User talk:Artfunkel

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Edict Information

Hey Tom, you seem to be knowledgeable about a lot of information I cannot find otherwise -- Do you know how to determine an exact edict count in a map? Thanks --RTF 21:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. Do you mean via code or the console? --TomEdwards 20:24, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
Yeah via console. I guess cl_showents is the closest thing there is, it just seems to combine some entities without showing them individually but the final count appears to be accurate. --RTF 06:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Dutch translations

As you can see in the recent changes page, i've translated a few categories into dutch. I've noticed that the otherlang2 template won't work unless the language is defined in the template, but i neither know what to do in there nor have an image of the dutch/belgian flag to use. Where did you get the images from? Solokiller 22:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I got them from FamFamFam. --TomEdwards 23:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that, but how do i need to add the translated versions to the original and other translated pages? I did a quick test on the French version of SDK Docs, and the link to the Dutch version had the Spanish flag. Solokiller 09:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Ok, so each version of the page needs nl=SDK Docs:nl|, but the English version of SDK Docs is protected from edits, so somebody else will have to add it there. Solokiller 09:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have deleted all the raw keyvalue names.

Hi, you seem to have gone through every page on this wiki systematically destroying useful information. While you yourself may prefer to use smartedit, some people don't, and you shouldn't force them to conform to what you feel is the best course of action, nor should you destroy information simply because you can't think of a way to use it. Just because I will never need to know how to project the paths of pyroclastic flows does not mean others won't.
In addition to this, not everyone who comes here is a mapper. I personally came here just now to look up some KVs for an entity I am spawning via Lua in Garry's Mod. We don't get smartedit there, and have to do it all manually.
Please go through the pages you have edited and restore the original names to them, so that others do not have to go to the history tab and go through revisions to find out what something is actually called.
I suggest you do this in the style of SmartEdit Name (realname).
Thank you. --Lexi 17:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We've tried various methods for including friendly and raw names side by side, and none of them worked. The best thing to do, better than reading VDC, is to open the FGD files provided in the SDK and read them directly. They are far more complete and up to date than what's available on this site. You can get syntax highlighting here.
The raw names were removed in the first place because while some people do need them, the remaining 98% of visitors need to see and expect to see what appears in Hammer. Since it's so easy to look things up in an FGD it makes little sense to detriment the vast majority of readers. --TomEdwards 18:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I see, thank you. Sorry for my rude tone. You might want to put this info on your user page, in case this happens again. --Lexi 13:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Doxygen

Hey you seem to be the right guy to ask about this: Do you think suggesting Doxygen to Valve would be a good idea? I think it would be a nice thing to have on the wiki since a lot is undocumented. --Robber9000 04:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I really have no idea. Why not just try? --TomEdwards 18:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Soundscripts

I wasted half an hour trying to get some custom soundscripts working in a Portal map based on that article, before consulting the offical Portal soundscript files and discovering everything was encased in quotes. Putting quotes around everything was what made it work. Unless this is a problem specific to Portal, it seems to me that the quotes are necessary to get the soundscripts working. Thelonesoldier 12:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I never use quotes. Pastebin your script and I'll have a look...you'll have whitespace in one or two values that you've got to encase. --TomEdwards 13:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Dammit, I deleted the quotes and now it works. All I did to get it to work was add the quotes, I didn't change the spacing, and now I just deleted the quotes without changing the spacing and it still works. Whatever. Thanks for your help! Thelonesoldier 21:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You deserve a medal

But I don't have one, have a cookie for now... --Jike 12:59, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) What did you find so useful? --TomEdwards 13:31, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I find all the coding stuff you've added useful --Omnicoder 15:48, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I find pretty much everything useful - And other people as well, look below... :D --Jike 17:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Custom Stylesheet

My eyes and I thank you. -Mattshu 07:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

About the edit on the Coordinates page

You've said you didn't know why you've wrote that : Y was forward, and X right. Vehicles are aligned this way, because of the Havok vehicle controller. But every other objects are aligned on : X forward, and Y right. So that something may be a source vehicle. :) I don't know if this info is of any use to you, though. --psycommando 23:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Templates

The template category already existed, and wasn't being used, and our model Wikipedia categorizes templates, and I only cat'd certain ones. It's a hassle to read through a list of hundreds of templates, but if you group a few of the more notable ones that can be useful. I admit some of them I decided sort of arbitrarily. Thelonesoldier 23:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Variables and structures

I noticed that we have two categories, one for Category:Structures and one for classes (called Category:Variables on the page), should we add the structures to the variables page and edit the description to include classes and structures? Also, I don't know how to link to category pages --Stoopdapoop 23:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Not unless the struct can be evaluated. None of the ones currently in the category can be, so they can't be called variables. (There is a category for classes, BTW.) --TomEdwards 10:47, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Wiki-structure Clarifications?

You seem to be the most in charge around here so I'm looking for your opinion.

I recently set up (and am filling) the UTIL category. (Category:UTIL). However, there's some functions that are similar to UTIL_ functions, but aren't actually UTIL functions. An example of this would be AngleVectors() - Sort of already documented but you're only going to find it by searching. I'd think something like this would be a "UTIL(itiy)" function, but it doesn't carry the UTIL_ prefix. Would you think it'd go with that, or should there be something like a "Handy functions" category, which isn't Wiki-like at all.

On another note: Do you think CBasePlayer warrants a Category, assuming most of the functions inside of it got documented? What do you think is the best way to document CBasePlayer, and it's main derivatives, CSDKPlayer, and CHL2_Player/CHL2MP_Player?

It seems like it could get awfully confusing awfully fast. -LordNed 21:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The UTIL functions seem to all be contained inside three globally-available header files (client/server/shared), so that's the standard to apply here. AngleVectors() and its friends are closed-source mathlib functions however...given their sheer number and often simplicity, it would be sensible to group families of mathlib funcs together as we've done for material parameters. Indeed AngleVectors() is linked from Vector and QAngle.
CBasePlayer definitely needs a category, as it's way too big to fit onto one page (in fact I just checked and it already has one). Whether game-specific players need the same treatment depends on how much they're doing I suppose. --TomEdwards 13:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
My biggest concern/issue is the harder I look on the wiki the more I find things have been documented but finding that information is incredibly hard around here. It doesn't help that a search for "qangle" doesn't just assume you mean "QAngle" so making things not only case specific and structure specific (Eg; AngleVectors vs AngleVectors()) is hard... The answer isn't just more redirects though because that's tacky and probably not really a solution we want.
Maybe we (as a wiki community) need to think about making it easier to find and get to the information that _is_ there?
I think the different branches are pretty major... the Template SDK uses CSDKPlayer, the HL2OBMP uses hl2mp_player (I believe), and the HL2OBSP uses hl2_player and they all have different things available to them... :S! -LordNed 21:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
You're using the simple "go to page" feature, not actually searching. I don't like that thing either, but I'm sure it could be reconfigured or even bypassed by Valve. Case sensitivity certainly does need to go! --TomEdwards 23:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
It's really a fault of Wiki's in general. That being said, I think accessibility needs to be worked on in general. Not sure how that would be done best though... `LordNed 00:04, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that redirects are tacky, and they certainly aren't difficult to implement. As for qangle, that would automatically take you to the search results page and QAngle was the first result, so that's hardly difficult to locate. I created a redirect, anyway.
Hubs and Abstact series (abstract mapping, abstract coding) are good organizational tools in addition to categories and redirects. Thelonesoldier 22:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Language Flags

The language flags should not be above the header line, because it varies in height. As it is now, there are problems whenever you visit a subpage or a redirect (and probably other stuff too). For example, and another. It was my intention to fix that with my change, I'm not sure what I broke. --Nick D. 22:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You broke the contents page, and probably lots of others that I've not checked. If a page started with a table (e.g. categories) the flags crashed into it too. You're right to point out the flaws with having them above the line, but the alternative is worse! --TomEdwards 11:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to change the game icons so that they are similar to the language flags, either appearing on the left side, or beside/above/below the flags. --Nick D. 22:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that the game icons are part of the meaning of the article itself, I'm not sure how that would help. I'm happy with the current arrangement. --TomEdwards 11:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice job

with the Choreography tutorial styling, very sleek --Campaignjunkie (talk) 21:48, 6 July 2011 (PDT)

All credit goes to Mark Wenzel. :) --Artfunkel 02:28, 7 July 2011 (PDT)

Unit scale for Blender SMD exporter

I can't seem to find the scale for Blender units to Source units for your exporter anywhere, which kinda makes it tricky to model around world geometry since I can't bring it into Blender. Mind telling me what it is? And adding it to the wiki page couldn't be a bad idea either. ;) lx45803 18:38, 3 September 2011 (PDT)

While I was digging through the Blender Modelling Walkthrough article, I noticed that dvondrakes's exporter used a scale of 1 Blender unit to 2 Hammer units. Since I'm impatient, I'll do some tests to see if you followed that, and if so, I'll pop back here to say never mind. lx45803 19:23, 3 September 2011 (PDT)
So it is. A cube of 10 blender units measures 20 units tall according to Wire rangers in GMod. Thanks for the plugin! lx45803 19:53, 3 September 2011 (PDT)
Not sure how you managed that, as it actually exports 1:1... --Artfunkel 03:11, 4 September 2011 (PDT)

Model screenshots

Are you getting your recent screenshots straight from the model viewer via the Make screenshot menu option? Mine are only exporting what seems to be a partial picture. Maybe it's my tga->jpg converter, I don't know. —Mattshu 11:32, 15 September 2011 (PDT)

I've never known make screenshot to work. I'm using PrintScreen and pasting into GIMP. --Artfunkel 11:34, 15 September 2011 (PDT)
I figured that also. Alrighty. —Mattshu 11:34, 15 September 2011 (PDT)

Codemasters

Congrats! How did you land that gig? —Mattshu 06:07, 26 September 2011 (PDT)

Thanks. Got it through the usual means: applied, was interviewed, waited for several months, got it. :) --Artfunkel 09:20, 26 September 2011 (PDT)
Nooooooooooooooo, come back. --ThaiGrocer 11:45, 26 September 2011 (PDT)

About Assault_diagram.png

Hi, i am writing an german tutorial about the assault system. So my question can i use the "Assault diagram.png" in my Tutorial? Sure i will mention you in the tutorial.

Yours faithfully --Dmx6 06:51, 12 October 2011 (PDT)Dmx6

Sure, use anything. Technically Valve own everything we submit here, but I highly doubt they will mind either. :) --Artfunkel 13:06, 20 October 2011 (PDT)

VMF to SMD 1.1

Hey, thought that I might just point out that I've released a newer version of the mentioned program. It's faster, doesn't error all the time, and more accurate too! I've responded to your comment on it, please feel free to try it again, as I do want it to be properly tested! Thanks!--UltimateSniper 14:13, 13 December 2011 (PST)