Programming help needed for the Source engine
This is another post I’ve been meaning to make for a while. In the last episode of Civil Protection, I encountered major, major bugs that would have prevented the episode from being made if I hadn’t received help with modifying the code for the game. Since then, there are still some significant bugs that I could really use help with. I’ve already sent this information to four programmers in the Source engine, but haven’t heard back from any of them. Thus, I’m trying to expand the number of eyes that can look at this. You’ll have to have some experience working with the Source engine to be of much help.
HIGH PRIORITY BUGS:
-Animation playback in recorded demos in the game is flawed. I’m not sure what’s happening, but the behavior between what’s seen in-game and what’s played back via demo is clearly different. I’ve included 2 examples of where this happens and can be reproduced reliably. While these examples are relatively subtle, I’m encountering this bug EVERYWHERE in small doses and has resulted in me having to do a lot of workarounds or redo entire scenes because of it. This bug appears to be present in Episode 1 as well, but I definitely find it more drastic in the Episode 2 engine. You will need a copy of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in order to test out the files.
Example 1 (download): Involves a book moving as a prop_physics object.
Example 2 (download): Involves a NPC turning via a scene file.
All instructions and details are included within the downloads.
BUGS I DOUBT WILL EVER GET FIXED, BUT I CAN DREAM:
-Fix the AVI output function so that it can handle files greater than 2GB before corrupting and greater than 4GB, period.
-Fix demo smoother so that it doesn’t feel compelled to reset the viewing position almost randomly when a mouse button is clicked
-Fix demo smoother so that listing a specific tick number on the timeline actually results in that tick being selected and not a semi-random larger number.
-Fix demo smoother so that the camera path shown in preview mode is actually the end result once the demo is modified (and not slightly higher or lower)
-Fix demo smoother so setting keyframes and targets actually appear in the position your camera shows at the time
-Fix demo smoother so that when paused and moving the camera, it doesn’t cause the camera to move up or down after moving forward or backward by a certain amount.
-Find a way to apply high quality engine motion blur to the entire scene, not just based on player movement, AND be capable of exporting the effect to AVI or raw frames.
If you’re able to solve any of these bugs, please contact me at [email protected]. If a reliable fix is produced to any of these problems, it means there’s a real chance your name could appear in the credits for every future episode of Civil Protection.
