[Faceposer] rebuild scenes.image not effective

[tetsu0]

When rebuilding the scenes.image file after creating new .vcds, half-life 2 cannot find the new files though hammer can find them and the maps compile properly.
vcd Location: ep2/scenes

Unless the files need to go into a separate directory, I have no idea what's going on

system specs:
AMD Fx8320 @ 3.5Ghz
8Gb DDR3 RAM
Radeon HD 6900
Windows 7

[Riomaki81]

On a related note, are you able to use Faceposer with HL2 models and everything? I have an issue over here: ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013#211 and I'd appreciate any input you have.

[Riomaki81]

If it's of any help, I created a new VCD and stored it in the same location you did. When I went to rebuild scenes.image, I saw this in the Output window:

Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\ep2\ep2_pak.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\episodic\ep1_pak.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\hl2\hl2_sound_vo_english.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\hl2\hl2_pak.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\hl2\hl2_textures.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life 2\hl2\hl2_sound_misc.vpk\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: Searching 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapp\scenes\ *.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.
Scenes: No Scene files found!

That second-to-last line seems completely wrong to me. "Steamapp" is obviously a non-existent folder and it's very unlikely that there would ever be a "scenes" folder directly inside Steamapps. This is probably what the problem is - it is searching in some very odd places. If you could confirm that, this could be a good place for Valve to start.

This is running the Faceposer in Common/Half-Life 2/bin. For what it's worth, my project environment variable is set to the Common/Half-Life 2/ep2 folder.

EDIT: Just to add onto this, the Faceposer in Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer does the same as the above (except in common\Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer, I didn't run the .bat file for Faceposer here) but its second-to-last line reads:

Scenes: Searching 'C\scenes*.vcd' - Found 0 scenes.

And no, there is no colon after the C.

[tetsu0]

I wonder if one copied the default scenes.image to a folder that is specially being searched?
Then copy to the correct location after the build is complete.
I cannot test ATM, but i'll have to play with this when i'm home.

[Riomaki81]

I decided to create a "steamapp/scenes" folder and I placed my VCD inside of it. On rebuild scenes.image, a couple things happened.

One, it found the VCD ("Found 1 scenes") and it finalized it and output a scenes.image file inside ep2/scenes. Despite being an encoded file, I could tell from bits and pieces of plain text that it did compile the scene into it. I quickly made a test map to use this, and copied the VCD over to ep2/scenes as well. However, the game still complains about being unable to find that VCD (standard "Scene 'scenes\testvcd.vcd' missing" error)

For your reference, my VCD is called testvcd.vcd and the logic_choreographed_scene points to scenes/testvcd.vcd.

[tetsu0]

That's good news that it compiled!
What if you drop the scenes.image into the HL2\scenes instead?

I know that EP2 doesn't always keep the file references within the EP2 folder.
Try another location?

Again, I'm not home or else i'd be trying this as well.

[Riomaki81]

Didn't have any luck with moving it to HL2/scenes. Did the same thing by moving a map there too - it still can't find the VCD.

[Riomaki81]

Anyone have some new thoughts or workaround suggestions on this problem?

[Riomaki81]

Alright, so I have no idea what I did, but it would appear that the 'C\scenes*.vcd' error I mentioned above isn't occurring now. Faceposer is now looking at common/Half-Life 2/hl2/scenes instead and it is spitting out a scenes.image to that folder. So, that's great.

Problem is, I can't get it to do it for ep2. Although I can copy the scenes.image and .vcd to ep2/scenes and reference it in a logic_choreographed_scene (Hammer sees it), the scene is missing in-game.

Is there potentially a .bat file or an Environment Variable setting I should be looking at which is controlling the /hl2 setting?

[tetsu0]

When you start hammer, it gives you the option to choose a game. Face poser just starts. Check if a VProject variable is set? 

-------- Original message --------
From: Riomaki81 notifications@github.com
Date:01/12/2014 12:41 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games Source-1-Games@noreply.github.com
Cc: tetsu0 brettpcg@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Source-1-Games] [Faceposer] rebuild scenes.image not effective
(#1559)

Alright, so I have no idea what I did, but it would appear that the 'C\scenes*.vcd' error I mentioned above isn't occurring now. Faceposer is now looking at common/Half-Life 2/hl2/scenes instead and it is spitting out a scenes.image to that folder. So, that's great.

Problem is, I can't get it to do it for ep2. Although I can copy the scenes.image and .vcd to ep2/scenes and reference it in a logic_choreographed_scene (Hammer sees it), the scene is missing in-game.

Is there potentially a .bat file or an Environment Variable setting I should be looking at which is controlling the /hl2 setting?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[bmk10]

/scenes?

[Riomaki81]

I managed to get this working. What I wound up doing was creating a formal HL2 EP2 mod and I was able to build a scenes.image that automatically placed itself in the mod's /scenes folder. The scene can be accessed from the level and it runs correctly.

In hindsight, this makes sense, since a scenes.image placed in your /ep2 folder is of dubious usefulness for mod distribution.

[tetsu0]

Oh my god.
You may yet be my hero

Can you be so kind as to send out a list of the exact steps?

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 10:19 PM, Riomaki81 notifications@github.comwrote:

I managed to get this working. What I wound up doing was creating a formal
HL2 EP2 mod and I was able to build a scenes.image that automatically
placed itself in the mod's /scenes folder. The scene can be accessed from
the level and it runs correctly.

In hindsight, this makes sense, since a scenes.image placed in your /ep2
folder is of dubious usefulness for mod distribution.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/1559#issuecomment-33758725
.

[Riomaki81]

So, basically what you do is make a mod. This means, of course, that you aren't making a standalone map anymore that you load through the console, but an actual entry in Steam. There are various ways to do this, but this is roughly what I did.

• Download "Source SDK" from the Tools section of Steam.
• Set Engine Version to "Source Engine 2007" and do "Create a Mod"
• Select "Modify Half-Life 2 Single Player
• Give your mod a name and a folder and let the wizard do its thing.

Now that you have a Source SDK 2007 mod, you have to update the gameinfo.txt in steamapps/sourcemods/YourModName.

• Open gameinfo.txt
• Set the SteamAppId to 420 (which is Episode 2)
• Basically, follow the setup here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Gameinfo.txt under the "Source SDK 2013" setup from "Base Half-Life 2 Content" onward. You may need some reference on this, most Ep2 mods use a common setup.
• Restart Steam.

Now, the thing you have to do is get Hammer and Faceposer to look at the mod folder you created. What I think this boils down to is having an Environment Variable called "VProject" that points to your SourceMod (for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\SourceMods\YourModName). I'm not sure what I did to create it (you can create it manually through Windows System properties, I'm sure), but I know that I did edit GameConfig.txt in steamapps/common/Half-Life 2/bin and added an entry for my mod. You basically copy-and-paste one of the entries in there (such as the one for Episode 2) and change "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" to your mod's name and its GameDir to your mod's SourceMod folder (same as VProject). When you run Hammer, it should prompt which project you want to use. If not, look at the Messages window down below when Hammer starts and see if it shows the path to your mod in there.

Faceposer, I think, just reads from the VProject variable. I'm running the Hammer and Faceposer in the Half-Life 2/bin folder. Faceposer is exporting the scenes.image to YourModName/scenes. Hammer exports the .bsp to Episode 2, but I'm sure you can change this if you want.

[tetsu0]

will the scenes work in the standard Ep2 after building the scenes.image?
Do you need to copy to the Valve Ep2 folder?

This is amazing news, thank you!

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 11:46 PM, Riomaki81 notifications@github.comwrote:

So, basically what you do is make a mod. This means, of course, that you
aren't making a standalone map anymore that you load through the console,
but an actual entry in Steam. There are various ways to do this, but this
is roughly what I did.

• Download "Source SDK" from the Tools section of Steam.
• Set Engine Version to "Source Engine 2007" and do "Create a Mod"
• Select "Modify Half-Life 2 Single Player
• Give your mod a name and a folder and let the wizard do its thing.

Now that you have a Source SDK 2007 mod, you have to update the
gameinfo.txt in steamapps/sourcemods/YourModName.

• Open gameinfo.txt
• Set the SteamAppId to 420 (which is Episode 2)
• Basically, follow the setup here:
  https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Gameinfo.txt under the
  "Source SDK 2013" setup from "Base Half-Life 2 Content" onward. You may
  need some reference on this, most Ep2 mods use a common setup.
• Restart Steam.

Now, the thing you have to do is get Hammer and Faceposer to look at the
mod folder you created. What I think this boils down to is having an
Environment Variable called "VProject" that points to your SourceMod (for
example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\SourceMods\YourModName).
I'm not sure what I did to create it (you can create it manually through
Windows System properties, I'm sure), but I know that I did edit
GameConfig.txt in steamapps/common/Half-Life 2/bin and added an entry for
my mod. You basically copy-and-paste one of the entries in there (such as
the one for Episode 2) and change "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" to your mod's
name and its GameDir to your mod's SourceMod folder (same as VProject).
When you run Hammer, it should prompt which project you want to use. If
not, look at the Messages window down below when Hammer starts and see if
it shows the path to your mod in there.

Faceposer, I think, just reads from the VProject variable. I'm running the
Hammer and Faceposer in the Half-Life 2/bin folder. Faceposer is exporting
the scenes.image to YourModName/scenes. Hammer exports the .bsp to Episode
2, but I'm sure you can change this if you want.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/1559#issuecomment-33761527
.

[Riomaki81]

Outside of testing, what you're trying to do doesn't make sense. If you're going to distribute your map, there's only one scenes.image file per game. So, you'd be asking gamers to overwrite their existing one in order to use yours. As far as I know, things that used custom Faceposer scenes basically need to be mods. A mod can have its own scenes.image that you can do anything with.

I haven't tried bringing the scenes.image back to Ep2, but I have my doubts it would work (and what I'm saying is, even if it did, it has dubious usefulness) because it didn't when I tried to transplant the HL2 one to Ep2. It probably remembers something about the paths to the scenes and doesn't like being moved around.

[Riomaki81]

Question to anyone who knows - where does Valve keep the VCD files for HL2/Episodic/Ep2 now? I've tried looking in all the .vpks and I'm finding the compiled scenes.image files, but not the original .VCDs. Have they been removed?

EDIT: Answering my own question #1107 - nice.

[tetsu0]

From what i know, after the SteamPipe conversion, they've all been placed
into the scenes.image file.
I think you'll have to know the exact name to reference the .vcd for use in
a map

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Riomaki81 notifications@github.com wrote:

Question to anyone who knows - where does Valve keep the VCD files for
HL2/Episodic/Ep2 now? I've tried looking in all the .vpks and I'm finding
the compiled scenes.image files, but not the original .VCDs. Have they been
removed?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/1559#issuecomment-33845084
.

[Riomaki81]

You can get them from the Source SDK 2013 SP Github. SiPlus followed through on the issue and JoeLudwig added them:
ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013#122

[tetsu0]

It would still be nice if the stock Faceposer worked :/

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Riomaki81 notifications@github.com wrote:

You can get them from the Source SDK 2013 SP Github. SiPlus followed
through on the issue and JoeLudwig added them:
ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013#122ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013#122

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/1559#issuecomment-33847200
.

[kisak-valve]

Closing as the original issue appears to have been figured out. If there is still an issue with the SDK, please open an issue report in the source-sdk-2013 issue tracker.