BM and HL2 mods compatibility

[xarx]

There are lots of HL2 mods, or games that are built on top of HL2. E.g. Dear Esther, Nightmare Night 2 etc. These games require HL2 to be installed.

I don’t have HL2. Can these mods be played in BM instead? If yes, how to do it?

Thanks,
Martin.

[Chickenprotector]

Most of those mods do not require Half-Life 2 to be installed. You need the Source SDK(s) (located under tools in the games library) installed to play mods.

The only mod I know of that requires Half-Life 2, etc. installed is Half-Life 2: Wars.

[Maxey]

Some older mods may require HL2 itself installed but most recent or updated mods, only require the free Source SDK Base installed.

Besides, you could always buy Orange Box retail for cheap, if you can’t buy it online or something.

[xarx]

Thank you. I have been half-successful. One of HL2 mods I’ve installed works fine, maps of the other look partially corrupted. But in principle, HL2 mods can be run on BM if copied to the steamapps directory.

But what about HL1 mods? I’ve installed Paranoia, the same way as the HL2 mods, but Steam does not show the game among the installed games.
(https://www.moddb.com/mods/paranoia) Do HL1 mods work with Steam as well?

[Serza]

HL1 is a completely different engine from HL2 (I’m assuming you’re not talking HL:S though), the GoldSrc, which essentially is a modified Quake. Valve later made their own engine (Yay, Source!) and remade HL1 for it (hence the name, Half-Life: Source).

Also, last time I checked, Half-Life (and OpFor) lack their Steam directories, so you have to workaround through Blue Shift, which does have one.

[Chickenprotector]

@xarx

Thank you. I have been half-successful. One of HL2 mods I’ve installed works fine, maps of the other look partially corrupted. But in principle, HL2 mods can be run on BM if copied to the steamapps directory.

They need to be re-compiled in Hammer. I tried importing Counter-Strike: Source maps, they’re missing entities, etc. Basically, the map needs to be rebuilt from scratch on Hammer, so unless you have Level Design skills… don’t bother.

But what about HL1 mods? I’ve installed Paranoia, the same way as the HL2 mods, but Steam does not show the game among the installed games.
(https://www.moddb.com/mods/paranoia) Do HL1 mods work with Steam as well?

Half-Life 1 mods, you do in fact need Half-Life installed. No way around that. But yes, technically they do work inside of Steam.

@Serza They actually built Source off of GoldSRC…

Source distantly originates from the GoldSrc engine, itself a heavily modified version of John D. Carmack’s Quake engine, as is explained by Valve employee Erik Johnson on the Valve Developer Community:[45]
“ When we were getting very close to releasing Half-Life (less than a week or so), we found there were already some projects that we needed to start working on, but we couldn’t risk checking in code to the shipping version of the game. At that point we forked off the code in VSS to be both /$Goldsrc and /$Src. Over the next few years, we used these terms internally as “Goldsource” and “Source”. At least initially, the Goldsrc branch of code referred to the codebase that was currently released, and Src referred to the next set of more risky technology that we were working on. When it came down to show Half-Life 2 for the first time at E3, it was part of our internal communication to refer to the “Source” engine vs. the “Goldsource” engine, and the name stuck. ”

Source was developed part-by-part from this fork onwards, slowly replacing GoldSrc in Valve’s internal projects[46] and explaining in part the reasons behind its unusually modular nature. Valve’s development of Source since has been a mixture of licensed middleware (Havok Physics, albeit heavily modified, and MP3 playback) and in-house-developed code.

John Carmack commented on his blog in 2004 that “there are still bits of early Quake code in Half-Life 2”.[47]

[Maxey]

The current version of Source is probably even more different than the HL2 launch build, so I guess it has even less legacy code these days.

[Serza]

Scratch “completely”, keep the rest.

I believe that the GoldSource is way too different from Source 2007 (to which all the Orange Box games have been updated as far as I know) anyway for anything to work

Not to mention the later versions of Source (Is 2011 still the latest?)

[Cpl.1nsane]

There are rather a lot of source engine versions these days, 2006 (not really used anymore) > 2007 (Black Mesa + other mods) > 2009 (Half-life 2, TF2, Portal etc) > L4D1 > L4D2 > Portal 2 / CS:GO / DOTA2

Though with the last grouping of games I think there are just slight variations in the code rather than the engine since there are similarities between engine features that they share (IE global dynamic lighting).

[Dotard]

@Cpl.1nsane

There are rather a lot of source engine versions these days, 2006 (not really used anymore) > 2007 (Black Mesa + other mods) > 2009 (Half-life 2, TF2, Portal etc) > L4D1 > L4D2 > Portal 2 / CS:GO / DOTA2

Though with the last grouping of games I think there are just slight variations in the code rather than the engine since there are similarities between engine features that they share (IE global dynamic lighting).

“Source 2009” BM, y u no like Mac and multicore rendering?
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Category:Engine_branches this isn’t complete, but there’s some info on each.
Dota 2 should be running on the very latest Source Engine
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dota_2

[xarx]

Originally Posted by Chickenprotector

Originally Posted by xarx
Thank you. I have been half-successful. One of HL2 mods I’ve installed works fine, maps of the other look partially corrupted. But in principle, HL2 mods can be run on BM if copied to the steamapps directory.

They need to be re-compiled in Hammer. I tried importing Counter-Strike: Source maps, they’re missing entities, etc. Basically, the map needs to be rebuilt from scratch on Hammer, so unless you have Level Design skills… don’t bother.

Does the map re-compilation mean just that you load the map into Hammer, compile it and save it, or do you have to perform other modifications by hand? I.e. is it a quick operation, or does it require a lot of work?

Originally Posted by Serza
Also, last time I checked, Half-Life (and OpFor) lack their Steam directories, so you have to workaround through Blue Shift, which does have one.

What is Blue Shift? I found only a HL expansion pack of that name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life:_Blue_Shift), so I don’t understand what does it to do with Steam.

Is HalfLife:Source just a mod for Source? But I suppose, deducing from what you’ve written, that even if it was a Source mod, it wouldn’t help me running HL1 mods.

BTW, when I was installing Paranoia (a HL1 mod, paranoia_v1.2_setup.exe), it offered me this installation directory:
C:\Program files\Valve\Steam\Steamapps\user@server.com\Half-Life, so it has some knowledge of Steam. But Steam does not see it.

[Dotard]

Dude, you can’t play mods without having HL1 bought and installed on Steam

[Chickenprotector]

@xarx

Does the map re-compilation mean just that you load the map into Hammer, compile it and save it, or do you have to perform other modifications by hand? I.e. is it a quick operation, or does it require a lot of work?

Far from it. You need to decompile the maps (.bsps) then you need to correct all the area portals, I/O setups, and everything else in between. It’s not a quick operation. As I said, if you don’t have the knowledge, it’s not worth it.

What is Blue Shift? I found only a HL expansion pack of that name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life:_Blue_Shift), so I don’t understand what does it to do with Steam.

Is HalfLife:Source just a mod for Source? But I suppose, deducing from what you’ve written, that even if it was a Source mod, it wouldn’t help me running HL1 mods.

BTW, when I was installing Paranoia (a HL1 mod, paranoia_v1.2_setup.exe), it offered me this installation directory:
C:\Program files\Valve\Steam\Steamapps\user@server.com\Half-Life, so it has some knowledge of Steam. But Steam does not see it.

Blue Shift is an expansion, no you can’t use it to run mods. You require Half-Life 1, not the source version to run Half-Life 1 mods like Paranoia, Sven Co-op, etc. You also need to run Half-Life 1 at least once (connecting to a game, be it single player or otherwise) for it to create a directory.

[Maxey]

Buy HL1 anthology and Orange Box for PC and you’ll be set.

[Serza]

Be warned, Anthology doesn’t contain HL: Source, only GoldSrc version.

[Maxey]

Who the fuck cares about HL: Source?

[Serza]

Well, I don’t. Someone might.