Automated brushes

Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
mainly cos it interested me and sounded like a fun challenge to do. i'm not trying to compete with you
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
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I wanted to do something that hadn't been done. Now it has you've pretty much removed my motivation for the project AND my end goal.
 

Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
aww, don't feel that way :(


you can still produce the random buildings idea...
 

Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
aa
Jun 9, 2009
2,364
2,728
Quickly ezekel, throw your hard drive into a fire so YM has a purpose again!
 

Boylee

pew pew pew
aa
Apr 29, 2008
1,068
709
I wanted to do something that hadn't been done. Now it has you've pretty much removed my motivation for the project AND my end goal.

It's quite possible that someone had already done it and you just didn't know about it. Interestingly this wouldn't have influenced your motivation no matter how true it is and hence, from a purely logical perspective, your change of heart is a little irrational.

Besides, whether or not something has been done before is not really a good thing to define a creative endeavour by, as there's pretty much nothing new under the sun. A better goal would be to teach yourself something new, or to implement something in a superior way to someone else's method.

Either way I'm still interested to see the results of this (I hate building stairs) and a choice of two tools is better than one. Worst comes to the worst you could always amalgamate them once you're both finished as you're both bound to have done something better than the other.
 

Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37594515/stairmaker_v0.zip


here you go.

not very user friendly at this time.
also i got busy so didn't add the playclipping yet and it's still a lil unfriendly to use

the output vmf will be created in the same folder as the executable.

oh also, don't use silly values like letters instead of numbers. i've not made it fully type-safe yet.
 

Nakedape

L1: Registered
Mar 29, 2009
24
6
YM, you could work on making complex brushes better...I don't know if you're still working on this or not at this point, but...

Nakedape: Hammer make me a sphere that doesn't suck please.
Hammer: FU!!!!
Nakedape: How about a cyindar?
Hammer: Only on the wrong axis.
etc etc...

Some more inspiration:
  • Rounding corners
  • Finding the rooms center and/or placing optimal lighting
  • Giving statics of brush lengths for blocking out maps and keeping to best practices
There are tons of others I just don't have the time now.
GLH5
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
After today's lifeshaking events, this is off my agenda.

I may or may not revisit again later in the semester, we have to do a programming project so I might use this.

If anyone wants my totally shoddy source code, they can download it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2126504/keeps/brushes.cpp (It's in my keeps folder so it shouldn't ever disappear)
 
Oct 6, 2008
1,947
445
I would love to see a payload generator tool. The way it works is this:

1. Layout your map / payload route (train tracks - just the main route don't add in extra routes till afterwards)
2. Indicate where you want the cap points to be
3. Press start
4. The program puts in the payload and all the pathtrack nodes at the correct height from start to finish and then setup the game logic for you so you can start testing right away!
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I would love to see a payload generator tool. The way it works is this:

1. Layout your map / payload route (train tracks - just the main route don't add in extra routes till afterwards)
2. Indicate where you want the cap points to be
3. Press start
4. The program puts in the payload and all the pathtrack nodes at the correct height from start to finish and then setup the game logic for you so you can start testing right away!

This sounds borderline impossible but very handy. I know I have to copypaste nodes from other maps and then rename them whenever I want reliable curves. I don't trust my own ability to place them so the cart's movement still looks natural.
 

Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
I would love to see a payload generator tool. The way it works is this:

1. Layout your map / payload route (train tracks - just the main route don't add in extra routes till afterwards)
2. Indicate where you want the cap points to be
3. Press start
4. The program puts in the payload and all the pathtrack nodes at the correct height from start to finish and then setup the game logic for you so you can start testing right away!

this would be very easy to do in theory.
you'd basically have the program read in the vmf, identify the models used and their location/orientation. then it'd use pre-defined templates as to where to put the path_track nodes to give smooth corner turns, etc. whilst linking them up as it goes

the only difficulty i can see is that almost every payload track i've ever seen has gaps or overlapping between the track models. or worse, has track models partially underground for ramps.
- so to use such a tool there'd need to be some thought given to having some standards about how to construct the track.


edit:
i might give a random track generation program a go however (e.g. linked path_tracks + models only)
also in terms of if it's worth doing or not, i dunno about others but for me it'd be on the merit of if it sounds like an interesting or fun thing to try and implement in code rather than how badly it's needed or how easyit is to do in hammer.
 
Last edited:

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
How about a post vvis tool to color visleafs depending on how many other visleafs they can see? As a bonus, throw in coloring of the different volumes between areaportals.