Unlocking chapters in your mod

Valve Approach

This approach shows the best way to update chapters in your mod.

Renaming

Your maps should be renamed to conform to a pattern which allows you and the game to tell at a glance where a map is chronologically.

Notice Half-Life 2's maps are named according to this pattern: "d#_areaname_##" where

• "#" represents the "day" of the game, is 1 for the beginning, 2 for the middle, and 3 for the endgame
• "##" is some numbered segment of an area "areaname"

Example: d1_trainstation_01

However, Half-Life 1's pattern might make unlocking the chapters a little easier: "c#a$" where

• # is the chapter number
• $ is the area of the chapter with an extra letter appended as necessary.

Examples: c1a4 c4a1b

Updating

In gameinterface.cpp, modify void UpdateChapterRestrictions( const char* mapname ) and the array static TITLECOMMENT gTitleComments[] to conform to your maps' naming format.

Each TITLECOMMENT in gTitleComments contains a char* pBSPName (the map name or part of a map name) and a char* pTitleName (the chapter that map or set of maps is part of). If you want the map e2m4 to be part of Chapter 2 of the mod Doom, add {"e2m4", "#Doom_Chapter2_Title"} to the array (with a trailing comma if it's not last, of course). Replace "e2m4" with simply "e2" and all maps starting with "e2" will be part of Chapter 2.

Note the comment right above gTitleComments, which reads "This list gets searched for the first partial match, so some are out of order". Meaning, if e2m9 is part of Chapter 3 and the rest of the "e2" maps are in Chapter 2, then {"e2m9", "#Doom_Chapter3_Title"} must come before {"e2", "#Doom_Chapter2_Title"} in the array.

Necessary Fixes

UpdateChapterRestrictions has an inherent flaw which only comes to light when Steam runs a Source mod. Steam puts the mod's entire path in the command line; the mod MyMod might be run with hl2.exe -game "C:\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\MyMod".

But UpdateChapterRestrictions assumes "-game" to be just "mymod"(Mod name in lowercase), so char chapterNumberPrefix[64] ends up as #C:\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\MyMod_chapter, rather than #mymod_chapter as it should be.

You can solve this problem in one of two ways. The first and easiest is to dispense with the "-game" parameter and simply hardcode "#mymod_chapter" as the chapterNumberPrefix. The second, which may be copied and pasted across mods, is to lop off the parent folders one by one, perhaps with strtok, until only the mod folder is left.

Map Hack Approach

This tutorial will demonstrate unlocking chapters for your game mods using entities. If you are unfamiliar with adding chapters to your mod read and review the Adding chapters to your mod tutorial before this one.

Create the trigger_once brush

Create a trigger_once brush in Map2. This will be used as the trigger that will begin the process of unlocking a chapter. Map2 is the map that will be considered the first map for the second chapter. Be sure to give the trigger_once brush a name, something like Trigger001_UnlockChapter2 for example.

Create the point entities

Use the entity tool the create a logic_relay entity. Set the name of the logic_relay entity to Logic001_UnlockChapter2. Set the logic_relay Start Disabled property to Yes.

Now use the entity tool to create a point_clientcommand entity, and set the name to UnlockChapter2.

Add the outputs for the logic relay

Open the object properties dialog for the logic_relay entity we created earlier, and select the Outputs tab. Now add two outputs using the add button and fill in the info as follows:

My Output	Target Entity	Target Input	Parameter	Delay	Only Once
OnTrigger	UnlockChapter2	Command	incrementvar sv_unlockedchapters 2 100 -1	0.01	Yes
OnTrigger	UnlockChapter2	Command	incrementvar sv_unlockedchapters 2 100 1	0.02	Yes

The '2' after the incrementvar sv_unlockedchapters is the chapter to make available. If you have more than 100 chapters in your mod (unlikely), make that value high enough to encompass them all.

How it works

The incrementvar command takes a minValue, a maxValue and a delta. Using a delta of 0 sets the sv_unlockedchapters to the maxValue which can be avoided by decrementing the var, then re-incrementing it, ensuring that the chapter to unlock is set, but not forcing it to that value if it is already higher.

Add the outputs for the trigger_once brush entity

Next open the object properties dialog box for the trigger_once entity we created earlier called Trigger001_UnlockChapter2, and select the Outputs tab. Now add a output using the add button and fill in the info as it appears in the picture below...

Testing

Now save, compile, and run. After your mod is loaded, type showtriggers 1 in console. Once you have done so, play the map and walk through the trigger_once entity. After you have walked through it, press escape and select New Game from the game menu. You should see that chapter 2 in your mod has been unlocked. After you quit the game open up the cfg/config.cfg file in your mod and scroll down near the bottom of the file. You will notice that the line that used to read sv_unlockedchapters "1" now reads sv_unlockedchapters "2".