Talk:Authoring Tools/Left 4 Dead

Note: DO NOT POST bugs and feedback on the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools on this page. This page is only for discussion of the Authoring Tools/SDK (Left 4 Dead) article!

Post all issues and bugs on GitHub Issues for Source 1 games or Steam Discussions.

Note:Left 4 Dead 1 label doesn't exist in GitHub issues page, but you can search for "[L4D1]", "Left 4 Dead 1", etc... to find bug reports for Left 4 Dead 1.

Jeff, are beta users allowed to add information onto the Wiki containing info from the beta Authoring Tools? --Remmiz 23:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I would hold off. There's a lot of new content coming soon, and there will be changes in the final release that are not in the Beta version. --JeffLane 23:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger that. --Remmiz 23:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Will we be getting these tools soon Jeff? --DannyS 01:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Magic 8-Ball says -- "Yes!" --JeffLane 04:37, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Mine says "Better not tell you now" and then "Cannot predict now". --NykO18 09:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Jeff, are they released at this very minute? I don't see it available in my tools tab at the moment. --DannyS 22:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Try restarting Steam. --JeffLane 22:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Scratch that, it looks like a bit of timing issue with the servers, should be available shortly. --JeffLane 22:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll be patient. :) --DannyS 22:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Article was just posted on the L4D blog, also I added a link to the page to make navigation easier, if you don't like it feel free to remove it :-) Captain-p0t-n00dle 11:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Wait, no I didn't, I added a link to a different page lol ^.^ Captain-p0t-n00dle 11:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

New Hammer Features

What's about hammer updated features? I see a strange "HDR" option over "view" menu, 3D displacement ok, and random Yaw, But in option panel I have two strange arrow on "3D views" option. Yea I'm curious, like a little boy with new toys :)--Gectou4 23:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

They also finally made it have a cursor when you are rotating objects instead of hiding it! The HDR and arrows in the option window looks like GUI errors (no HDR feature implemented as far as I can tell.) --Remmiz 00:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

may some of them are in OB, I used ep1 too much :(

SteamAppID 513 ?

Is there a way to make a mod based on Left 4 Dead and using the new Authoring Tools for editing? Because without this feature, our Left 4 Dead folder will soon be converted in a giant SVN and we'll mess up everything, mixing our own content with the game content and loosing all our development files.. --NykO18 00:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't be storing any custom content sources in the Steam directory period. That's just bad habit. --Remmiz 00:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I doesn't really help people to be a smartass. No offense though, I'm used to. I wonder where you're storing your custom models and textures if not in the game folder for which you're currently making a level? I'm not too fond of bspzipping everything after each and every compilation. --NykO18 00:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey buddy, I was just telling you it's not a good idea to store custom source files in the Steam directory, no need to get offensive. I personally keep my source files on a separate hard drive which is backed up nightly to my web storage. You then put the compiled versions into your game directory (which they will need to be anyways). I don't see how storing the compiled version of custom content in the left4dead folder is cluttering it.--Remmiz 00:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You can't do it Nyk018, in short. You just need to organise your files in the L4D folder more better so they don't get muddled up. --DannyS 01:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you were making fun off me. I completely see the technical limitation point, but hell.. if we want to use a version control protocol on all of our files, it means that we have to separate our SVN from the game and basically make a copy of everything inside it in the Left 4 Dead folder each time something is changed. The problem here is custom models, we're not going to decompile and recompile every custom model we're using in order to put them in a separate folder, that's just impossible. All of this seems seriously counter-productive... and I'm not even talking about downloading custom campaign that will add their own content which will appear in Hammer. It seems that we're forced to choose, either you play Left 4 Dead, or you build content for it, but not both. --NykO18 01:03, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I confidently doubt it's going to be like Portal where you can just make a mod folder and call it a mod (like with your PPrelude), that's works in SP only. MP is totally different. In short, not do-able. --DannyS 00:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, it worked for a while with a kind of hack, we managed to run a multiplayer mod of Episode Two in order to separate our content from the game content and test the maps with multiple players, but a Source engine update totally fixed this exploit a few weeks ago. --NykO18 01:03, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You can do both. It's not Valve's fault you mixed your models, it has nothing to do with Valve because you weren't using a real SDK. I'm really tired here so I'm probably not following properly (as in sleepy, not being sarcy) but what is your exact problem? --DannyS 01:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Just forget about it. I got the point, we'll just mess up our Left 4 Dead folder... as usual I guess. Anyway this isn't the correct page to talk about subversion repositories and good practices. If I get my hands back on the dedicated page, I might start a discussion there. --NykO18 01:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

russian article

Please add link to russian arcticle Authoring_Tools/SDK_(Left_4_Dead):ru --Vaider 06:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)