View source for Death notices with custom weapons

= HL2MP-Based Mods =
By default, mods based on ''Half-Life 2: Deathmatch'' will only have death icons for the weapons included in ''Half-Life 2''. If an icon is not found, it will fall back to an icon of a skull.
Half-Life 2 Deathmatch's icons come from a font file called HL2MP.ttf, found in the resource folder of your mod.

== Explanation ==

First of all, take a look at the player death event handler function of the HL2DM death notices element.

 char fullkilledwith[128];
 if ( killedwith && *killedwith )
 {
 	Q_snprintf( fullkilledwith, sizeof(fullkilledwith), "death_%s", killedwith );
 }
 else
 {
 	fullkilledwith[0] = 0;
 }

And if that fails...

 // Try and find the death identifier in the icon list
 deathMsg.iconDeath = gHUD.GetIcon( fullkilledwith );
 if ( !deathMsg.iconDeath || deathMsg.iSuicide )
 {
 	// Can't find it, so use the default skull & crossbones icon
 	deathMsg.iconDeath = m_iconD_skull;
 }

So what needs to be done is to give the engine something to use for your weapon. So how is that done? Look through the texture find code.

 // Try and find the death identifier in the icon list
 deathMsg.iconDeath = gHUD.GetIcon( fullkilledwith );

== Adding Icons ==
From above, it shows that it searches for a death_* token (where * is the weapon entity name minus "weapon") in scripts/mod_textures.txt.

 "death_357"
 {
 	"font"		"HL2MPTypeDeath"
 	"character"	"."
 }

This is the first token, for the 357, this is using fonts for the death message. You can define your custom icons this way if you are using font-based icons for your death messages. Simply make a death_ entry for each weapon, using their entity name with death_ instead of weapon_. 

You can also use textures.

 "death_brownbess"
 {
 	"file"		"hud/death_brownbess"
 	"x"		"0"
 	"y"		"0"
 	"width"		"150"
 	"height"	"25"
 }
 "death_charleville"
 {
 	"file"		"hud/death_charleville"
 	"x"		"0"
 	"y"		"0"
 	 "width"		"160"
 	"height"	"25"
 }

The "file" property is the filepath for the texture, minus "materials/" and an extension. These entries also use a region of the texture, rather than all of it, so "x" and "y" are the origin of the icon from the top-left, and "width" and "height" should be fairly self-explanatory.

== Material Creation ==
The creation of these textures is fairly simple and can be done through tools such as [[VTFEdit]]. Once you have created your VTF, your [[VMT]] should have these entries on them to have transparencies and work correctly on the [[HUD]].

 "Unlitgeneric"
 {
 	"$baseTexture" "hud/death_pennsylvania"
 	"$translucent" 1
 	"$alphatest" 1
 	"$ignorez"	1
 }

"UnlitGeneric" is important, as otherwise it'll use the world lighting on the texture.

== Result ==
[[File:Deathnoticeexample.jpg]]

= Mod Template =
The mod template is different to using the ''HL2DM'' template as it uses the death notices from ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', the death notices work in similar fashion to the ''HL2DM'' deathnotices, however this is just a slight difference.

<pre>
		"d_skull"
		{
				"file"	"HUD/d_images"
				"x"		"116"
				"y"		"288"
				"width"		"52"
				"height"	"32"
		}
</pre>

This is defined in the template, d_images contains all the death icons from ''TF2'' whilse the x, y, width, height are specifying a region on that material file.

Contrary to what the comment in the default mod_textures.txt, death notices can use font-based icons.

<pre>
		"d_weapon_enfield"  // NB: i've removed the code to remove the weapon_ prefix
		{
				"font"		"DeathIcons" // define this in your SourceScheme
				"character"	"E"
		}
</pre>

== Negative Icons ==
You will also see entries for "dneg_" icons, these are used when the local player (you) gets the kill, you may want to invert the icons, if your icons use a bright colour and then add a entry using "dneg_" instead of "d_".

[[Category:Tutorials]]
[[Category:Programming]]