Spawnroom & Intel Room Detailing Mini-Contest - Q1 2016

[Yrr]

put your map in a 2048x2048 cordon, if the cordon removes it it isnt allowed

 

[RavenStryker]

21:9 master race!!

I'm right next to you on that one! I love my baby, don't regret the purchase for a second. - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PXYRMPE

Quick question, I'm using the stormfront snow particles, but they are huge. If I put the particle entity too close to my building, then the snow and mist shows on the inside. In order for me to have it not clip through the walls, I need to put the entity a couple units outside the 2048x2048 area. I see what you all said about props sticking out, but this is not adding detail outside the size limit, it is purely just trying to adjust how it looks inside the area. Is this allowed?

I would think that a particle outside of the 2048x2048 boundaries would not be rendered because it is outside of the skybox limits and will just be ignored in the void. If you have to increase the 2048x2048 area to include it, I would say just shrink the area you're detailing by x amount of units so it fits inside the area.

 

[nickybakes]

just shrink the area

Its not that the area is to small, its that the particle is too big and clips through windows and walls that you are looking out of. But thanks for the advice, I'm looking into just making my own particle effect that is essentially the same thing, but just smaller. Or maybe a func_precipitation would work.

 

[RavenStryker]

Its not that the area is to small, its that the particle is too big and clips through windows and walls that you are looking out of. But thanks for the advice, I'm looking into just making my own particle effect that is essentially the same thing, but just smaller. Or maybe a func_precipitation would work.

I remember that there was a way to make it so your particles wouldn't clip through brushes. Lemme do some research and see if I can figure out how that was done. @Psy mentioned it back years ago, it's a bit more expensive, but could be just what you need. Maybe he can fill you in on how he did it!


EDIT: Found it - http://tf2maps.net/threads/particles-weather-effects-with-collisions.8107/

Looks like the download isn't valid because of the forum migration. But I believe if they still had it, you could use it since it was technically released before the contest started, they just have to re-upload it due to site technical issues.

Youtube Video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPuGZu-Eic8

 

[nickybakes]

I remember that there was a way to make it so your particles wouldn't clip through brushes. Lemme do some research and see if I can figure out how that was done. @Psy mentioned it back years ago, it's a bit more expensive, but could be just what you need. Maybe he can fill you in on how he did it!

Wow thats really neat. Thanks! However I already decided to just edit the stormfront particles to make their spawn radius smaller so it would fit into the space I have. But now I am having trouble packing it into my bsp. I know how to use Pakrat, and everything else I pack works fine. But I have my PCF packed in my bsp, but it doesnt show up in game and console says "attempted to create/precache an unknown particle ..." I've tried following tutorials, but none of them go in depth. Do I need to edit the manifest text? Do you know about this? If you can tell me how to do this or point me at a tutorial, please do. Thanks.

 

[RavenStryker]

@NickTF I think I found something. I bolded it.

You have to make a particle manifest for TF2 to be able to find it.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Particles_manifest.txt

I prefer the maps\<map name>_particles.txt form, you just have to remember to change it when you update the name of your map.


There's also a bug (or there was at one point, it could be fixed now) where the name of your particle system and the pcf file that contain it cannot be the same name. That is if your file is called myparticles.pcf you cannot have a particle system named myparticles.

You will always get the "attempting to precache unknown particle system" error, even if it shows up just fine in game. It's just a quirk of TF2.

Not sure if this one helps at all, but just in case. But this was all I was really able to find. You're right, there isn't much out there.

Can't get custom files to work post steampipe
Fix:
1: Make sure you're in the right tf folder
/Steam/SteamApps/<username>/Team Fortress 2/ --- is now obsolete and can be deleted
/Steam/SteamApps/common/Team Fortress 2/ --- is the proper post steampipe TF2 path

2: Make sure you're using the new custom folder
Put all your mods in /Steam/SteamApps/common/Team Fortress 2/tf/custom/

3: Make sure you understand the new system

Here's a reference image for custom hitsounds

DO:
Put .vpk files in custom
Use the folders inside custom exactly like the old /tf/ method of installing mods
Separate your mods so it is easier to remove something that is broken without losing all your other mods!
Put custom directories in custom
e.g. (tf, my_custom_stuff, iliketacos, customhitsound, hoovyreskin, ponymods, fempyroizsexy, etc…)

DONT:
Put folders in /tf/custom that have the same name as a folder in /tf/
e.g. (materials, sounds, cfg, cache, maps, replay, etc…)
Put random files in custom expecting them to magically work
e.g. (you need the proper path for a mod to work just like you did before steampipe)

4: Make sure you don't have Mods that are overwriting each other.

 

[nickybakes]

@Xi.Cynx
My manifest looks like this:

particles_manifest
{
        "file"        "!particles\nick_stormfront.pcf"
}

and it is located in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\particles
and
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps

The name of it is: room2016_nicktf_manifest

my PCF is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\particles

And I packed both manifest texts and the pcf into my bsp using Pakrat. However it still does not show up in game. Also there are no PCF files in the tf\particles folder, I'm pretty sure that is normal and they are located in a VPK. Should my PCF be in a VPK? Sorry if I'm pressuring you or anything, you just seem to know stuff. I was downloading custom maps that use custom particles like Crashes recent Pd_Tribute to see how they did their packing, but they don't seem open in PakRat, the console just stays open, and nothing happens when I load the map in it.

 

[nickybakes]

@Xi.Cynx
Okay so I managed to get it showing up in game by putting the PCF in the particles folder, and the room2016_nicktf_particles.txt (switched "manifest" to "particles" in the name. The txt is in the maps folder. I packed it into the bsp, and it was showing up in game. However I removed both files from the particles and maps folder to try and simulate having the game files of the other players, and it did not show up in game. Atleast I was able to make it show up, but now I need it to be in the bsp and show up on other clients. Thanks for all the help by the way, I'm going to try and research it a bit, if you want to too, go ahead . After this, I'm going to compile all of this info and make a full in depth tutorial of this. Hopefully that helps everyone out. I might message Crash and see what he did for pd_tribute. By the way, I opened pd_tribute with Notepad++ and I was able to see the names of the files that were packed it. Hopefully Crash can enlighten me a bit on this.

 

[Davekillerish]

I can forsee a CTF competition next.

 

[nickybakes]

@Xi.Cynx I managed to get it to work by packing with Vide. Thanks for all the help!

 

[Lampenpam]

Is making multiple spawns stacked on top of each other legal?

You can just place only one spawn, which is alwed. Player spawn on top of eachother in this case as well. But I don't think people will judge your spawn point placement

 

[cmcpasserby]

Why are you offering more than twice the amount of space to people doing both rooms? 2048x2048 can fit in 4096x4096 4 times

 

[RavenStryker]

Why are you offering more than twice the amount of space to people doing both rooms? 2048x2048 can fit in 4096x4096 4 times

This is true, I think they meant to make it 2048x4096? This would offer double the space exactly. Or 3072x3072.

 

[Geit]

Why are you offering more than twice the amount of space to people doing both rooms? 2048x2048 can fit in 4096x4096 4 times

It is intentional - the idea being that if you enter both in a single entry the two rooms/areas will be presented as part of a more cohesive whole, so you'll need to do stuff like connecting hallways and other stuff that wastes space.

 

[CriminalBunny]

Are you going to showcase the entries in a video like this one?

I hope so

 

[Freyja]

If you got exactly double the space there would be no point in not just entering two entries. It's meant to reward the extra challenge of doing both in one.

And you can do multiple spawnrooms on top of each other if you want, but what would be the point? Just more work for you, everything will be judged as one entry.

 

[nickybakes]

Can we do both a spawn room and an intel room in one 2048x2048 maps? I hope its yes, because thats what I've been working/planning on.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Can we do both a spawn room and an intel room in one 2048x2048 maps? I hope its yes, because thats what I've been working/planning on.

That's still within 4096 square.

 

[Tuaam]

Could we use anachronistic devices / machinery that's related to the 20th century in the scene? (For example, old Desktop PC's, etc)

 

[Yrr]

i mean you could but itd probably get rated lower for not being in-style