Thread: Half-life SDK, where are the constants?

// MP5 Round
gSkillData.plrDmgMP5 = GetSkillCvar( "sk_plr_9mmAR_bullet");


This is what I found. If the damage value is indeed initiated here - well its not in the programming sdk persay.. Cvar's are generally stored in txt files with appropriate values. Id say theres a .cfg file with damage values listed nex to the appropriate cvar. Which is loaded when the game starts up. This is how quake works. You may have to search through a PAK file for the needed file.

However there is away around this. Add a new console command or piggy back some pre defined function so that the value of dmg is printed into the console. IE. That will tell you what the value is. After that you can do a cheap trick - find all the instances where the member variable of the struct is used in a multiplyer for damage - and replace it with your own value.

Good luck.

However there is away around this. Add a new console command or piggy back some pre defined function so that the value of dmg is printed into the console. IE. That will tell you what the value is. After that you can do a cheap trick - find all the instances where the member variable of the struct is used in a multiplyer for damage - and replace it with your own value.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking too. I will look for the CVAR file, hopefully there is one.

Found it. "skill.cfg" in the root directory of pak0.pak. I can't believe I didn't know that was there.

this is off topic but I always thought hl was q2 but reading that link wizard posted puts that to rest. also, what exactly is the connection between the SDK and the main engine itself? I've never fiddled with SDKs, but I'm assuming it is just a way that lets you add your own custom components to an already existing module (the module being the engine!). I also just read that they did write some of their new parts of the engine in C++ (i.e the AI).

EDIT: that link also said that quake1 did AI in 'interpreted Quake C', what the hell do they mean? lol

wizard you should send us the source to the Unreal engine (I can't come up with the $300, 000 it costs or whatever for it )

Basicly the way the quake 3 and half life SDK's work is as plug ins.

All the pattented revolutionary type of programming is what the exe engine consists of. Rendering pipelines- resource loading etc. etc. etc.

The SDK's are actually compiled DLL's for client and server (and user interface for q3) which are copies of the GAMEPLAY code. That is to say structures - movement physics, game interaction, items, everything related to the Playing of the game is located in the client and server dlls. (Server dll doenst have progmatic code for graphics - thats client side)

You will notice there are usualy some protected structures or variables that you are not allowed to change - as these are core/engine reliant. The exe of the game (engine) communicates dlls or virtual machines to each other using these dependant variables and through "system calls". They are called system calls in the q3 sdk anyway. Theres no way to modify these as they are part of the engine.

So anyways all the game play code of the game are located in dlls or vm's. With the sdk - you are allowed to modify those rules as you see fit.

I hope that clears some things up.



Also - the quake 1 game wasn't actually coded in c or c++, it was coded in "Quake C". Which is a variation on the C language. The language is very similer but there are subtle (and not so) differences. John carmack is just that uber - altering the c language to perform to his standards - what an egotystical son of... j/k.

easy- write your own compiler that creates the machine code. Its easy to creat your own language. I created one called "Jeremy". Its not very function, but by god it prints out Jeremy. The progmatic code is:

emancipate Jeremy;


See. I just created my own "language".

QuakeC is a language developed by id Software for their smash hit game, Quake. It is a subset of the C programming language, and has many many differences. While not particularly powerful, it made Quake one of the most easy to edit games of it's day and spawned literally millions of mods. In fact the total quantity of mods easily exceeds Quake II, ?Quake III, and and ?Half-Life combined. However, most of them are no longer available as the great hub of the community, PlanetQuake lost interest in Quake, when Quake II came out, and started dumping sites and mods left and right. Another major hit to the community is that cdrom.com stopped, a long time ago, accepting uploads for Quake and even the new location of the community archives doesn't accept uploads.

But anyway, QuakeC is compiled with a QCC program (such as FrikQCC) into a ?progs.dat file. The file is read by the ?qcvm inside the engine. This method is incredibly secure and cross platform, much like ?Java.

from: http://wiki.quakesrc.org/index.php/QuakeC

search google for quake C stuff.
bit of a difference between writing mods with quake c , and quake sdk i think.

no.











most disapointing post ever huh?
i know.

Originally posted by Silvercord
This is cool stuff, I honestly never knew any of this to be honest, I've never heard of Quake C.

Anywho, this is even more off topen, but goten in the quake3 BSP file do you kno whow to determine which brushes are SKY?

There are brush texture content flags, but I didn't got very far with textureflags in general. However, you can definetly get the information from the shaders. Like Alpha Blending/testing etc. It's all defined in the shaders.

All skyboxes are shaders because there is only one "texturename" specified (which is a shadername) for the box but 5 are used. The shader defines those texturenames.

edit: the shader setting is called "surfaceparm sky".

Originally posted by Silvercord
i was just told it is just a brush with a texture flag with the third bit set

Do you have a complete list of flags ? If not, I would not rely on the third bit.
Some days ago I thought I had found a flag for billboarding... well, it worked in most cases, but not always - I produced some collateral damage like a few meshes squished down to 2 dimensions (that kept facing me) and created some really strange holes in the world

Anyway, good luck with that bit.