One problem I see in all of the Pre-Disaster maps that if you throw something at someone, they get damaged from it to the point that if you repeat this process, you can kill them. I did that with a few security guards and I acquired a Glock. It doesn’t happen when you play the Anomalous Materials chapter, believe me I tried.
I have been completely unable to duplicate this.
How, exactly, are you carrying it out?
You mean the Glock?
I don’t know why, but the inaccessible black area at the end of the map is really funny to me. It’s like the world is coming apart. It’s also funny if you start at the black part and walk to the actual map, makes me feel like I’m entering from the Twilight Zone.
Haha, just a temporary measure until the next map is released.
How long do you estimate that to be?
Maybe a week, or slightly longer as I have a theatre production on that week.
Wahoo! Activity!
Map D is small, so there really isn’t a whole lot for me to say about it. However:
I thought giving the security guard a pizza to get into the office was a cool idea- actually, having quests to get into restricted areas is something I’m thinking of implementing myself. However, there’s two things that would make this better- one is to have the guard do some kind of button-pressing animation to unlock the door, and the other is having it stay unlocked once you leave the first time (since the guard now “owes you one”). Mute NPCs in the control room, I think in a few other areas as well.
Making the elevator two-way was very nice of you, but it’s still really slow. I think you can just turn the speed up a fair bit, but if it starts jiggling the physics props you’ll need to add additional path_tracks to make the acceleration gradual. (This is kind of complicated and took me a while to figure out how to do, so if you get stuck don’t hesitate to PM me).
I preface this by saying that I haven’t got my monitor working exactly right and so the problem might just be me, but it also seems like the map is extremely yellow. Does anyone else see this? If it turns out to be a universal thing, I’d suggest increasing the intensity and decreasing the saturation of many of the lights.
It’s possible to get onto this balcony, but it’s kind of strange, and getting back off requires the old trick of jumping onto that crate. Possibly give the elevator another official “stop” here? Now that this pit has been drained, my first thought was actually to attempt to climb down into it. Maybe, instead of the loading trigger, put some invisible useable_ladders discretely around the pipes so that players can climb out using them- from inside, it actually looks like you should be able to grab onto the ledge on top, it’s just that the player can’t get their feet all the way over it.
Thanks for those few bits of feedback. I don’t know why, but I never bothered to roll back to CU2 and upload c1a1d until now. I guess it was just me wanting to be on CU3 because of all the new features, but since I’m not actually playing BM normally (just mapping), it’s fine rolling back. (Devs, would be really great for you to fix the bm_publish tool not working!)
For anyone who isn’t as snappy as Sakai here, [/size]
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Sector B, Part 2[/size] has been released!
[/size]SECTOR B, PART 2: STEAM WORKSHOP
[/size]
[/size]Along with plenty of fixes for Part 1.[/size][/size]
Sector B, Part 3: RELEASED
[/size]
Also various minor fixes for Parts 1 and 2.[/size]
[/size]
SECTOR B, PART 3: STEAM WORKSHOP[/size]
Edit: Admiral Sakai, the lift at the end of this map will link to your Office Complex PD’s first map once it is released. I think I’m going to return to the first map (c1a1c) and begin expanding that top floor of the Anomalous Materials-ish area.
Now that Part 3 is released, I’m going back to the first map and adding the area beyond the glass doors at the very start of the map. Since the lobby on the bottom floor has a lift, I’m connecting that to the area I’m building on the top floor, as a science personnel lift. After all, they wouldn’t use the maintenance lift found in the already-existing part of the map. Also, a small kitchen area like the one found in Sector C, and a H.E.V. room too. Very similar in style to Sector C, as they both seem to have the same design and construction, in the same time period as eachother. I’ll show some pics later.
Hey guys, I’m back. And I’ve messed up big time.
Let’s just say that the current versions of the Pre-Disaster Sector B maps on the workshop are the definitive and last versions of these maps. I’ve lost the source files.
I was wanting to get back into some Hammer today as I got inspired to work on these again and add more areas etc (there is a new WIP area that I made last year in the .bsp for c1a1c that I still have). However, I noticed the source files were missing.
I upgraded my computer at the very end of last year - new SSD for Windows and everything. Moved everything I wanted out of the old HDD, except my .vmf files for these maps was regretfully on the old HDD’s windows desktop. I didn’t copy stuff out of there since it was just shortcuts to apps, forgetting that the .vmfs were there. That would’ve been fine and I could have gone to get the files right now if it weren’t for the fact that I formatted the old HDD. So the files are gone.
I’m pretty pissed off at myself and what’s especially tantalizing is that I can play the most recent WIP version of the map right now, as the compiled .bsps of my maps are still in the Black Mesa folder. So, I’ve got the most recent version of the map (with some things fixed from the current workshop release and new areas WIP), but I don’t have the means to continue on it due to the loss of the .vmfs.
Lesson learned. I guess I should pick a new chapter to do a pre-disaster version of, because I feel like mapping some more.
TL 
R - The .vmf files for these Pre-Disaster maps are gone, so I can no longer work on these and the Workshop version as it stands is the final version of these maps.
Decompiled the .bsps, all sorted. Work is continuing on BMPD!
Actually, we’re at the point now technologically where decompilers are working pretty well with Black Mesa’s engine. If you don’t mind losing some optimization, visgroups, and lighting origins you can probably get the source files back from your BSPs:
Wow, thanks for the link - always have had bad experiences with decompilers in the past so I thought decompiling would be a waste of time. However, bar a few odd things like areaportals messing up sometimes, everything is good!
I guess it didn’t end up too bad, really. Cancel my last post, the project’s back on and I’m working on an update on the workshop!
Well that was a quick disaster with excellent resolve. Was about to suggest various HDD related things but… all’s well that ends well.
So, we have now officially restored Pre-Disaster Black Mesa from a disaster.
Sounds about right.
Hey, remember this?
WORKSHOP UPDATE[/size]
That’s right, thought it was about time for an update… didn’t actually realise it has been 2 years since the last Workshop update, simply because I’ve had most of the map on an updated version on my computer for half of that time, sitting there, waiting to be finished and uploaded…
So here it is.
All maps no longer crash on startup.
The first map now has a new area, beyond the “airlock” doors on the top floor. This area extends the labs and its main purpose is to provide personnel access to the bottom floor, rather than having to use the maintenance elevator. A locker room and HEV area is also added. Take a look around! Many, many other improvements too.
The second map has a number of improvements. The big elevator can now be controlled by the player, so you don’t have to wait for it to go allll the way down before going back up again. This also means you can stop properly at the platform not on ground level. I think I’ll make the speed faster though…
The last map, I don’t remember what I’ve done to it, but I’m certain it has improvements since 2 years ago too. Check it all out![/size][/size]
Looks nice, but I noticed a few bugs running around.
-There’s some wonky, defiantly-not-intentional geometry in the crane-parkour room
-Invisible barrier in the doorway for the control room at the bottom floor of the headcrab elevator
Also, for whatever reason I was kind-of hoping the level transitions would be set up for Office Complex and Anomalous Materials. I wasn’t expecting them to actually work, but instead just crash in the failed attempt to try to find the map.
He can’t connect to Anomalous Materials because that map hasn’t been released; also the elevator transition to Office Complex is kind of complex and may take some time to implement.
Thanks for letting me know about those things, they’ll be fixed in a future patch.
And yeah, just like Sakai said, transitions aren’t being added right now but it’s definitely something I’d like to implement in the future. It’s something that Sakai and myself would have to implement in each of our maps, and requires some coordination there because of how it works.