Source: TF2 Blog

As with the first Left 4 Dead game, most of the TF2 team has moved over to help out Left 4 Dead 2 get through its final shipping steps. This time around, though, we've improved our process a little to ensure we can keep some people on TF2, enabling us to continue doing TF2 updates. We've been a bit slow on updating here, and there's plenty of stuff to talk about, so we might as well jump right in.

First off, a quick update on where we are with the character model and animation sources. After we got over our excitement of releasing them, we ran into a couple of problems:

• All the character modelers & animators are incredibly busy working on L4D2.


• None of our new .DMX file format tools have been released in the SDK yet, which are integral to working with these sources.


• As a result, it's taken a bit more work than we'd originally intended. And to make sure that the work is being done right, we decided it'd be best to get one model out, if only so we could get your feedback on it before we went ahead and got the rest done. So today we're updating the Source SDK to include all the model and animation source for the Heavy. Take a look at it, and be sure to send us your thoughts.

Secondly, some community updates:

• The Dead Workers Party just released their 88th (!) TF2 podcast over at the Control Point podcast, the longest running TF-related podcast in the universe. There's a wealth of information there on updates, class strategies, new maps, and player shoutouts, as well as plenty of fun community stuff you can get involved in, like fan videos and art.


• The folks over at Ubercharged.net have finished their fantastic introduction to competitive TF2.


• The SourceOP guys keep working away on their nifty TF2 Backpack Viewer. It's great if you ever wanted to see what items your buddies are toting around. Or if you wanted to see Gabe's weapon that bans your Steam account if he kills you with it.

Finally, we've had a lot of requests to release the official set of "Ubercharged" avatars that Dhabih did for our internal TF2 clan. You can buff up your community profile by getting them from the Official TF2 Community page

Source: Nuclear Dawn

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the latest Dev Diary. My name is Andrew and I am the Lead Animator for Nuclear Dawn. Our job in the animation department is to illustrate the style of the game through movement. Whenever we are animating a prop, character, weapon, or structure; our goal is to convey the concept while still conforming to the restrictions that we have set to maximize performance. In today's blog, I will be focusing on one of the aspects that has proven to be quite a daunting task to me, personally: the RTS structures.

Along with my role as animator, I have picked up a side role as mesh-modifier-breaker-upper. It is my job to take all the beautiful RTS machines, and tear them apart...literally. When I am handed an RTS structure, I first need to look at every corner, every seam, every wire, every lever, every panel and every section. While looking it over, I am thinking of how these things can compact themselves down small enough to fit inside a delivery crate.

Source: Kotaku
Source: OXM

Valve has told us that it would like to be able to distribute user-created mods for the Xbox version of Left 4 Dead 2, and pass the money back to their creators.

Talking to OXM for our cover feature in issue 50, Valve staffers said the company would like to take campaigns made using the free authoring tools for the PC version, and port them to Xbox 360.

It wouldn't be able to give them away because "Xbox Live isn't set up like that," so it's considering distributing content and passing the money back to the creators.

"One of the things I'm thinking about is how we work within that [Xbox Live] system," said Valve's Yasser Mailaka, "and one of the things I'd like to do is to allow these modules that are being released on PC to somehow integrate with Microsoft's system."

"We'll have to filter them, we can't allow any copyrighted materials, so it's going to have to go through a process. But we're hoping perhaps we can shepherd the really popular campaigns onto 360. And you know, if they are a paid system, perhaps that could go back to the authors. I think that would be a great story."

We think it's a great idea, if they can find a way to do it - mod-makers get a few quid for their trouble, and we get more content for the game. What do you think? Would you buy user mods on Xbox Live?

Source: Suicide Survival

Hi everyone, it has been a long time since there was an update so it is time for some news:

First of all, Suicide Survival is not dead, its only resting (just like the parrot). And whenever I check the servers I always see a few people playing which really suprises me. I figured Suicide Survival would be hip for a few months and then dissappear into the great void of the internet. Alas I was wrong which really makes me happy.

Second of all and mostly being the reason why I layed down the development of Suicide Survival for a while are some personal matters: I finished my Bachelor in Game Design this summer and I’m still trying to get a job in the game industry. Second I’m working on my final project again in order to submit it to the IGF and Unity Awards. If you want to check it out you can visit the website at: www.doppelscope.com The website is only in German for now but there will be a playable and English version of it as well in the near future.In short this has my main priority followed by creating my portfolio and getting a job. However I will try to get a new version of Suicide Survival out before christmas this year.

Last but not least Michael Kuzel aka Eccentricity from the official forums has made a pretty awesome and well designed map. Its called SS_Allan and even features a new and unique game mode. Taken straight from the read me:

In certain intervals, a special shrub will spawn in a random location. This special shrub has no identifying features that separates it from normal shrubs or even Suiciders - except for one thing - it chirps. Every few seconds this unique shrub will emit a small chirp sound. This sound can be heard both by the Survivors as well as the Suiciders. Use your ears to locate this shrub, as it will give an advantage to the Survivor team if its found and used!

Check out the thread from Eccentricity in the forums or simply download the map (21 MB) and try it out.

Source: Fortress Forever

The Linux server build is giving us trouble (as usual), and therefore 2.4 will be delayed until we can get it fixed. But, as a result, we are "leaking" the official Ksour for you guys to play while you wait.

Source: Eternal Silence

Good news. Our new awesome coding duo, Verox and headprogrammerczar (aka. Juzz) have been hard at work on a small "Polish Patch" which has been submitted to Valve. It should be active on Steam shortly. The change log is below. They tell me they are also working on a big, exciting patch. I'll let headprogrammerczar explain it himself:

Quote from: headprogrammingczar

Verox, NoX, and I have some big things planned for upcoming releases. In the mapping department, NoX is working on a tutorial map series, and I continue to put the finishing touches on Navigator. Even more interesting though is what us coders are doing. We will be implementing Steamworks features, namely achievements and stats. The long-awaited gunship dropdown menu will be included in the next update after this. Support for demos is also planned, so you can finally share that video of you hitting a fighter with a missile from a kilometer away without a lock. For server admins, some improvements to the way player names are reported will make admins better able to keep troublemakers off their server (although this isn't really an issue). The tutorial map series will get a lot of attention too, with new map entities and a new game mode. In the meantime, spread interest and keep the game alive!

[FIX] - Gravity change exploit on Navigator
[FIX] - Heavy fighter primary weapon crosshair now shows up at the correct range
[BAL] - Fighters, interceptors, and heavy fighter attack/escort waypoints are more appropriate for strike, attack, and defend phases.
[ADD] - Players spawn in the passenger seats of gunships first
[FIX] - CP_ timer logic was improved to fix the "one minute victory" bug
[FIX] - trigger_gravity works for non-player entities now, as well as players. Mappers everywhere rejoiced!
[BAL] - Self-inflicted explosive damage when in infantry is now reduced by half (this includes grenades, ion cannon secondary fire, and self-destructing turrets)
[BAL] - Players can no longer join the larger of two teams (max team size difference reduced from 2 to 1)

Source: Steam Powered

Updates to Garry's Mod have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Garry's Mod

• Added 10 achievements


• Reenabled voice_inputfromfile


• Fixed some unlocked achievements showing as locked

Source: Steam Powered

Updates to the Source 2007 Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Source 2007 Engine

• Fixed an exploit that allowed files to be uploaded to the server at arbitrary locations in the file system


• Fixed a server crash caused by a client packet claiming to be an HLTV client when HLTV is disabled on the server


• Fixed a server crash caused by spoofing a client disconnect message


• Fixed a server crash caused by sending malformed reliable subchannel data

On a side note...I think this is the first time I can remember the Source Engine being refered to as the "Source 2007 Engine". Maybe I have not been paying attention but this could mean a possible major update to the engine itself is coming soon.

Source: Stargate: Legacy

Good day to you all. Welcome to the September 09 News.

This month's news isn't going to be pretty big but we've still got some nice stuff for you. To start, we would like to welcome our latest member of the development team klusark. He's a coder and we're glad to have him on the team. He's gotten stuck in and has proved to be a great addition.

Secondly we'd like to show you a couple of nice screenshots of the Prometheus created by our lovely Daz.


Lovely aren't they?

Finally, we have a lovely creation by coomdoom. It's our title music. For those who listened to our Podcast 17 interview, you will have heard this. Coomdoom has been working hard on our music, making original creations and so far it has been pretty epic stuff.

[AUDIO AVAILABLE ON Stargate: Legacy's WEBSITE]

That's for this month. Hope you have a lovely September and those going back to school/college/university, to reach your dreams, you need to reach your potential.

And on that note, good bye.

Stargate Legacy Team

Source: Earth's Special Forces

This week we will be shining the spotlight on Layne who is one of the newest addition to the ESF team. Having a strong background in 3D modeling and a great interest in ESF, we gave Layne the opportunity to join the team along side Dave in the 3D mapping department. Following his induction, Layne was assigned the job of designing the new Kami's Lookout Map. As you can see, Layne is no slouch when it comes to detail. Spending delicate time on each and every 3D object in the map, nothing is overlooked.