Adding chapters to your mod

sitdelde Adding chapters to your mod is a little complicated because you need to modify a number of files in order to add new chapters.

Warning:Half-Life 2 uses unicode for the localization file. Some text editors may save the file as ASCII-encoded.
Use Notepad or another Unicode-savvy editor to edit these files.

Chapter config files

Create a chapter1.cfg file and put it in the cfg folder like so yourmodfolder/cfg/chapter1.cfg. Then edit the file to read ...

map Map1

Replacing Map1 with the name of your own map. Do this for each chapter in your mod.

Strings file

Goto your yourmodfolder/resource folder and copy the HL2_english.txt file and give it the name YourModName_english.txt. (Again replacing YourModName with the name of your mod) Now you will need to edit the YourModName_english.txt file. At the top of the file add the following lines above HL2_Chapter1_Title like so ...

"YourModName_Chapter1_Title"	"Title of the chapter goes here"

"HL2_Chapter1_Title"		"POINT INSERTION"

You can leave the original HL2_Chapter1_Title title entries as they will not affect your mod by being there.

Chapter titles

Open up the yourmodfolder/scripts/titles.txt file and scroll down to the CHAPTER TITLES section and modify the chapters entries like so ...

//CHAPTER TITLES

$fadein 0.01
$holdtime 3.5
$position -1 0.58

CHAPTER1_TITLE
{
#YourModName_Chapter1_Title
}

Chapter images

Sample Chapter Image

Next you will need to create *.vmt and *.vtf image files for your chapters. Place the *.vmt and *.vtf files into the yourmodfolder/materials/vgui/chapters/ folder. Be sure to name your images chapter1.vtf, chapter1.vmt and chapter2.vtf, chapter2.vmt respectively.

Make sure that:

• The image files are 256x128 in size, i.e., a power of 2. (When your chapter is selected in the new game dialogue that only the portion from 0,0 to 152,86 will be visible.)
• The images are marked with nomip and nolod. The same goes for your menu backgrounds: without these parameters, people using medium or low texture detail will have blurry menu graphics. You can't set these options in the .vmt! You set them using a text file with the same name as the .tga image you are compiling; see Vtex compile parameters for more information.

The .vmt file should look like this

"UnlitGeneric"

{
	"$basetexture" "vgui/chapters/chapter1"
	"$vertexalpha" 1
}

The map list

Now that you have your images setup do not forget to create a yourmodfolder/maplist.txt file containing a list of maps that your mod will use. For example inside a maplist.txt file would look like ...

Map1
Map2

Chapter map loading images

You will need to edit the yourmodfolder/scripts/chapterbackgrounds.txt file and specify what loading images you want to be displayed while your mod is starting and the background map is loading. Below is an example of what a chapterbackgrounds.txt might look like.

"chapters"
{
	1	"YourImage1"
	2	"YourImage3"
	3	"YourImage3"
	4	"YourImage4"
	5	"background03"
	6	"background03"
	7	"background04"
	8	"background04"
	9	"background05"
	9a	"background05"
	10	"background06"
	11	"background06"
	12	"background07"
	13	"background07"
	14	"background07"
	15	"background07"
}

Note:If you do not want background maps for your mod, create a valve.rc in your cfg folder without the startupmenu command in it.

// load the base configuration
//exec default.cfg

// Setup custom controller
exec joystick.cfg

// run a user script file if present
exec autoexec.cfg

//
// stuff command line statements
//
stuffcmds

Be sure to create your images 1024x1024. The trick to creating an image that is displayed properly in either 4:3, 16:9, or 16:10 is to create a 1024x768 (or 1280x1024 to scale down) image then resize it to 1024x1024 before saving it. For widescreen you would start by creating 1280x800 for example, then resize it to 1024x1024. See Creating Menu Background Maps for more info on this topic.

Additional notes

If you want your chapters to be unlocked when you first play your mod then be sure to edit the yourmodfolder/cfg/config.cfg file. Scroll down to about line 162 and edit the line ...

sv_unlockedchapters "1"

For information on how to unlock chapters read the Unlocking chapters in your mod tutorial.