Talk:Strata Source

Strata Source on VDC at this time (mid 2024)

Outside VDC, among mappers (I mean places like Map Labs server), there's been concerns raised about Strata Source being described in such depth and to such degree of presence on VDC.

If I understand the situation, the engine itself isn't open source, the tools for it aren't open source, it's used in three projects none of which are out in full, and only one is in early access (Momentum Mod).

I know that you can join Momentum Mod's discord via a public link and use their tools. I was there for a short time, and it seemed that way, at least. I didn't actually try those tools.

P2CE isn't out, there's no really talking about modding or using it. Portal Revolution is the same deal. (right?)

So, all in all, it's a mostly walled off environment of community testers and licensee developers. And Strata itself isn't licenseable.

Despite that, Strata is being mention on virtually any page that talks about engine limits, entities, or shaders. Its pills icon will greet you everywhere. It does clutter up some pages and it does draw attention with its notices that are pretty much "cool, but so what". How many people use trigger_once? How many of those are on Strata? How many people compile with VRAD daily? How many of those are on Strata? More importantly, how many of those don't already know its extra features and use them?

Even if some of it is accessible to wider audience, even if the tools can be used now, you still pretty much have to rely on being closer to the devs (being in their Discord etc) to get good information and advice.

So seeing so much Strata Source/branch/hammer everywhere... well, do we need it?

Yes, P2CE can come out, but then I imagine its (expanded) limits and features would make the most sense to talk about around P2 modding articles. It's not like people make their choices of engine branches [with such widely differing options and conditions of availability] based on which supports PBR or which allows 16384 edicts instead of 2048? The choices are made differently... if someone arrives at P2CE page that's most likely because they already started modding it.

And thus that info can be more contained, not mixed on general articles. Those I would leave to strictly: 1) Valve branches 2) Garrys Mod 3) Mapbase. The main criteria: the demand for information.

I'll ping some of the most active editors and a few moderators to get opinions on the whole thing. User:Blixibon, User:Nescius, User:SirYodaJedi, User:Speedvoltage, User:N0one, User:Kr0tchet

—Unsigned comment added by Cvoxalury (talk • contribs) 11:36, 18 July 2024 (PDT) Always sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~)

Small correction: Portal: Revolution actually did come out in full, around the beginning of the year. I've been told that some people make unrelated mods for it because it uses an earlier version of P2:CE, but I'm not sure how large that audience is.

In the past, I've heard that developers of P2:CE and/or Strata Source did not approve of some of the changes being made on the VDC for their projects. I asked for clarification on the P2:CE server and got input from some of Strata and P2:CE's developers, and while I wouldn't consider this to be their formal stance as a team, I got the impression that they mainly agree that the mentions of Strata and P2:CE on high-traffic articles aren't really necessary before their release.

I think we should remove mentions and links for P2:CE and Strata from generalized articles in which the majority of users will not be users of those projects, but the articles already dedicated to them can be left alone for now, or at least not removed in the same way. --Blixibon (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2024 (PDT)

I can give reason for at least one Strata thing on this wiki: The PBR shader. Until recently, there was no documentation on Strata's wiki regarding PBR or Parallax materials, only limited documentation on Momentum's wiki. I didn't know how to add content to the strata wiki, so I added it here because it was relevant both to the PBR shader mod for Src 2013 and Strata. $parallax was added because it was part of the PBR shader as well. General PBR documentation is relevant to many different Source mods, so PBR documentation fit in well here. Recently, Strata specific documentation was added to the Strata wiki, so technically it's not needed here anymore.

However, for added KVs for entities inSteata, I think the documentation should still be here (e.g. comp_pack, additions to prop_tractor_beam, etc) as many people still do look at this wiki for documentation regarding entities, so having the info for Strata KVs and entities can still be beneficial. -Equalizer, aka the better pickaxe (talk)

Hey, Strata / Momentum Mod dev here. I can understand that our engine branch being tossed around everywhere is confusing to the majority of modders, and the majority of the content here wasn't really written by any of us. We actually specifically wanted to use our own site for Momentum documentation because of this feeling of "don't spam the general VDC with our shit," and we want to be able to link to a consistent place for Strata-specific things, hence the Strata wiki as well. However, I feel as though if this wiki is truly documenting everything about Source, I don't see the problem of having our branch mentioned in places where it makes sense to be. Once P2CE releases, and Momentum hits its 0.10.0 public playtest, these icons and badges everywhere will be more relevant to our mappers that use this site for general entity documentation, and can be valuable to those looking to get more out of modding Source (w/ P2CE). Anything more specific to our projects will be on our own wiki sites anyways, but since we are unfortunately based on Source, I think we also have a right to be here. --Gocnak (talk) 13:15, 19 July 2024 (PDT)

I don't disagree that Strata has a right to be here, at all. And/or the notable projects on it. I wasn't calling for deleting it from the wiki.

What I see as a problem here is not having a well-organised flow of information. I could toss in an example of how Arkane's modified Hammer for Dark Messiah has some cool things like working model movement preview, and lets you specify Debug Messages in the Input field to tie that to the game (that sounds really useful for a mapper). But if that were added to all the pages about IO or scripted sequences, that would be weird, no?

So what I'm talking about it having Strata topics contained to its own subset (I imagine the Strata-exclusive topics can all fit in a set of a main page with subpages), while directing people to an external wiki. So it would be a bit reversed from what it is now: you come for information on VRAD, and you're showered with bits of Strata/BMS/CSGO/Infamy --> no, instead it should be you're looking for something like "Mapping in [game on Strata]", and get told that the custom VRAD can do this and that. Because an average mapper shouldn't have to fill their headspace with VRAD trivia; someone who wants to work on maps for a specific branch, does want to know only the specific features. (and base info which should be only the universal things).

And sure, it can't detect that a Strata mapper is looking on the general page on VRAD. So, directing someone to a specified page can be included at the top, as a "See also" or something. It's just that - and it's been going for a while - people really started tossing in information, technical and trivial, as boxes and template keys, instead of incorporating it. So it ends up sticking out.

There's always the balance between information needing sufficient demand to justify it, and needing to provide information without being expressely asked to, because it can't discover itself. It's a difficult thing. Strata isn't the biggest cause of over-documenting, but there is a sense of both cluttering, and, more emotionally, "things we can't have" (which won't change with its release for those working on Source SDK).

(this is more like a funny example: there's also unnecessary "negative" documenting of Strata. About entities that don't exist in it, or things you don't need to do in it. How demanded is this info?)

Lastly, if anything I wrote in my opening post sounded harsh or condescending (it kind of did for a second there.), I apologise. Cvoxalury (talk) 13:56, 19 July 2024 (PDT)

I understand now, that makes it way more clear, thank you. I'd love for this site to be as accurate as possible, and I agree on removing "trivia"-esque information from random pages as well. --Gocnak (talk) 14:07, 19 July 2024 (PDT)

So, it would seem that the general consensus here is to remove "trivial" information about Strata which the majority of each article's viewers do not benefit from, such as on the articles mentioned in previous responses. Unless anyone has any further objections, I guess any of us could get started on that now - although I do think this highlights a need to standardize this sort of information. Under what circumstances should differences from a game, engine branch, or mod be highlighted? There could be a policy article dedicated to this to set specific guidelines in stone and avoid similar discussions in the future. I'm not sure if this is the place to have that conversation, though. —Blixibon (talk) 09:48, 21 July 2024 (PDT)