Quote:
Rejoice mod creators, for tonight's Orange Box update also brings about the release of the binaries for the particle editor, the commentary editor, and the materials editor. Mike Durand, via the HLDS mailing list, mentioned that he is "still working on an SDK update that includes a convenient way to
launch the tools as well as some example particles and commentary files."

For the time being, you can run any of the three games with the additional command line of '-tools' included in order to access the new tools.

Full documentation is also on the way. For the time being, have a read through of the CliffsNotes version of the changes.

• 1. These three tools run in the same process as the engine and you can switch between the tools.
• 1. The F10 button changes context between playing the game in the 'Engine Viewport' window and editing content via the current tool.
• 1. In the lower left corner is an input field that allows the user to dispatch console commands to the game while working with the tools.
• 1. Particle systems are defined in .pcf files that are located in the 'particles' subdirectory beneath the game directory. You should extract some of the TF2, Portal, or Ep2 particle files from the game caches if you would like to see some examples. The SDK update will include example particles.
• 1. Commentary node information is stored in text files in the games' 'maps' subdirectory and the established naming convention is _commentary.txt. Again, you can extract these files from our shipping games to check out the editor ahead of the SDK update and example nodes.
• 1. The material editor is a GUI front-end and preview tool that provides a more convenient way of tweaking materials settings. You can extract VMT files from our shipping games or those from your own mods to check it out.

So has anyone got the particle editor to work? I've heard reports of crashing upon saving and some people who can't run it at all. I myself get to the save part and then it crashes.

Does no one care about this? It opens HUGE possibilities! and I mean ### HUGE

Like you can now make your own fizzler effects, change the portal gun fireball thing, add new effects for custom technologies you've invented... (all can be pakrated into the BSP)

Here is a screenshot of something a much less mature was begging me to to last night:

The pyro "sperm gun"
Once the tools are updated and we can save the effects I'll be able to send him this file and he will see all pyros spewing sperm everywhere or a mapper can use pakrat to put it in the BSP and then every player will see it for that map only.

Seriously guys, more excitement please!

oh i thought that was water

How do I get it? '.' I found nothing about it in Steam...

By the way, do you need Orange Box to get it? I only have TF2 and Portal because I'm nto interested in Half-Life 2. That looks and sounds great, It would be awesome to get it.

I wouldnt have thought you'd need the full OB

Quote:
For the time being, you can run any of the three games with the additional command line of '-tools' included in order to access the new tools.

Thats how you 'get' them (you've already got them, everyone with portal/tf2/hl2ep2 has them already)

in the steam games list click portal and hit properties, open up the "launch options" and punch in "-tools" then simply run portal

Ah thanks :> I'll try it now and edit if it doesn't work.

This is awesome, I haven't had a chance to really play with it yet though.

What Portal particle effects are there exactly?

Fizzler, ALL the portal stuff (with the exception of the flames texture) so thats the ball it fires, the sparks when you fire it at metal...etc, the fire(will be popular), neurotoxins, some GLaDOS destruction, the lifts and I think thats about it for portal stuff.

Double post, I think this one deserves its own so put the bill on my tab :p

A sinister fizzler:

Thats something you can do in about 2 minutes work (including taking the screenshot) so you can see this will open a lot more variety for our new fizzlers, whilst we have to do the more complex functions with brush entities still now we can clearly mark them out as different to the player.

Oh yeah, still can't save so its still useless

those red fizzlers would be perfect in TFV mappack

http://steampowered.com/v/index.php?are ... 1621&cc=US

Quote:
A new Source SDK Beta has been released. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Source SDK Beta, and then allow Steam to restart itself. The specific changes for this Beta include:

Enhancements
* Particle Editor, Material Editor, and Commentary Editor are now included in the Source SDK
* Updated SDK source code for Orange Box mods
* Added example particle system files to SDK content

Bug Fixes
* Updated Linux binaries and makefiles for dedicated servers and server plugins
* The Faceposer phoneme editor now pops up a warning message when a phoneme cannot be saved

Known Issues
* SDK shaders have not yet been updated for Orange Box games
* New editors can be accessed by adding '-tools' to the launch options for Orange Box games or mods utilizing the Orange Box engine

And to think I spent so much time trying to reverse engineer the particle files I was able to change a few of the parameters such as the partial effects name,the textures it used or the color of the effect (fizzlers) I had even gotten it to load the files header and print out a list of the particles parameters, unfortunately schoolwork consumed me and I was unable to finish it. Oh well in the end I am just happy to be able to make these cool effects now!

Remmiz wrote:
http://steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=posts&id=1621&cc=US

Quote:

A new Source SDK Beta has been released. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Source SDK Beta, and then allow Steam to restart itself. The specific changes for this Beta include:

Enhancements
* Particle Editor, Material Editor, and Commentary Editor are now included in the Source SDK
* Updated SDK source code for Orange Box mods
* Added example particle system files to SDK content

Bug Fixes
* Updated Linux binaries and makefiles for dedicated servers and server plugins
* The Faceposer phoneme editor now pops up a warning message when a phoneme cannot be saved

Known Issues
* SDK shaders have not yet been updated for Orange Box games
* New editors can be accessed by adding '-tools' to the launch options for Orange Box games or mods utilizing the Orange Box engine

but how can you launch them from SDK?

To use the new tools you add -tools to the target on a short cut. Open the portal shortcut and change the target from:

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 400

to

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 400 -tools

and the game will open and the editors will open.

How do you make these effects? Is there any guide?

Due to my larger participation in tf2maps.net I'm posting all the goos stuff over there, http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=2472&page=3 I made an intro thread that should get you started, I'm trying to pool all the knowledge I can on it so POST WHAT YOU FIND and I'll stick it all into one place

> Quote:**

* Updated SDK source code for Orange Box mods

**

Forgive me if I'm wrong but that means only one thing....... Proper Portal mods!!!

youme wrote:
**
Quote:

* Updated SDK source code for Orange Box mods

**

Forgive me if I'm wrong but that means only one thing....... Proper Portal mods!!!

Unless it doesn't include the code for Portal and just the new engine things that came with Orange Box...I'll have to create a mod and take a peek through the code here in a bit.

E1025 wrote:
To use the new tools you add -tools to the target on a short cut. Open the portal shortcut and change the target from:

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 400

to

"C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 400 -tools

and the game will open and the editors will open.

How do you make these effects? Is there any guide?

but it said the tools were included in the SDK... i see none. i even browsed the sdk orangebox bin folder... nothing there about particles

Ah, why not. Why wouldn't some of us make commentaries?

# FYI: its fixed now, you can save all the effects you make.