Saturday, July 16, 2005

Wishlist

Suggested Changes/Alterations/Additions to the Hammer Editor

Note: I am by no means a skilled Hammer user. I've only had maybe a week's worth of focused immersion. If some of these things actually are possible in the editor itself (that is, not in Face Poser, Model Viewer or through modding the game) then I would definitely like to know.

1. Add complete functionality to all the enemies in the editor that aren't fully-implemented: the different synths, stalkers, the Advisor, icthyosaur.

2. Make User Interface alterations possible from an entity. Maybe just have a few different kinds of possible additions.

3. Make scripting functions. As in NPC branching responses that do not utilize scripts.txt or require recorded voice files or phoneme extraction.

4. More func_precipitation options, including water splashes where rain intersects water.

5. Directed phys_explosion. Tie it to a func_illusionary brush?

6. Skin previewer.

7. Selectable env_screenoverlay options: Cel-shaded, black and white, washed-out, sepia and others.

8. Moveable sun/moon entities able to be connected to time-based interpolating light_environment (sunsets, sunrises, crazy Xen-sky, that sort of thing).

9. Render Gordon in-engine, or at least allow a secondary rendered-model option. I know, I know, Valve is still working on this, how to animate the model because it doesn't match up to the dimensions implied by the first-person perspective, which is why there's no third-person perspective yet . . . so I understand why it's not there. I just, y'know, want it there.

10. Upon implementation of #9, go ahead and give us mirrors.

11. Cloth simulation, possibly as a func_illusionary or maybe a flexible solid. Tricky.

12. func_brush with moving water textures for waterfalls, cascades, et. al. Variable flow and splash when intersecting water brushes.

13. func_water_analog improvements. Fogging, reflection, more control over appearance in general. No more workarounds, please.

14. To round out the water wishes, actual physically simulated water. Haha. No, really. This is a long-term dream. Even just a kind of func_physbox that is constrained by world geometry and has a certain level of coherence which, when lost, turns the physbox into a puddle shader or large droplet particles - something like that.

15. Make func_tracktrains spawn the way they're built in Hammer, instead of the weird x/y flip from right-facing to left-facing. Can't be too hard to fix, can it?

16. Physics prototyper. A simple way of testing out different properties of the physics entities without inserting them, compiling and running. Maybe this could be a standalone program some diligent person creates.

17. Allow NPC info_node sharing within a certain radius. This may actually be possible, I haven't found out yet. It's my understanding, however, that once an NPC finds a node to move to, that node becomes locked for any other NPCs.

18. Allow multiple cameras to display on different monitors at the same time. This also may be possible, though by all accounts it takes some pretty crafty workarounds. Maybe an invisible blocking brush of some kind?

19. Tree and vegetation creator. I'm sure there are standalone programs that would do this, but it would be nice to have a simplified one in Hammer itself, control height, branching, color changes, that kind of thing.

20. Faster model previewer. The one in Hammer, not the Model Viewer program (which works fine). The one that you bring up when placing a prop entity, which only shows the model .jpgs anyway but for some reason is slow as molasses.

21. True curves. Long-term.

22. Moving cloud layer. func_clouds maybe? An env_animatedsky entity?

That's what I got for now.

I'm sure I'll find the need to make more wishes.

Please read this post, Valve.

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