Talk:SDK Docs: Difference between revisions

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==Misc==
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==Archives==
The idea of having a 'community area' for the documentation index seems redundant. Over time, I wouldn't want the site to split into the areas that Valve authored vs. the areas that the community authored. Does it make sense to roll this into the rest of the index? [[User:Erik Johnson|Erik Johnson]]
Please '''do not''' edit the archives
:I agree.  I think it will complicate the process of finding the information you want, mix up the Wiki categorization, and make us wonder if it's okay to edit the original documents.  And there are already a few documents written that have already been mixed in.
* [http://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/index.php?title=Talk:SDK_Docs&oldid=92470 28 June 2005 to 4 Aug 2008]
:- [[User:Mungo|Mungo]]
</div>{{clr}}
::I played it safe and assumed you wouldn't want the two mixed. I'll merge them now. --[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 11:10, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT)
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OK, problem. We are currently linking to Categories with <nowiki>{{Category:Modeling}}</nowiki>. That displays the description of the category and they've all been filled in to have all the current pages. But that isn't the category, it's just a copy of it. If anyone wants to add to the description they've got to go and manually edit the page, defeating the point of having a category in the first place. We need to be able to list the category contents themselves on the page if we want it to keep itself up to date, or link through to the category pages and lose searchability.
--[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 11:25, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT)
:Doing it this way allows the topics to be manually arranged in a useful order on this page by editing the Category pages.  But, yeah, there should probably also be a link to each category page here so you can also jump to the alphabetical lists. edit: I see you added that...I think it's a good solution. It is still an extra step to manually edit the category pages, but that lets us put them in a useful order for this page. -[[User:Mungo|Mungo]]
::TBH I think alphabetically is the most useful. The current setup doesn't solve the problem of getting the self-updating lists onto the main page though, so it's not terribly useful. --[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 11:49, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT)
:::True, alphabetical is very useful. I thought it could be useful to arrange these in tables with headings like Basics, Advanced, Troubleshooting.  Then if someone wants an alphabetical list, they can click on the title.  I don't know if the software can automatically put the alphabeticized lists on this page.  -[[User:Mungo|Mungo]]
::::That's a good idea, but a lot of work. It will get forgotten and be worse than useless because everyone will assume what's there on the page is all there is. --[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 12:14, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT)
:::::True...it's already too much work to manually add new topics to their category pages so they appear here.  But I don't know if there's a solution to that.  Maybe it would be best just to put a small note after the big categories like Level Design and Coding that links to the Category page.  Otherwise, this page is going to become an enormous, unorganized, incomplete list. -[[User:Mungo|Mungo]]
::::::Or go back to descriptive categories with titles as links. ;-) --[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 12:23, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT)
:::::::Okay, I like this: Do what you said, but type the descriptions directly into this page.  Then on the category page, we have the option to put an organized short list(s) of some of the basic articles that beginners would want to look at first.  The alphabetical list automatically appears below. --[[User:Mungo|Mungo]]
 
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Isn't AI just part of Level Design? -Mungo
:Aren't materials too? It's signifigantly different and in future will likley contain coding material too. --[[User:Tom Edwards|Tom Edwards]] 07:58, 29 Jun 2005 (PDT)
::gotcha -Mungo
 
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I'm wondering if a single-player HL2-specific category would be useful. Stuff like basic map design often covers other mods such as CS:S, but in-depth HL2 articles and associated entity documentation could probably go in their own area. Like the excellent [[Assaults]] article. :-) [[User:Cargo Cult|Cargo Cult]] 05:37, 30 Jun 2005 (PDT)
:...Merging may help even more if there are some Mod specific categories. As an example, an on-going problem in the Source SDK Chatbear forums is knowing what members want when they ask questions or are searching for solutions. "Will this work in CS:S?" i.e., Ropes, Sounds, Ladders, Entity types. No doubt there will always be some repetition. --[[User:Mark WiseCarver|Mark WiseCarver]]
::I gather that MediaWiki allows articles to appear in multiple categories, so a basic article on, say, vertex manipulation could appear in all appropriate sections - e.g. 'HL2 Deathmatch', 'CS:Source', 'HL2 SP' etc, while more mod- or game-specific articles could appear in just one. Something like that, anyway! [[User:Cargo Cult|Cargo Cult]] 06:55, 1 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
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The Tutorials category is not linked from anywhere, shouldn't it be added to this category page? --[[User:SubKamran|SubKamran]] 09:15, 4 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
 
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When you first try to launch hammer, and you click the http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hammer_Manual_Configuration url it doesn't work. But if you copy/paste it does.
 
== Article page renaming and linking ==
 
Renaming a page is really crappy. I created a entity description for ai_battle_line. I clicked the link in the Entity list and started editing an article called "AI Battle Line". I tried to rename it to ai_battle_line after I've finished, but it didn't work. And the bigger problem was the linking to such a page. When typing ...wiki/ai_battle_line in the address bar of the browser you'll get to the AI Battle Line page. But an internal wiki link to ai_battle_line appears in red (and with action=edit), because the name of the article is "AI Battle Line".
Can anyone (maybe an admin) rename the "AI Battle Line" to "ai_battle_line" so the ai_battle_line internal links work correct. --[[User:King2500|King2500]] 16:04, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
:I'm not sure how you did this. The link in the entity list is "ai_battle_line", not "AI Battle Line". The initial capital letter is irrelevant, but the caps on "Battle" and "Line" are important and will point at a different page. Clicking the any of the red links in the entity page creates the correct page name. You must have created "AI Battle Line" by editing a url directly or moving/renaming after you created the page. I fixed it by moving it to a temporary name, then moving it to the ''correct'' name, "Ai battle line". --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 21:21, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
::Thanks Jeff. I tried the same, but it didn't work to rename it back, because of the redirect.--[[User:King2500|King2500]] 06:01, 22 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
== Renaming titles like "Creating XYZ" or "Making ABC" ?! ==
 
I think titles like "Creating XYZ" or "Making ABC" are no good. When you view a category, you're always looking for the term ("XYZ"/"ABC") in it's alphabetical order. Now that we have the title not starting with the term, it's far more difficult to find it by browsing the category... Of course one can use the search function, but the category overviews are still supposed to make sense in my opinion.
 
Very often the term itself is enough for a clear description of the content of the tutorial/article. In other cases, I'd recommend to rename it into something like "XYZ Creation". Opinions? --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 23:38, 6 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:There are a few of those among the mapping tutorials, they could be merged with their [[Abstract Mapping]] counterparts. If that's not possible, those "Creating XYZ" or "Making XYZ" could just be renamed to "XYZ tutorial". [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 23:45, 6 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::Strong arguments. You got my vote for "XYZ Creation" or "XYZ tutorial". However, if you are going to change the titles, you better change everywhere those pages are linked too, and I bet that's going to be a lot of work to get just a small improvement. Just try it with one page and see how many links you'll have to change. --[[User:Andreasen|Andreasen]] 07:46, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::Changing all the links can be achieved by simply converting the old article to a redirect and de-categorizing it (so that it won't clutter the category listings). The links themselves can be changed on a longer time span. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 08:43, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::Quote from clicking "move" ontop of a page: "Using the form below will rename a page, moving all of its history to the new name. The old title will become a redirect page to the new title. Links to the old page title will not be changed; be sure to check for double or broken redirects. You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go." I sure hope this works, if not I'm certainly not going to do it ;) --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 09:05, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::::Moving would work too, I'm not sure though what it does to categorizations. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 09:14, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::::A few comments. First, I think this seems like reasonable and worthwhile goal, to fix the alphabetizing of the category lists. Use the Move command for this. ''Do not'' rename a page by  copying and pasting the contents into a new artcle. Doing that destroys all of the article's history, and then requires all of the original articles to be deleted. The Move command handles this automatically and adds redirects to the new pages. Like Vaarascha mentioned, you still must fix the original links to remove the redirects, though this is more of a organizational detail than a functional one.
:::::I would avoid adding "Creation" on the end of every one of these articles. If at all possible, I'd rather see just "XYZ". For example, [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] could simply become [[3D Skyboxes]]. There's a few pages, such as [[Material Creation|Creating Materials]], where the base [[Materials]] is already taken. In these cases, the article could become "XYZ Creation" or simply merged with the base where possible. If you look at [[:Category:Level_Design]], you'll see that this was basically already done with the link titles, so it could easily be done to the page names themselves. --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 11:00, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::::::I kind of disagree with leaving the "Creation" or "Tutorial" out. To the first time reader, it'd be confusing if we had [[3D skybox]] and [[3D skyboxes]] with different contents. However, if this is what we will be doing, then the naming logic will have to be explained in detail somewhere. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 11:56, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::::::I agree, that would be confusing. Is there any reason why [[3D skybox]] should not be merged into the introduction of [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] and redirected? There are not separate [[Displacements]] and [[Creating Displacements]] articles. There are other articles like [[Creating Decals]] and [[Cubemaps]] that follow this model. --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 12:59, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::::::::Merging is a viable option, perhaps even the best of them all; it's just way more work than a simple renaming. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 13:30, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::::::::I went ahead and merged [[3D skybox]] into [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] and redirected. I realized some of this type of renaming may require some page deletions because you cannot move a page onto an existing page. I do not think there are many cases, but I can assist whenever this might be necessary. --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 14:20, 9 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::::::::::I'm confused - you said "For example, [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] could simply become [[3D Skyboxes]]." but now [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] does still exist and [[3D skybox]] is the redirect. Anyway, I'm going ahead and find out how much / which cases there are. --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 03:04, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::::::::::[[3D skybox]] must be removed before [[Making 3D Skyboxes]] can be renamed. Normal users can't do that, so it's up to Jeff. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 05:33, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
:::::::::::: Yes, I will fix this. --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 09:36, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
=== Articles that need merging ===
 
This is a list of the pages which have to be merged. This might require the help of [[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]]. Please don't start merging before we discussed it properly.
Only the categories that contain to-be-merged articles are listed, I checked all though. In case you find something else worth merging, please add. --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 03:58, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
''Level Design''
 
[[Creating Brushes]] -> [[Brush]]
 
[[Creating Entities]] -> [[Entity]]
 
* [[Creating and Using Prefabs]] -> [[Prefab]]
 
''Material System''
 
[[:Category: Material System]] -> [[Material]] (The description at the beginning only.)
 
[[Creating Viewmodels]] -> [[Viewmodel]]
 
''VGUI''
 
[[Creating a VGUI Screen]] !-!-! [[VGUI Screen]] (I think in this case, we shoud use "VGUI Screen Creation")
 
:My suggestion:
:* [[Creating Brushes]] -> [[Brush Creation]]
:* [[Creating Entities]]-> [[Entity Creation]]
:* [[Material Creation|Creating Materials]] -> [[Material]] (page needs deletion first), then merge in [[Creating a Material]]
:* [[Creating Viewmodels]] -> [[Viewmodels in XSI]]
:* [[Creating a VGUI Screen]] -> [[VGUI Screen Creation]]
:It could be argued that Brush and Entity could be merged into the definition page, but these objects are such basic blocks that are created and used in many ways that it may not be a good idea to merge them. --[[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]] 09:36, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::I think it should be done, it wouldn't make too long an article and the less "XYZ Creation" articles we have the better IMO. [[User:Jupix|Jupix]] 01:16, 12 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
::Done, except for the Materials. The merging will be a rather awful job. If no one else wants to do this, I can look into it during next week... Maybe it's also a good idea to divide it up, one article for compiling and such, one for vmt's? (Well, kinda OffTopic, sorry) --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 10:12, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
:::I fixed the Materials. [[Material Creation|Creating Materials]] is now named [[Material Creation]] according to the new indexing system, and [[Material]] is now about the meaning of the word "Material" ''only''. [[Creating a Material]] is a more lengthy tutorial that might not even be needed, but that I left alone in case newbies don't get [[Material Creation]]. I didn't know there was any kind of discussion going on here, so I just did it, and found this afterwards when I was directing the links to the new system. Hope you like it. --[[User:Andreasen|Andreasen]] 17:08, 29 Aug 2007 (PDT)
 
Sorry, I overlooked the Prefab. These should be merged though, basically [[Prefab]] can be deleted. --[[User:Vaarscha|Vaarscha]] 13:12, 10 Mar 2006 (PST)
 
== Logic gates ==
 
Unless I'm being stupid there don't appear to be entities for any of the standard logic gates. There's no AND, OR NOT, NOR, XOR or any of the others. It's probably possible to emulate all of them (certainly AND) but that's not a very good solution... --[[user:TomEdwards|TomEdwards]] 04:34, 27 Jul 2005 (PDT)
 
Have you tried using the various Logic types ? In particular Logic branch or Logic case seem to be what you are looking for. They are Logic based not bit-wise operators though.--[[User:Cunbelin|Cunbelin]] 00:34, 12 Oct 2005 (PDT)
 
== How do you use maplist.txt? ==
If it's about a single player mod.. Maybe you should look at this wiki: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Adding_chapters_to_your_mod
--[[User:JurgenKnops|JurgenKnops]] 15:16, 3 Nov 2005 (PST)
 
im trying to make a short single player mod and cant figure out how to make levels appear when you click 'new game'
right now the menu is blank, and i assume it has something to do with maplist.txt, the console informs me it cannot find the file
 
== How can i make a server plugin? ==
 
I want to make a server plugin for CS:S that allows two primary weapons... how would i go about doing that?
 
Is there a possibility of allowing uploads of VMF files to the wiki? That would be very useful for giving example maps. &mdash;'''[[User:Maven|Maven]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Maven|talk]])</sup> 12:16, 19 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
:http://www.putfile.com &mdash;[[User:Ts2do|Ts2do]] 18:46, 19 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
::Yes? VMF is not among its allowed filetypes. &mdash;'''[[User:Maven|Maven]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Maven|talk]])</sup> 19:15, 19 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
== GAAAGH! My game is screwed! ==
 
Help me, I can't run anything I make via Hammer. when I start the map I get this message:
 
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too many indices for index buffer . . tell a programmer (33978>32768)
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But I am a programmer, I just can't make heads or tails of this message, and I got a kickbutt map I'm wanna let loose on the world, and it's big, really quite big (but simple).
 
As soon as I spawn in my map, my game closes down and I get this:
 
[[Image:BIG_ERROR.JPG]]
 
Help me, with this error I can't map again!
 
Answer :- You have messed about with some config setting and it is creating to many entitys in game, I have seen such commands on some of the "Make HL2 look better" guides.
Delete your config files and it should solve your problem.
 
== So where are they? ==
 
I'm new to the Wiki stuff, so if this is in the wrong spot, I apologize.
 
While everyone decides the format for the next generation of documentation, could you post them somewhere again?  I cannot locate them anywhere.
 
:Are you talking about the entity documentation? That is, all those strange templates? If so, I think that we don't have a guide and are just figuring it out as we go. In any case, just document as you like. If there's a problem, someone will eventually fix it, probably. &mdash;'''[[User:Maven|Maven]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Maven|talk]])</sup> 05:41, 27 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
::Most of the templates used are kv, i, o, and fl with the baseclass name at the end (i.e. [[:Template:I Targetname]])&mdash;'''[[User:Ts2do|ts2do]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Ts2do|talk]])</sup> 06:02, 27 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
::More concretely, the "I" templates are for inputs, the "Kv" templates are for keyvalues, the "O" templates for outputs, and the "Fl" templates for flags. <nowiki>{{I Targetname}}</nowiki> adds the inputs that always come with the targetname keyvalue: Kill, KillHierarchy, AddOutput, and FireUser1-4. (The system is rooted in the FGDs and the SDK code, so it won't be obvious to people going by what SmartEdit says.) It's best to use the templates, but if that's going to keep you from contributing, just ignore them. &mdash;'''[[User:Maven|Maven]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Maven|talk]])</sup> 06:30, 27 Sep 2005 (PDT)
 
What I'm talking about are the SourceSDK Documents that Valve had released with the Developer Kit.  Some concrete information by the people who made it so I don't have to read through a ton of "junk" to find the answer, only to find out after mapping for hours that it had been edited so it's wrong... it was at this link:  http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/ , except that redirects you to here.  "Here" doesn't look promising for a hobbyist, especially since the documentation is no longer online.
[[User:RadBrad]]
 
:That documentation is still available online, eg [http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Levels/optimizing_and_checking.html here]. Only the index page appears to be gone. &mdash;'''[[User:Maven|Maven]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Maven|talk]])</sup> 05:31, 29 Sep 2005 (PDT)
::RedBrad, all of old SDK contents are in this wiki, with updates from [[User:AndrewNeo/Important People|Valve people]] and community feedback. I don't think it's a good idea to look for old possibly outdated documents. [[User:N-neko|n-neko]] 05:40, 29 Sep 2005 (PDT)
:::Exactly. This IS the Source SDK documentation. --&mdash;'''[[User:Pon|Pon]]''' <sup>([[User talk:Pon|talk]])</sup> 23:12, 29 Sep 2005 (PDT)
::::Is there somewhere a list of API functions/classes/etc.? I am looking for the documentation on DidHitWorld() function, but it's not on this wiki... [[User:WhiteKiteFauna|WhiteKiteFauna]] 15:27, 13 Feb 2007 (PST)
 
== NemoD ==
 
Can anyone from here try and fix the CS:S plugin: NemoD - [http://www.sourcemod.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=556730a86473cce603901af47aaabeb8]
 
The latest update to the source engine broke this amazing plugin.
I've got it compiling, but it won't be recognised by srcds.
 
Source code posted.
 
== Abstract Coding ==
 
It seems that one area that lacks content is coding.  Perhaps creating an "Abstract Coding" sections similar to the Abstract Mapping section that already exists would provide a way to get the ball rolling.  Taking the time to creat this section would greatly benifit the HL2 modding community.--[[User:Hyperion2010|Hyperion2010]] 18:54, 10 Jan 2006 (PST)
 
The two sections can also contain links to each other&mdash;'''[[User:Ts2do|ts2do]]'''&nbsp;<sup>([[User talk:Ts2do|Talk]]&nbsp;|&nbsp;[mailto:tsdodo@gmail.com @])</sup> 19:01, 10 Jan 2006 (PST)
 
== Animation ==
 
I'm noticing a severe lack of articles on how to get custom animation into the engine, and into faceposer. I'd really like to create gesture animations, but haven't the faintest idea how to approach this. --[[User:Spektre1|Spektre1]] 21:00, 11 Feb 2006 (PST)
 
== A very old presentation/lecture about the SDK tools ==
 
This is an incredibly long shot, but does anyone remember the write-up of a presentation given by Valve at a university or college of some sort, a very, very long time ago, in which they answered an audience question by saying that they were "heavily investing in [their] tools", or words to that effect? I think it might have been [http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:LqzcrISMyn8J:www.insttech.washington.edu/docs/colloquium_spr_2005.doc+%22Valve+Software%22+tools+question+and+answer&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2 this] (the 10:00AM entry), but I really can't be sure. It definitely happened though. What ever came out of it? --[[user:TomEdwards|TomEdwards]] 11:52, 12 Jun 2006 (PDT)
 
== Link to tra'''n'''ditional chinese category page ==
 
<s>Could someone with privileges fix the link pointing to the [[:Category:Tranditional_Chinese]] page? The title for that page was ''typoed'' and the page has since been moved to [[:Category:Traditional_Chinese]].</s> Thank you! --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 05:56, 10 Jan 2008 (PST)
:Fixed! Thanks again! --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 16:54, 14 Jan 2008 (PST)
 
== <s>Update links</s> ==
 
Since the page is still protected, I'm here to ask that a few links in the "This page is also available in:" section be updated:
* [[:Category:Russian]] -> [[SDK_Docs:ru]]
* [[:Category:Polish]] -> [[SDK_Docs:pl]]
* [[:Category:Traditional_Chinese]] -> [[SDK Docs:zh-tw]]
* [[:Category:Chinese]] -> [[SDK Docs:zh-cn]]
* [[:Category:Japanese]] -> [[SDK Docs:jp]]
<s>And that's it, for now :)</s> --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 14:24, 22 Jan 2008 (PST)
:Actually ended up doing them all ... --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 16:16, 22 Jan 2008 (PST)
No, actually there's still one missing:
* [[Manual_SDK]] should be [[SDK_Docs:es]]. Although neither of them are "presentable", the second one is clearly the best choice for the link. I'll update it ASAP. --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 16:25, 22 Jan 2008 (PST)
::The links were updated. Thanks [[User:JeffLane|JeffLane]]! --[[User:Etset|Etset]] 15:19, 2 Feb 2008 (PST)
 
== Update logo ==
 
There's a nicer version of the Source logo available:
 
[[Image:Source-logo-200px.png]]

Revision as of 20:42, 26 March 2009

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