Soul Destroying Kit

[Blink]

Pi Mu Rho has posted his concerns with the current state of the SDK over at Halflife2.net

I've been using Worldcraft/Hammer since 1996, and the Source SDK since its first release, and you know what? It's got steadily worse in that time. Sure, there's been improvements to individual tools - Hammer, most notably, has a lot of new features. Of course, it also has a lot more bugs. Hammer, however, is not the worst culprit. The SDK launcher is.

Read the full article and see if you agree.

Has the SDK steadily declined?

[Noodles]

Very good article and well written, though it isn't saying much that hasn't been said for the last couple of months. Agree with pretty much all of it, naturally, and to be honest I don't think anyone who has used the SDK for some time will disagree with what is said.

It is true that Valve have said they are 'too busy making games', I've seen this reply a few times, on the VDC wiki Hammer request page too. While I understand that for the company the games come first as a matter of profit, however as written in the article Valve are one of the leading 'mod-friendly' companies (could even be the most?) and they do make a big thing about that. And lately I agree they have in a way been failing us. This used to be more understandable around the L4D era and the TF2 updates, as they were clearly seen to be working on tangible content. But now that's over and Valve seem to be in somewhat of a calm stage before the build up to Portal 2 (and, for gods' sake, have they forgotten their title game??) I'd hope they'd use that to fix some of the major problems.
However with the AlienSwarm release, things just got worse, it's near impossible to mod easily and there is little or no documentation for it. But I'll put that down to time, of course.

I hope this article helps to encourage Valve to fix some of the more glaring problems, and more still I hope it brings to their attention some of the less-known problems (like Gameconfig resets).

Also, I'd love to press Valve to release their own mdl decompiling tools, we badly need up to date versions. Sometimes makes me wish I had the knowledge on how to write those programs, they are amazing tools. I'd ask Jed to do it but he always seems such a busy chap.

TL;DR - Nothing we don't know, but maybe it'll give Valve the wake-up call we've all been hoping for.

[Plague]

Its a sad thing, but some how I think this strange SDK ignoring behavior is for a reason.

This more or less started when the SDK started being backwards compatible.
Over time now we have 3 engine versions and 3 other single SDKs with their respective Engine branches.
Although i'm fast to say Valve might be pretty lazy on this, I'm beginning to think that this downwards spiral is almost required. Be it that Valve is indeed being lazy about their SDK then they'll have to eventually fix it.

But somewhere deep in my heart i honestly think that Valve might be cropping up something for us.
They are fast to say they are a community driven company yet their tool set says otherwise.
Maybe things are only like this because Valve is working on, we can hope, a major update to the engine.

The long wait for HL2:EP3, the large list of games that bring new updates to the engine.
Its like their testing features as they go, similar to how they claim the TF2 Meet the Team videos are made.

We could either do two things,
Believe in Valve and wait
or
Begin to press them more.

[poisonic]

they should have COMBINEd the 3 Engines in one solid one....

[Plague]

I think HL2:DM is the only game left on the 06' engine?
The only other reason is for mods that did not convert to the new engine.

Wont ever happen due to Valve being sincere to them...

[Terr]

Hammer, however, is not the worst culprit. The SDK launcher is.

Come to think of it, I reckon I could probably hack off some pieces of PackBsp and create an SDK launcher comprised entirely of non-Valve code, if someone hasn't already.

[Plague]

Hammer, however, is not the worst culprit. The SDK launcher is.

Come to think of it, I reckon I could probably hack off some pieces of PackBsp and create an SDK launcher comprised entirely of non-Valve code, if someone hasn't already.

That quote should not be taken too serious, while the launcher is quite a pain Hammer still has its bad sides.

But that would still benefit the mod community entirely!
Imagine, an ultimate user-made SDK-Launcher!
Would use a combo of Valve and other user-made utility's to create the best modding tool set!

[city14]

Totally possible, it's just that the sdk launched games rely on the fact that the launcher is running a lot of the time.

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT DONE! OR EVEN HELP!

[MáØ]

Honestly, all Valve has to do is write a bit of code for the SDK for plug-ins, the community would fix hammer all own is own. I guarantee it.

[Plague]

Honestly, all Valve has to do is write a bit of code for the SDK for plug-ins, the community would fix hammer all on its own. I guarantee it.

Fixed.

I agree, add that to the wishlist....

[PiMuRho]

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been a third-party map editor, given that Hammer is really just a glorified text editor.
I still don't see any reason why Valve don't bring at least some of the tools into Hammer as well, or even better - into the engine. For comparison, Epic's UDK is simplicity itself when you want to import models or textures, and I still can't understand Valve's decision to stick with CLI tools.

[Major Banter]

I'm going to be complete honest here and say the truth.

Hammer is the most community-friendly tool on the face of the planet. And the only reason recently we've been getting huffy about it is because Valve is busy, it's been a bit buggy, and above all the UDK has come into being.

SDK and UDK are the most user-friendly tools you can get. Look at the communities. I don't remember 14 year olds getting into the Doom editor quite so easily.

Sure, SDK could be a damn sight better, especially with UDK's open style that enables you to make fucking games but SDK isn't "Soul Destroying". It's behind the times.

I'll happily wait until Ep3, the engine updates and the SDK fixes. Until then, I'll just use the damn thing same as always.

[PiMuRho]

It's extremely behind the times. You seem remarkably confident about these SDK fixes. Going off past experience, I'm not so hopeful.

UDK was probably an unfair example. Epic's business is more about licensing their engine technology, so it makes sense for them to concentrate on their tools.
The SDK is more than "a bit buggy." - "a bit buggy" is things like the rotation handles still being invisible. Not being able to launch Hammer because of some invisible configuration issue is more than a bit buggy. Having Hammer completely crap out when loading maps that it loaded without issue yesterday is more than a bit buggy. These things are soul-destroying.

[Noodles]

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been a third-party map editor, given that Hammer is really just a glorified text editor.

IIRC there is a 3rd party map tool, someone here will know it but I can't remember it's name. Looked more like a 3D program as well, for epic brush creation. Never got round to trying it out.

Also I agree about the model import, texture import is usually fine but you have to restart Hammer everytime you create or edit a prop while it's running. And then there's the goddamn model browser and it's epically long refresh time as it cycles through every damn model including hl2 sets. And I've NEVER got the fucker to simply display tf2 models by clicking on the 'tf2 folder' tag at the top. OF WHICH THERE ARE TWO? </Eddie Izzard voice>.

Yeah, I am going to bitch and whine about it. I'm mostly a modeller, and apart from HLMV (which does have some terrific features, like the attachment modification stuff) and the handful of smds they gave us with the sdk_content, they've done sod all. We have to rely on people like Cannonfodder, Jed, etc to make tools and tutorials. And let's remember the VDC is almost entirely written by users, not Valve.

As a modeller, I'm not asking for a huge deal. Some up to date decompilers, because none of us can learn without delving into Valve made models; better model importing for Hammer, because it's just long and, to be honest, we all know Valve can do better.

Banter, we all know the SDK is the best when it comes to community friendly, and that's part of the point: Valve have always made it clear that they take pride in this, but lately the bugs have become more unbearable than ever. Look at the whole 2009 SDK thing. At what point did Valve say "Oh no, you should move all your mods to 2007, that's the new Orangebox". AFAIR, never. We had to work that out ourselves. How hard could it have been to just tell us that?

Remember, the majority of stuff that actually makes the SDK user friendly was in fact suggested by the community. Valve putting it in, makes them user friendly. Now we're just asking them to put some other things in, that are a bit more important than before.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hammer_Feature_Requests

[Major Banter]

I'd hate to go through your points and counter them individually, because that's counter-productive to an argument.

So I won't.

Instead, I'll admit that Valve's previous handling of the SDK has been poor at best, but at it's core Hammer has always been adequate. Do I need any more? No. Would it be nice for the SDK itself and the tools such as Faceposer and so on to be updated and recoded? Yes, it would, but from a business and time standpoint that would be only of benefit to the community. Until Valve make a new "major release" such as HL2 and a whole new engine, SDK is not going to change significantly. That's a fact.

Will Ep3 bring such change?

I certainly expect that it'll bring significant engine updates, and with engine updates comes hope. The OB engine changed SDK for me - the way I mapped, modded and so on. It wasn't a crack of thunder and OMG WHOW NEW SDK, it was a subtle shift for the better.

SDK is not perfect. It has issues, both major and minor. These things can grind you down.

But having worked with it for nearly six years now, and some seriously shite software years before, I'm pretty sure that people don't understand how to work around such problems. These days, people sit on thier arses, complain and expect people to sort out the problems.

These people are the people who love SDK and embrace it's problems. These are the guys and girls who recode the entire lighting system, create batch compilers, create VTF plugins for Photoshop, who cope and modify.

When the OB2009 update was released it fucked up Ep2 Hammer. Lots of people BAWW'd. Others, such as myself, worked in Ep12007 or found the eventual solution.

If SDK and Hammer are soul destroying, if you've spent years being ground down and pissed off with things like loading bugs and so on, you've been spoilt.

I remember using UnrealEd 2004. That was probably a much better example to juxtapose with Hammer. It was awful. Constant, consistent crashes for literally moving a brush, corrupt undoable builds, borked interface, a model browser that was jumbled as fuck. But I got on with it. I set it to autosave, saved spare copies before builds, learnt where important models were and above all - didn't get fussed about it.

Maybe SDK is soul-destroying.

I think it's functional, and what else do I need?

Photoshop CS5 is utterly incredible. It's amazing. But learning manipulation years ago with Ulead Photothingy 1998 was dire. But at the end of the day, with both I've gotten the job done.

That's the difference. Maybe it's off the point, but I think pointing out issues and getting prissy is pointless. You just have to work with or around them, and sometimes adapt.

I mean, nobody has ever complained about how shite Hammer's IO system is, have they? Because it might be insanely complex, but hell is it powerful.

This is my opinion, I won't deny it. It's biased. But at the end of the day, I take reinstalling SDK and learning how to write VMTs hand in hand. It's part of the fun, and it's far more beneficial to work around it than anything else.

EDIT! Unlike Noodles, I map. So my issues are with Hammer and Faceposer. Not importing. So Noodles makes good points as well.