Surface Tension Uncut - Re-Adding Cut Areas/Scenes (Expansion Project)

General Development Source 1
#1361

Go on son.

I do have to ask one thing though.
No offense, but where the heck did you get an idea that an plastic explosive blast in a metal pipe would instantly produce so much black smoke? It is a minor complaint obvsly, as much as it is a late one, but could you make the initial flames coming at you a tad more bright/ Right now, it looks like the dust being dumped onto you instead of actual flames coming at you.

Above all though, that cascade of satchel explosions do not look very well there in the pipe? Is it actually possible to use the orange black mesa flames? They look a lot better for this.

#1362

I’m sorry, I haven’t read all the replies, but has anyone mentioned how funky the jet taking off right after the ambush looks? It just looks so unnatural.

#1363

Lol’d. Welcome back ODB.

#1364

Pretty much set for release sometime this evening. C2A5I changed went nicely and my edits to other maps have gone well. Only 2 serious issues left on the agenda:

-Fixing that damn regular crash in the parking lot - NO IDEA what’s causing it.
-Fixing the aerial vehicles disappearing on C2A5G. Difficult to solve.

EDIT: I’m also going to test this next release using staticproppoly (vertex) lighting instead of origin lighting. The end result should be lighting looking a lot better but compile times being a lot longer (from 5 minutes per map to half an hour per map). So I need to get everything else perfect first.

#1365

That’s a good news!
Looking forward to see the new build (is 0.82b the name ?)

It’s an AI issue I guess.
It seems that when they spot you while they’re fighting each other, something goes wrong(I had this crash when a vort saw me).

You can you change their path or add a convenient big building that hides their pop-out.

#1366

Is the bug in Forget about Freeman fixed? It has no bugs when I put my backup map on the maps folder.

#1367

You can blame me for that… I did the best I could with what was available to use with already existing particles… There was a particle effect created for the scene which looked rubbish and I did intend on using the garg flames but they looked awful and also the rocket taking off particle effects also looked awful so it ended up being a combination of 6 different particle effects the most prominent being the helicopter crash particles and a bomb explosion particle…

It took quite a lot of test runs to even get it looking reasonably good like 40 - 50 times and adding extra particle effects at the mouth of the pipe also…

Which reminds me is there any chance of removing the env_bubbles in the water and using the particle effects from unforseen consequences elevator crashing into the water for the splash down from the maintenance hatch?

#1368

I edited the particle in the particle editor to remove the smoke and it does, admittedly look a lot better. I then saved it as (not replacing) satchel_pipe_fire. This means it does not replace any effects that are in Black Mesa, but DOES require you to replace the default env_fire.pcf particle system with my own version.

Think of it as a zip file. PCF files CONTAIN many individual particle effects. I haven’t actually edited any of the particle effects inside the PCF, but I HAVE added my own to the PCF, meaning you have to replace the PCF. If that makes it clear.

I’ve fixed the bug in Forget About Freeman.

#1369

You mean to tell me plastic explosion dont release black smoke? and that the flames and air presure they produce when explding dont travel at the speed of a small dog’s walk?? NO WAY DUDE :stuck_out_tongue:

#1370

This…either that or some kind of physics issue. I had at least 6 fucking crashes in the area. It usually happens when either 1) the aliens spawn or 2) I start lobbing grenades into the battle.

Other bugs:

  1. On a full playthrough of ST, the blue pad the player uses to get from G to H disappeared and was replaced w/a faint bluish glow that was still useable.
  2. Tripmines often disappear in the gasworks. Some folks have also complained about this before.
#1371

Good to know nitro.

Thing is though, you would normally see smoke at the very tip of the fireball where it’s at its coolest temperature. And IIRC my physics classes, the pressure in the pipe would mean that the flame would burn a bit hotter than normal.

Did you try using the black mesa signature orange flames?

#1372

Those orange flames are ugly as hell…almost neon colored. Think the satchel looks fine. Most explosions don’t generate lots of fire…it’s kind of a misconception. Explosive weapons usually kill by shrapnel.

#1373

Orly, cheers Sherlock, very nice to know.
Just so you know, it’s fragments, not shrapnel.

There are two problems with this though. Actually three.
-99% there’s supposed to be a shaped charge with no frags inside the satchel.
-Dramatic effect from tiny metallic frags flying at you - fuck all.
-Why do hollywood explosions look the way they do? Fuel deflagration.
Do we have leaking fuel in the pipe? Yes.
Now draw the lines.

P.S. Btw, nowadays high pressure explosions (see vacuum bombs) work much better for killing manpower than most frag based explosives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_DxwZsjmf4

#1374

Petty side arguments aside, I think I may have determined the problem for the consistent car park crashing, using a combination of -condebug and developer “2”. The 2 very last lines of console which get printed before the crash happens is as follows:

Bounce1_prop referencing the jumppad in the garage. I think it may have something to do with hivehand projectiles reacting badly with the jumppad. I’ll have to run some tests but I think I’m onto it. It’s possible that there’s a bug in Black Mesa’s code which makes the Agrunt’s hivehand not play well with the bouncepads, and it may explain why this crash doesn’t really happen anywhere else - no other areas on my maps involve fighting by a pushpad. If this does prove to be the problem I have 2 options:

  1. Remove the pushpad
  2. Make it so that hivehand projectiles collide with invisible walls surrounding the pushpad. Which could look really, really stupid.

I’ll keep you informed.

EDIT 2: The crash is caused by ANY physically simulated projectiles colliding with the pushpad. I’ve reproduced it and though crash every time, there’s a high chance (say 10%ish) of it crashing when you do it - that is, every time you hit it with a physically simulated projectile. This is extremely problematic. Not just for this scene, but for all the jump pads.

EDIT 3: This only seems to happen on my map. I’ve loaded up C3A1A, the first map of Forget About Freeman where the devs placed the pushpads and I can’t reproduce the crash. I now need to try and figure out why my pushpads are different to theirs, as they use the EXACT same entity.

EDIT 4: I don’t quite now how, but my pushpads, compared to the ones on Forget About Freeman, have the unused and also (disallowed by smartedit) angles keyvalue as part of their properties. I always assumed this was how pushpads were supposed to be as all a pushpad is is the env_xen_pushpad entity with an info_target set as the place where it launches you to, and all I did was place an env_xen_pushpad entity directly from the editor. However when looking at the dev placed pushpads on C3A1A they have no angles keyvalue. I don’t know how my ones got this illegal keyvalue, it’s impossible even for the most moronic fool to do that sort of thing by accident! For those of you who don’t know the editor jargon - suffice to say, it’s a really weird bug, and definitely, DEFINITELY not my fault! I’ve manually removed the keyvalues and I’m hopping on to test it now and see if that fixes it.

#1375

Option 2 is a no-go :slight_smile:

#1376

And you thought all this time what I was saying was a placebo effect…I don’t think you need to delete the pad. I think the bug was introduced after you reprogrammed the pads. It wasn’t there in the first release.

#1377

That’s a little unfair, I said the performance and potentially the crashing was a placebo effect. The performance definitely was, like I said the changes I made couldn’t have done anything except IMPROVE performance. I did then later admit that the crashing was happening to me too, and that I’d try and fix it. “I told you so” is hardly helpful here, especially when I’m this frustrated. And though the bug is with the pushpads, they had the angles keyvalue long before I reprogrammed them. In fact, reprogramming is a strong word, seeing as all I did was move the info_target entity, which couldn’t possibly have caused the bug.

Edit: Fuck’s sake. Deleting the keyvalue didn’t fix it.

And Elivance, I don’t know. All I know is I fired hundreds of hivehand shots without a crash on C3A1A, and repeating the same process on my map nearly always crashes it by the 10th shot or so, it not sooner.

#1378

Just a thing:
is there a difference between player hivehand and alien hivehand?

Because the hivehands projectiles I shot ,bounced off without any issue on the xenian jump pad, it was really funny to see them bounce off.

So…I guess no release for today…huh!?

By the way in moddb page of Black mesa: UplinkHezus has described your works as “very impressive”.

Edit: did you try to test the hivehand on the xenian jumpads of your c2a5i?
1- equip the hivehand and shoot at them
2- spawn an Agrunt and place gordon behind one of them.

Because these jumppads were created by devs…let see if is something related with the geometry of that part of c2a5g.
Actually I had a crash at the 2nd scripted scene in c2a5g, this part that is creating you lots of problems worked nice for me.

I’m sure that the first jump pad worked nice in the first public build.

are this crashes related to the fact that you rigged that jump pad, in order to make the player leap on the higher floor properly?

#1379

Damn those jump pads. I really liked having the one in the garage after you fixed it so it controls where you land. Maybe you could just keep one on a level with no fighting like level two of the garage? Also wasn’t there a jump pad in forget about freeman and grunts in the same room?

#1380

Decent suggestion, I ran the same test (shooting the hivehand at the pad) on C2A5H and C2A5I and it didn’t EVER crash once on any of the 3 jump pads. It also didn’t crash on the ones on Forget About Freeman.

Therefore I think it is safe enough to deduce it is something to do with the surrounding geometry of C2A5G which causes the crash. I’m working on it, trying to narrow it down.

I’ve already rebuilt the jumppad from scratch and the crashing still occurs. So it must be something to do with the way bouncy projectiles interact with…something in the environment that causes the crash. I don’t think it’s NPCs/AI as I tested it with AI disabled, it still crashed. I tested it with AI disabled and all NPCs in the area killed, it still crashed. It can’t be displacements/world geometry/models either as they are all present on the functional jumppads. So that narrows it down a bit.

Gotta keep trying. This and a small problem on C2A5I are the last 2 obstacles keeping me from releasing.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.