ENTITY MAKER CREATING TOO MUCH

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 14, 2012
i was fiddling with the entity maker to spawn a new cube if it was destoyed, but it keeps messing with the actual cube dropper in the same map. It also spawns 2 cubes for every fizzle
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 14, 2012
Replied 3 hours later
Do your entity makers start with the @-prefix? And/or do they have the same name?

If you have two entity makers with the same name, they are both triggered resulting of getting two cubes instead of one. Then if the cubes have the same name it will also trigger both entity makers resulting in the same errors.

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 14, 2012
Replied 17 hours later
yeah i kinda found that out the hard way. Just for fun i put in two cubes at separate distances over a giant vat of acid that respawn at their own locations and watched an infinite amount of cubes explode out of nowhere. It didn't take long for the game to crash.

Now tell me about this prefix thing, I cannot find a guide to spawning entities for the life of me

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baca25
342 Posts
Posted Apr 14, 2012
Replied 49 minutes later
step 1: place the box you want to spawn, where you want it to spawn. Then name it whatever you want. Lets name it boxy.

step 2: make an point_template entity. name it boxy_temp. Under Template 1 make the value named boxy.
The point_template is going to be the list of all the things you want to be spawned. In this case you only want the cube, so you only use template 1. If you wanted to spawn more things you just add in more templates.

step 3: Make an env_entity_maker. name it boxy_entity. Under the "point_template To Spawn" change the value to boxy_temp. Also change the value of "PostSpawn Direction Variance" to 0.
The env_entity_maker is going to be the spawner of whatever is in the point_template.

step 4: Open up boxy again and go to its Outputs tab. Add an output and make it My output named: Onfizzled. Targets entities named: boxy_entity. Via this input: forcespawn.

step 5: Make a trigger or a button or whatever to spawn the cube. For instance make a button. and in its outputs make it My output named: Onpressed. Targets entities named: boxy. Via this input: dissolve. Then add another output. My output named: Onpressed. Targets entities named: boxy_entity. Via this input: forcespawn. Then check the fire only once box, and set it to delay 0.1sec.

This is just one way to make a simple box spawner, where the box spawns when it gets destroyed, and its first spawn has to be hit with a button. You can just mess with the outputs to make it work differently.

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 2 hours later
Aw man i was totally doing all that except for that one value. I also has a logic_auto make the cube spawn on map load. And for some reason that wasn't even working.

But your method got it working for me and didn't eff with the cube dropper. Thanks for the help.

Now since i got your attention, is there more tutorial sites with very extensive info i can use so i dont have to come here to the forums asking every single time i get stuck?

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Spam Nugget
492 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 2 hours later
Click the link up the top of the page that says portal 2 mapping wiki, that site should be your first stop when looking for information. You can also just try googling things, and there are also heaps of tutorials on youtube.
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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 3 minutes later
well yeah, obviously, but some things on the wiki that i do not understand i cannot find on youtube. This topic specifically for instance
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 1 hour later

Fracture wrote:
well yeah, obviously, but some things on the wiki that i do not understand i cannot find on youtube. This topic specifically for instance

You could always quote from the wiki and ask I don't understand I did everything you aaaasked what's on the wiki; could someone explain? Then you show you've searched and I think people will be happy to help :smile:

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 12 hours later
I have met people who are less than hospitable. :sad:
I do appreciate all the help, I just like to get things working sooner than later. I try to optimize the time i have by getting 'the jist of it' from simple tutorials. Some people just complicate things and skip over the info i am looking for. One youtube channel of tutorials i had used was pretty ameaturish, hence why my first map was pretty messy
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 14 minutes later

Fracture wrote:
I have met people who are less than hospitable. :sad:
I do appreciate all the help, I just like to get things working sooner than later. I try to optimize the time i have by getting 'the jist of it' from simple tutorials. Some people just complicate things and skip over the info i am looking for. One youtube channel of tutorials i had used was pretty ameaturish, hence why my first map was pretty messy

I see, but in most cases the long shot will get you more familiar with the techniques so you'll be better in using them in the future. Which is awesome because next time you already know what to do!

My first map costed me a couple of weeks before it was "done" it still had a horrible amount of misaligned textures, off-grid stuff and bad lighting. Since then I've learned a lot about portal 2 mapping. I took the challenge to the test a couple of weeks ago and I made the same map with better looks, good lighting, no misaligned textures, optimized and a lot better looking in only a matter of 3 hours!

My point is: when you start you have to learn a lot and you won't be able to map super speed. Learning good techniques will let you profit in the future though. A good base is very important!

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Kaleido
272 Posts
Posted Apr 15, 2012
Replied 1 hour later

Fracture wrote:
I try to optimize the time i have by getting 'the jist of it' from simple tutorials.

No offense, but this is an awful way to learn anything... that's like if someone said "I know calculus, I skimmed that one textbook that one time... now how do functions work again?"

If you're watching a tutorial video, have Hammer open at the same time, and every single action the guy does, pause the video and go do it yourself, then resume. It doesn't even matter if he's bad at talking or explaining, you'll learn a LOT more following along and trying to understand why things are being done a certain way. In fact, if you do this enough, you'll quickly start to understand and even identify when the tutorial is doing something that isn't optimal and you can build it even better immediately...

"Skimming" will get you nowhere. Hammer is very complicated, and the only way to learn is to do it. Over. and over. and over.

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 4 hours later
@Kaleido: Who the hell said anything about skimming?! I already pay attention and do the do that the tutorial is doing. I am just simply saying that I learn differently. I am simple minded, and simple mindedness isn't something that hinders me. It just means I look at things a different way. And all I want is a tutorial that gets straight to the damn point. "This does that! That does this, This makes that do this, Don't do this cause it will break and go boom."

I am nobodies fool, I am just impatient and I don't like it when some guy on youtube or on wiki drones on about something and completely loses me halfway through a process where I don't understand what they did or why or how or when.

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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 5 hours later
I see that you like to see this does that. Specially with normal things like paint that's really useful. However the further you get into hammer, the more complex things you want to do this does that doesn't really work anymore. You'll need to know a bunch of parameters and this -> that gets more complicated.

That's why I think it's a good idea to try and at least read the entire vdc page of things you try to use. For the input/output selection I just suggest scanning it. See if it's an output you haven't seen before and read what it does :smile:

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Spam Nugget
492 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 4 hours later
Also, the dsicussions pages of the VDC have some useful info on them as well at times. I would ressommed giving them a look too, especially if you cant get something working.
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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 7 hours later
AUGH!!!!

I WONT LEARN FUCK ALL IF NO ONE DROPS ME SOME LINKS TO PLACES I CANT FIND!!

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Paradoxic R3mix
87 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 11 minutes later

Fracture wrote:
AUGH!!!!

I WONT LEARN F*CK ALL IF NO ONE DROPS ME SOME LINKS TO PLACES I CANT FIND!!

Okay, Just calm down. Scroll up, and look at the dashboard, next to downloads, there is the link to the VDC, if you still can't find it, here is a link. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wik ... vel_Design

EDIT: I suck at life, so ignore this post.

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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 8 minutes later

Fracture wrote:
AUGH!!!!

I WONT LEARN FUCK ALL IF NO ONE DROPS ME SOME LINKS TO PLACES I CANT FIND!!

IF YOU KEEP TALKING IN ALL CAPS RAGE I DOUBT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO HELP YOU!!!

I'm sure you can learn, even if no one drops you links to places you can't find. The vdc has a lot of resources and if you ask a question not in all caps but just polite people will (try) to answer it.

Mapping does require some patience and if you can't get your help right away try to do something else in the mean time: work on another map or do other things in your map that still need to be taken care of.

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Fracture
797 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 1 hour later
D:< my patience draws thin. I have BEEN to the wiki, and i don't know WHAT the VDC is!!!
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 16 minutes later
VDC is Valve Development Community/ the wiki.
If you have specific questions: ask them, saying you've searched everywhere without asking what you want to ask doesn't really work :wink:
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RustyDios
154 Posts
Posted Apr 16, 2012
Replied 1 minute later

Fracture wrote:
AUGH!!!!

I WONT LEARN EDIT ALL IF NO ONE DROPS ME SOME LINKS TO PLACES I CANT FIND!!

Well that is an interesting point there.... because if YOU have bothered to look and can't find something, what the hell are the chances that the rest of us can find it either??. The joy of the internet is that it makes the same information available to everyone, to anyone in fact. If YOU want to spend the time searching for something and learning something then DO IT YOURSELF. Other people will not continually spoon feed you information unless you show that are willing to do some digging for yourself.
Google. Go Search, your answer might not be on page one.
Valve Developer Center. Top right hand corner. Search Box.
Interlopers.NetOkay so it's based for Half life and Half life 2, but the principles still apply to the hammer editor and mapping for Portal2. OH LOOK, top right hand corner, WOW, a search box....
HalfWit2Okay, another half-life based source mapping guidebook .
Aperture Labs Portal mapping community (with many members shared between here and there from what I can see).. huh, top right hand corner, again... is that a Search box?
TWP Main Search Page
Counterstrike:Source tutorial page

..... ... .. .... .. And I could go on and on and on, and all that was just from pages 1 and 2 of putting "Source Hammer Tutorials" into google admittedly about four months ago now, when I started to learn stuff myself.... and those "boring" bits in tutorials are there for a reason, they teach you something that may be useful later, so when a later tutorial goes "okay do that Vandango Translation on that box to get it doing the Reverse Triple Laser stunt here".. unless you bothered to listen in the first place your now doubly scrwd with no clue what the guy is on about and will have to actually WASTE time "re-leaning what you thought you knew"... ... .. ... ...

Whining like a child, as you did, will get you nowhere. Open your eyes and start using them to see what is put in front of your face.

Sorry if my post has offended you or any one else here, my intention is only to make you see what you can find on your own if you are willing to go and look for it.