorney for 5 years before coming to valve
[13:28] Mike: he told us things will work differently in TF2 at least
[13:28] Yahn is a wandering genius :)
[13:28] Yahn: When did you start programming?
[13:29] Yahn: Have you/valve planned on releasing the HL code as open source, like ID Software did with Quake1, with GNU License
[13:29] zyborg, we actively helped them and I even corresponded with them about their status last week. Somewhere along the way rumors started that we somehow had "shafted" them. Of course, that's untrue and they're actually pretty good about communicating with us. Weird how the net works...
[13:29] Yahn, MangaMan want's to know: Why is the vgui.lib file in a non standard format?
[13:29] zyborg, started in 1980
[13:29] on a trs-80, then I got an atari 800, great game machine...
[13:29] I was born in 1980
[13:29] heh
[13:30] Yahn: If I wanted to make a mod for TF2, would it make sense to do anything now in Half-Life? Coding for example, other than the experience of it, will any be portable?
[13:30] tetraboy, it's just a vc6.0 lib file, so it's "non-standard" in that it's microsoft compiler specific. Does that answer?
[13:30] Yes, thanks :)
[13:31] Yahn: Care to say anything about TF2, will there be real-life weapons or weapons that you´ve made up?
[13:31] hardcharger, I think doing stuff now is a great way to get experience that will translate over. Portable, logic wise yes, but there'll definitely be a fair amount of work to change it over
[13:31] Yahn.:. will the next HL SDK have better documention and comments for functions than the current one has such as "HACK", "HACKHACK", "!!!HACK"?
[13:31] it will have hotdogs
[13:31] preston, not sure on that yet
[13:32] EricS knows about hacks
[13:32] Biggs, yes, especially the APIs. We've moved to a more component/interface based architecture. It should help figuring out the code and dependencies out a ton
[13:32] nevermind..
[13:32] =P
[13:32] (Similar to Biggs q, repeated): Yahn: What do you think about the ideas of public SDK documentation projects, etc. (I'm considering orgainzing something like that for TF2 when it's released, is this a good idea in your opinion, does Valve have plans to document it themselves, or what? :)
[13:32] in mp5.cpp u refer to the gun as an mp3 why ?
[13:32] adrian: ya...yours.
[13:32] mockery, I'm all for them
[13:32] !
[13:32] I neva hack
[13:32] blofeld, probably a freudian slip...
[13:32] A-Bomb (non-voice) Can you ask yahn for me if Team Fortress II will get delayed again after march?
[13:32] Yahn, Will halflife ever be ported to linux? So we could frag crashfree?
[13:32] [Varlock] (non-voice) to Yahn: with VPP will there be any way to access player information just before entering a game? for example, to allow a player to choose a character to play or to restrict access to games based on stats for that character (such as experience level)
[13:33] zyborg, we haven't announced a release date for tf2
[13:33] yahn: why is that FooTable in the client.dll ??
[13:33] prefect, I think that's going to be possible, sure
[13:33] Yahn: just one question: will a virtual machine setup ever be used (similar to quake 3's setup) so that mods don't have to be recompiled for other platforms?
[13:33] *** EricS has left #hl_coding
[13:33] where did Eric go
[13:33] mike, it's local to that one file as a helper, so billy z called it FooTable
[13:33] sigh
[13:34] hehe
[13:34] Adrian maybe he was hungry
[13:34] Yahn: Are you planning to implemate any new features to vgui?
[13:34] let me go ask him
[13:34] Yahn, rd want's to know if fog is possible in halflife?
[13:34] rd: It's been done
[13:34] its been done by NuclearGerbil
[13:34] parsec, if we choose to port ot multiple platforms we may consider that. Personally, I'm not enamored with vm's, too slow and limited and too much dev time to justify the work. Just my opinion
[13:34] www.chaosrealm.com/negzero
[13:34] [Silent[]] Would you mind asking Yahn if he knows if the OpenGL portion of the engine used custom matrixs or did they use GL's glRotate, translate, etc?
[13:34] Yahn: Why isnt fog possible in Half-life, i mean, underwater there is some kind of fog, but why not above water?
[13:35] tetraboy, I don't think you can do fog very well right now. Maybe at some point, that's a good feature request.
[13:35] Yahn, NuclearGeribil has used water to create somewhat reall looking fog
[13:35] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn its possible to cover the entire level in fog, but volumetric is a little trickier.... we have done entirelevel fog, and it was a pain to do
[13:35] prefect, we use glrotate, etc. etc. for the gl renderer, software is all on a different code path
[13:35] Yahn, in future sdk releases will the halflife launcher be more customizable like quake3s ?
[13:36] preston, for doing the water effect, I think we could get that working pretty easily
[13:36] Yahn: Please make it work :)
[13:37] blofeldzor, yes, I want to make the launcher entirely customizable. It'll probably be a vgui based launcher
[13:37] A-Bomb (non-voice) Yahn, how do you feel about the competition you are going to recieve from Tribes 2 and Halo? These games are expected to be some of the greatest to come, and I am personally getting tired of waiting for any of them.
[13:37] speaking of hl launcher, i was having a pain last night working with the shell bitmaps
[13:37] MangaMan want's to know "Will you ever make it possible not to use the vgui.lib file in the client.dll?"
[13:37] yahn would it be possible to have rotating weapon models like in quake 3, in a mod?
[13:37] anyone know if theres an easier way to edit the shell?
[13:37] zyborg, I think there are lots of interesting games coming down the line, it's too early to tell what they'll play like when done. We're just going to stick to our vision and make sure it's fun.
[13:37] Halzman, try #wavelength
[13:38] halzman, I feel your pain...
[13:38] everyone in wavelength is in here =P
[13:38] hang on a sec...
[13:40] Yahn: Will TF2 have more weather effects than HL?
[13:40] Yahn.:. as far as client side weapons go, are you happy with the current system and will the system be improved at all in the future whether it's on HL or TF2?
[13:40] just another second
[13:41] Yahn, are there any intentions to make the menu shell more customisable, for example the addition of background music or more customisable buttons within menus?
[13:42] MoOg, hold that question... I think he's busy for a moment
[13:42] okay, I'm back
[13:42] people have added mp3 support on their own..
[13:42] moog, yes
[13:42] Not to the shell, Mockery
[13:42] Yahn: Will TF2 have more weather effects than HL?
[13:42] At least, not that I know of
[13:42] o, the shell
[13:42] biggs, not totally happy with the client weapons system, it's hard to debug
[13:42] you could technically make your own shell program that calls hl.exe
[13:42] biggs, we'll improve it for tf2
[13:42] Preston: Where there any weather effects in HL? :P
[13:42] good to know ;]
[13:42] ZybOrg.. ummm footsteps?
[13:42] Yahn: do you have any text editor preferences?
[13:43] is that weather? hehe
[13:43] strife, can't do that because of authentication ( could play sp or on a lan I guess )
[13:43] it would be hard
[13:43] zoot, i just use the mvsdev ide
[13:43] msdev
[13:43] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn do you have much to do with the development of Worldcraft?
[13:43] zyborg, not really, you could do some effects with particles
[13:43] shimms, nope
[13:43] well, i meant something that just executes hl.exe with the command line params, not linked to it (i should have been more specific, sorry)
[13:43] Yahn: TF2 is based on Lithtech (according to rumors), and Lithtech supports Linux; so will future Valve games support Linux?
[13:44] prefect, tf2 is _not_ based on lithtech
[13:44] Yahn, Oposing Force was made commercial right? Is there any chance mod makers could take their mod commercial or make one like gearbox did?
[13:44] not saying it's bad, but tf2 isn't using it
[13:44] another_1 (not here todax ):are going to release a new part of the halflife engine: the worldrenderer or if they get problems with law bcuz it is Quake engineish stuff?
[13:44] tetraboy, there's always a chance
[13:44] Valve has the LithTech engine programmer tho, right?
[13:44] Tetraboy: I believe CS did :)
[13:45] Yahn: Since Half life kicked worlds ass, do you feel like you/valve have much live up to with TF2?
[13:45] Yahn, What would one have to show to ho comercial?
[13:45] mike, we have full rights to release any source we want. will we release the world renderer, probably not
[13:45] preston, sure, tf2 needs to be a great game in its own right
[13:45] Yahn, I have a button making program would you like to see it?
[13:46] Yahn: is is possible to have rotating weapons in th half-life engive (like in quake 3)
[13:46] Could Valve help out with "The #Hl_Coding Game" ]-TD-[Vip3r|webdesign j/k
[13:46] mercalli, If it would be useful to the mod makers, you should offer it to them. I don't see us needing to make too many more buttons right now..heh
[13:46] megasaxon, you mean animating weapons or weapons on the floor that rotate?
[13:46] Yahn: (Cheeky question) Any truth in the rumour that a sequel to Half-Life will be announced in the next few months?
[13:47] yahn: yes
[13:47] Caleman (non-voice): Will TF2 handle wheather effects better than HL does ( Im thinking of the Rain sprites that causes big lag) Will TF2 feature this kind of wheather effects(sprites or wwill it be implented in the engine or somethhing?)
[13:47] Yahn: would you like to buy my soul?, the little thats left of it?, Id sacrifice that to learn how to code
[13:47] jake, and that question has to do with coding because? heh
[13:47] preston, I offer 1$
[13:47] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn/Anyone who knows: Which part of the code is called staight after the textures have finished loading during map load? or is that part of the engine?
[13:47] cos you've gotta code a sequel >:)
[13:47] calemen, yes, and the effects code will all be in the client .dll
[13:47] Yahn: You own me
[13:47] damn
[13:48] ...I thought slavery was illegal...
[13:48] shimm it's part of the engine
[13:48] Yahn: What's the biggest leap from HL to TF2 ? and the hardest one ?
[13:49] Yahn: I can Make my own models and skins, maps, sounds, sprites.. I Wanna learn how to code, got a tip for me how to start?
[13:49] Yahn: A few months ago I started work on a VGUI generator. It generates code currently for simple things like buttons, labels and images with _some_ support for custom objects. Currently, it also has a preview window and a graphical size/positioning tool. Can we expect any large changes in the VGUI code over any new patches?
[13:49] Yahn isn't the only programmer here. but the best... =]
[13:49] zyborg, not sure if I know the answer to that yet. Whatever we perceive it to be though, we'll write up some docs on that to make it easier to port stuff
[13:49] bigguy, probably not large changes
[13:50] ok, cool
[13:50] Yahn: Will there be any changes to the netcode for TF2; for example, will client side prediction still be as dominant as it is now in Half-Life?
[13:50] Yahn: wouldn't it be cool if TF2 used the persistance API?
[13:50] hardcharger: it's not finalized, but I think prediction was a huge success for most players ( not to mention that we made it very tweakable, so even the hardcore folks could tweak or disable it )
[13:51] parsec, that would be cool :)
[13:51] Is it gonna happen? :)
[13:51] or are you at least considering it?
[13:51] Yahn, MangaMan(non-voice) wants to know : "How much of the engine source will be put in the client.dll in TF2?"
[13:52] I heard a rumor that if you don't reset the rendering flags for the Tri API, the world renderer will take on those flags... ie so you could make the world transparent... Does this reallly work? I've been unsuccessful so far
[13:52] tetraboy, the stuff moving into the client .dll is the stuff that isn't already there but would be useful to mod authors
[13:53] cover is blown
[13:53] nuclear, maybe, but why do you want to hose the world renderer by writing buggy code? heh
[13:53] Yahn: will Valve be releasing utilities that help developers 'simplify' the task of making a mod
[13:53] halzman, can you be more specific?
[13:53] Commander (non-voice): how much polys can TF 2 use?
[13:53] YoYo: What do you think about mods that is based on other a commersial game?
[13:54] like utilities the make it easier to make crosshairs, edit the hud i guess, stuff like that
[13:54] zyborg, we haven't announced the poly budgets yet...
[13:54] preston, I'd rather see an original mod rather than a gameplay copy of an existing game
[13:54] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn: how hard (in system resources in gameplay) would it be to make a sprite apear around any brush based entity? and can the game determine between point and brush based entities?
[13:54] halzman, those utilities could be useful
[13:55] because now adays it looks like, you have to be good in one area, and you need another person todo the other areas. And then you have articles that say huge mod teams are bad, which is true in my opinion
[13:55] shimms, what do you mean "around", what effect are you trying to make?
[13:56] <[TAE]Shimms> a visual identifier of entites.. like bounding corners around a brush based entity.
[13:56] kind of like System Shock 2 or Deus Ex, shimms?
[13:56] to Yahn: i am working on a game from scratch and i am basing some of the ideas in code off of HL. i have had lots of trouble trying to make something similar to a Think function. basically, the function pointer i am using chokes on functions belonging to a class. any ideas on thinking?
[13:56] Is there any way you could code a security camera that shows what it sees on a tv in game?
[13:56] <[TAE]Shimms> Like DuesEx, Elit Force etc etc cant say about SystemShock, never played it
[13:57] halzman, huge teams are not necessarily bad, but it requires more discipline than smaller times. Not too mention that if you are geographically separated like most mod teams, it's really really hard to collaborate
[13:57] tetraboy, not really in hl1
[13:57] Yahn: Did you ever play X-Com: UFO Enemy Unknown?, If you did, did you like it?
[13:57] Yahn: is there anyway I can set a touch on the players current P_model, so that you can see exactly when the p_model comes in contact with another player?
[13:57] shimms, I don't think doing that will spites would be too costly
[13:57] Yahn that's the way my team is, we have so many people on our team but no work gets done cause we all have different time zones
[13:57] it becomes hard to communicate about work,etc
[13:58] preston, sadly, I never played more of x-com than the original demo. It looked like a great game, but I missed out on it...
[13:58] Yahn: too bad
[13:58] Yahn: exactly, i have experience, way back last year I started Matrix Arean, and it fell apart to due lack of communication and the team was huge. As of now, I'm working on my Gundam mod, and its me and someone else. But its hard for me todo my modeling, and trying to learn coding, and having to set up sounds, test things, do the hud, shell, vgui, its just impossible
[13:58] <[TAE]Shimms> some day, some one, has to teach me how to get barney to do certain things if he touches an certain entity.
[13:59] kukyona, that'd be tough to do right now
[13:59] can you ask what is done right now [of the SDK 2.2 and the TF2 SDK] so we can figure a little how long we have to wait?
[13:59] halzman, we've written a few documents on "how to ship your mod" which focused not on coding but on the process of finishing the mod itself ( when to stop adding features, how to playtest, etc. )
[14:00] <[TAE]Shimms> Yahn: where are those docs available from?
[14:00] you've written already or they'll be released next sdk
[14:00] shimms, I don't know the url, but email erik and he'll send them to you
[14:00] those are written already
[14:00] <[TAE]Shimms> fantastic thanks
[14:00] yeah, I read the docs
[14:01] Yahn: have they been released? All I see in the sdk is the modeling tutorial, how to make a mod, and scatted documentation on things
[14:01] okay, maybe 5 - 10 more minutes
[14:02] halzman, yes, but I don't think the "ship your mod" doc has gone intot he sdk yet. It's something Robin wrote and sent out a couple of months ago. Some of the fan sites had it.
[14:02] Hey Yahn, do you want to join our mod team?
[14:02] <[TAE]Shimms> yeah, Yahn can you code for our mod? :) j/k
[14:02] will we ever get more documentation on triangle api ?
[14:02] yoyo, I wish I had time to work on mods...heh
[14:02] [Teaturn] to Yahn: "How many monsters can I put into a multiplayer game without exceeding engine limits?"
[14:02] Yahn: Can you get a modeller for my mod
[14:02] Yahn: would it be alot of trouble if you sent me the documents?
[14:02] Yahn, "is there any way to record whats seen by a camera entity to a file of bitmaps?"
[14:03] (non-voice iC3): "...is TF2 using HAVOK or not?" (And how will this affect coding/source releases/etc?)
[14:03] prefect, the engine allows for something like 800 entities on the server. I wouldn't even try to come close to that though...heh
[14:03] Yahn: will there be a map size limit (bounding box in WC) in TF2? And how big will it be
[14:03] thats a lot of entities
[14:03] question from hojo: will there be a map size limit (bounding box in WC) in TF2? And how big will it be?
[14:03] mockery, maybe
[14:03] please ask Yahn: "will Ricochet ever be made public, like in the next patch or what?"
[14:03] Question from MangaMan: "Does the triangle api work without initializing the vgui?"
[14:03] not sure of what the map dimensions for tf2 will be. they'll be bigger than hl1 for sure
[14:04] Hi.. Ok got a question.... What's new between SDK2.1 and SDK2.2 ? Will there be a lot of new code functionnality ?
[14:04] ejucatid, yes, ricochet will go into an update at some point
[14:04] Yahn: would it be alot of trouble if you sent me the documents?
[14:04] xas, mostly bug fixes and the multiple and chrome remap stuff
[14:04] yahn: how to make special ents invisible to players that aren´t in the same team as the one who"build" it ?
[14:04] halzman, email erik.
[14:05] yahn: wll sprites be implementeted into tf2 like in mods such as Counter-Strike where they have smoke puffs on the walls?
[14:05] mike, in client .cpp in addtofullpack, for the specific entity that's visible to some players but not to others, return yes or no to the addtofull pack logic.
[14:05] Yahn: You know a good place to read about 3d programming?
[14:05] Yahn.:. will we ever get more documentation on triangle api ?
[14:06] Question from RatKing(non-voice) : "will the TF2 engine have proper curves in it, i.e Quake 3????"
[14:06] megasaxon, sprites will be going away and replaced with something easier to use ( more like a raw texture )
[14:06] Yahn: You keep refering to hl as "hl1". are you currently developing halflife2, then?
[14:06] blofeldzor, probably not, though we are thinking about adding alpha mode to the tri api )
[14:07] tetraboy, "proper" curves, that make no sense. At some point curves become polygons. We'll have polygons... Curves may be useful in an editing tool, but we haven't found them to be that useful in the engine directly.
[14:07] <{JC}Fredwin> hey, could you ask Yahn if valve is planning to do any future coding in CS?
[14:07] preston, no, we just talk about it that way since we have tf, tfc and tf2, etc. etc.
[14:07] Yahn i see
[14:08] fredwin, minh gets to decide what happens with cs
[14:08] Yahn.:. will we ever get more documentation on triangle api ?
[14:08] adrian, yes, we're not that interested in bezier patche, nurbs, or other reps for curves.
[14:08] Question from MangaMan: "Does the triangle api work without initializing the vgui?"
[14:08] blofeldz, what needs documenting?
[14:08] Is there any way you could code a security camera that shows what it sees on a tv in game?
[14:08] tetraboy, it should
[14:08] Yahn: It feels that CS has gotten too much attetion from Valve and us with other mods keep gettin slapped down by it, is this correct according to you?
[14:09] preston, that's not correct. We don't do very much with CS, we actually are more active in helping other mods
[14:09] Is there a way to make a camera that will set off an alarm a la NOLF or MGS?
[14:09] Yahn, ok
[14:09] thylacine, sure
[14:10] Have a trace be run from the camera origin
[14:10] Yahn: this is an old topic since last time I spoke with you, any luck with the isp's for poweraply?
[14:10] and if it hits a player, have it go off
[14:10] halzman, not yet
[14:10] |
