Copper here. I've been pretty discouraged lately. Source has been really obstinate and seems to hate this mod with a vengeance. Crashes and various issues abound, making it extremely difficult to progress, and therefore I've been feeling pretty out of it lately. I also haven't been coordinating with my team members at all, really, which I really should be doing. The mod is a bit of a mess right now, but I'm doing my best to keep it going and increase the quality of my work, some of which is good and has received positive feedback, but some of which has, honestly, been somewhat mediocre, especially compared to great mods such as City 17: EP1, OpFor 2, Titan RCIX and games of those caliber.
My personal goal is to get a career in the game design industry, but the problem is if it were a choice between me and one of those mappers, it wouldn't be a difficult choice at all. This too is kind of hurting my morale and keeping my output down. The odd bugs are the real killer though. I usually get errors like "Windows cannot find the file specified" when compiling, which are annoying but fixable, but recently the maps have been spontaneously crashing, getting other visual errors, failing to load at all or taking ages to do anything. As such, I haven't been able to do much testing.
As for my poor coordination, Time Zones are partially to blame. My teammates are +3 and +7 hours ahead of me, so I fear that if I contact them too late It'll be at a bad time. I know I've been bugged late at night by friends in different time zones, and it's not pleasant. When my school gets out it's already 10:00 at night for crazyb2000, the only coder for the mod. This is a bit problematic, as you may imagine.
But anyway, I haven't been completely useless. I have some new media to release, one of which is only an editor screenshot due to the aforementioned crashing issue. If anyone has any idea what's going on, please tell me. Suggestions on how to improve the aesthetic quality of my maps are also greatly appreciated.
This one is heavily WIP, as you can probably tell.
Don't demoralize about the game development. I want to study that too. From what I can see, it isn't that much about mapping and more about programming. Even if you would map, the makers of the mapper would have a much better knowledge of the errors and crashes.
That game looks Good! I want it NOW! Please i want Demo and Full Version :)
it does amaze me a bit to hear that you have so much troubles now with source mapping, because i did have my share of crashes etc in the past but the last half year to a year i don't have any crashes anymore, at all! so, Hammer and source are steady now, therefore i assume that the troubles you have are coming from stuff you have added yourself.
maybe its a good thing to reinstall HL2 and Hammer etc again clean, and then add your mod files again, after you have cleaned them up as far as that is needed. sometimes we have lots of custom added files in our mod that are outdated or not used after all, those can cause troubles sometimes to.
crashes etc are indeed VERY demoralizing, therefore i suggest you now first start to reinstall everything and clean up when necessary, or at least start to fix these issues. because you will have to fix them anyway, and when you move on now it will only get worse and probably also more difficult to fix because the mod grows over time. so things are harder to find then. and most important, like you said, the crashes make that you are "feeling pretty out of it lately".
what could make that you otherwise stop developing at all.
about a career in the gaming industry, don't worry. i get the feeling that this is your first project, or maybe second or so. Mapping takes a few years of time at least to really get good at it. so just don't compare your work yet with far more advanced mappers, just keep doing what you do and over time you will get better and better. and then a job will follow probably soon, when you are really good at it.
so, just keep practicing and hopefully you will be able to fix the issues so you can mod again without any troubles because those are really spoilers of fun!!
success, a fellow mapper.
Leon
edit;
Just read that you are 15 years of ages, don't worry. you still have plenty time to learn. maybe you should try to get on a game dev shool, these are really great and you learn a lot of things there.
The mod seems to be pretty cool, keep going at it!
I'm wondering if it might be my computer. It's aging and is having some problems itself. I'll try reinstalling HL2, Hammer, etc. and see if it works. Thanks for the tips!
You can't let Source get the better of you. You gotta kick its *** and make it obey you!
Call it what you want. But Source isn't the problem. Those errors you're finding can be easily solved. Perhaps experiment with Source engine a little more then jump into a mod.
As easy as Source may be presented to people, it's a lot more advanced than you think. Instead of aiming to be as good as a person which it seems you are trying to be, aim above them;
Okay, it can be easily fixed? Then tell me how. I know more or less what's going on, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when just about every map I make crashes on start-up. I'm not an idiot like you claim I am, I worked for quite a long time before I had the nerve to publish anything. And no, I never said Source is easy. NEVER. I am fully aware about the intricacies of the engine. As said earlier, I have a lot of experience with the engine. over 1500 hours, while this may pale compared to some older mappers, I'm not totally green. Please make sure you actually know the facts before accusing me of underestimating the engine. Look at my screenshots. They're not INCREDIBLE but could they be produced by a simpleton? No.
Your last point is that I should be better than the people who are better than I am. That's basically what I said I was trying to do. To paraphrase my post;
"I need to be better than the rest in order to complete my goals."
So we agree on that point at least.
I have not once used the word 'idiot'. I mearly stated that should experiment more in order to grasp Valve's engine. You seem to get extremely hostile when it comes to criticism though.
I may seem hostile, and if I do I apologize. I was a bit offended though, idiot may have been an exaggeration. However, you are making assumptions about my experiences and claiming that these problems are really easy to fix and I'm too green to understand. You're also avoiding my question. If I truly am missing something very simple, then please do me a favor and tell me what I should do since it's so easy.
I don't believe in giving people the answers. Learning knowledge organically is the only way that developers today can learn to become what they're worth. My assumptions are based on your post, it's not like I'm assuming without evidence now is it.
*sigh*. Wait. You don't believe in giving people the answers? You say people should learn? How can I learn without others supplying answers. That's HOW you learn, save for trial and error which is innefficient and could result in more breakage. So I assume you would discourage use of the VDC since it is "other people just giving away answers"? Listen, if you don't want to give me any help, fine. You did say it was very simple, which seems to indicate that it is merely "don't use this entity like this" or something along that line, in which case learning it from another person or from experience would make absolutely zero difference. It seems like you don't actually know what to do since you've done noting but dodge the question.
I've answered your question. You're choosing to ignore it. Grow your knowledge of Source organically.
This comment is currently awaiting admin approval, join now to view.