Hey everybody!
So, as you've no doubt noticed from the relative silence and lack of media, we haven't posted an update in a while. Here's what's been going on:
We were close to giving the testing team the alpha we talked about in the last news post (albeit way behind schedule). Everything was going along fine. Then Hammer got Valviosis.
Essentially, the SteamPipe update broke our ability to work on the Hazard Course. The SDK Launcher, which is being phased out by Valve, no longer launches Hammer, (The only level design tool Source currently has) and we haven't been able to get any of the "new" SteamPipe Hammer executables playing nice with BM (or anything, for that matter) - essentially, every time we make the game configuration for it manually, the editor breaks.
We're hoping that this lack of compatibility is a temporary thing, and that Valve will get everything patched up soon, but failing that, we have to wait until Black Mesa finishes porting to the 2013 SDK and gets released on Greenlight until we'll (hopefully!) be able to resume work. Until one of those happens, though, we seem to be dead in the water - simply configuring the 2013 version of Hammer to work with a 2007 mod seems to not be possible under the current system, and the 2007 version of Hammer is busted too.
If any fellow level designers out there have a fix, we'd love to hear it - we want to get this addon out the door even more than you want to play it!
I for one am looking forward to the day the open-source Sledge Editor supports Source.
I'd just like to mention that the error showed isn't the only error. For most of us, the SDK won't even launch, and it's not isolated. After asking around, creating threads, etc. it's not just us. Woohoo! -_-
Valve really needs to fix it.
Valve needs to leave things alone if they work. They always end up breaking more then they fix or improve.
It's gonna be working soon, the same happened with Hl1 modding and it got fixed.
Why da fuq does Valve not fix this asap? This is going on for months now. Hell, Modding is one of the main pillars that Source is so succesfull..
Actually that started to happen on earlier this week..
The total lack of SDK function is recent, but Valve has been making and breaking the SDK in parts while moving to Steampipe for months.
Damn. Gaben Gaben Gaben......
I too can't wait for Sledge to get out of Alpha, Hammer is just too dated and limited.
Update Source SDK Base 2007 to Steampipe.
Extract the HL2 VPKs to the root common/Half-life 2/hl2/ folder.
At common/Half-Life 2/hl2/bin folder, configure the GameConfig.txt with your mod, changing GameExe and GameExeDir to the Steampipe Source SDK Base 2007.
Add the following to your gameinfo.txt:
game | all_source_engine_paths | hl2/hl2_textures.vpk
game | all_source_engine_paths | hl2/hl2_sound_vo_english.vpk
game | all_source_engine_paths | hl2/hl2_sound_misc.vpk
game | all_source_engine_paths | hl2/hl2_misc.vpk
platform | all_source_engine_paths | platform/platform_misc.vpk
(Join the "|" because ModDB doesn't allow me to put them together).
This will make work again your tools (Note: the VGUI model select will make crash Hammer at open, so switch to another game configuration every time you want to place props).
Ok, I thought I was the only one receiving these errors (And it's funny because the main reason I was using Hammer was to give a second shot at it, because I was so far in confusion the first time. Although I had problems a month ago when I originally tried again, and I got errors that led to that I could not start up the created map.) Lousy SteamPipe, first Portal Mods now creating Source mods all together. I don't even know what SteamPipe is.
SteamPipe is a distribution system that Valve is pushing. Apparently it's just faster in general, but apparently has the drawback of breaking fuggin' everything and creating unnecessary hassle for mod developers.
I can open Hammer through Source SDK again. Check to make sure it's working properly on your end.
Also make sure that both Source SDK and SDK Base 2007 are updated by verifying their cache.
Valve has really dropped the ball for source modders lately. It's really depressing. It's like they don't care that tons of work can go down the drain by releasing these (unnecessary)forced updates.
Just a quick update, some of us are up and running again. We're getting busy with exams and work, but when everything plateaus off, we'll hopefully get some media up for you guys.