User:Brandished/Notes

Experiments and excerpts

My collection of random knowledge and findings related to Source and Source level design.

June 27, 2008

Level editing with Blender

Blender can export to the ".map" format, interesting. The "map" format can be loaded into the old 3.4 version of Hammer and then saved into rmf, which can then be opened with the current version of Hammer (4.1). That's a an extra step where as XSI can export directly to vmf. It also doesn't seem to support texturing, only brushwork.

I know something similar could be done with 3DS_Max via the GLB plug-in, but with GLB, brush work could not be saved and re-edited within Max, only exported to a .map file. You were also limited to a somewhat small set of tools the plugin supported.

I wonder how it deals with non-convex geometry.

Non-Standard Flags for TF2

I recognize the face on the red flag, but who's on the blue one?

Although Valve may not have included a way to directly change the model for the "item_teamflag" entity to something other then the intelligence briefcase, it is possible to parent other entities to the "item_teamflag" entity as a rough work-around. When an entity is parented to the "item_teamflag" entity, when a player touches it in-game, it has the same effect as touching the "item_teamflag" itself. It does look a little weird when the "flag" is dropped, though.