Happy New Year 2011

Merry Christmas 2010

Steam Holiday Sale: Save 50% on all VALVe Games

• VALVe Complete Pack

Save 50% on all VALVe Games through Jan 2nd

Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat, Day of Defeat: Source, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Source, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, Ricochet, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Classic

Steam Holiday Sale: Save 75% on Day of Defeat: Source

€2.50 - $2.50 - £1.50

Day of Defeat: Source Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Fixed an engine crash caused by too many precached models in some community maps. 

Day of Defeat: Source

• Fixed an exploit where clients could prevent weapons from recoiling properly.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4820/

Hammer Source Player Scale and World Dimensions

by World of Level Design

One of the most fundamental aspects of level design is proper scale and dimensions. A door way that is few units too large or too small will ruin the illusion of your environment.

A building set to improper scale will destroy the immersion of the player in your environment.

Hammer Source has few key aspects of keeping your world on scale and proper proportions.

The tutorial covers:
How to keep your map to proper scale and dimensions
Hammer Source character scale, wall height, door dimensions, stairs
Developer textures
Grid values

Read more ...

Day of Defeat: Source Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Improved sv_pure:
  
  • Materials / Models / Sounds / Animations are more comprehensively protected.
  • Switched from CRC to MD5 hashes for stronger per-file validation.
  • Fixed some issues between custom files and server whitelists over level changes.
• Added HL2:MP to the list of dedicated server games when starting a server via the Tools tab in the Library

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4812/

Interview with Billy Hallden - Level & Environment Design

by World of Level Design

Billy Hallden is a level designer and environment artist. I have been inspired by his work on WoLD forums and I wanted to find out more about his work, his process and if there were any tips he could give to an inpiring level designer and environment artist. Read more ...

Hammer Source Map Construction Breakdown

by World of Level Design

Hammer Source Map Construction Breakdown takes a look at what elements levels are made up of in Hammer Source. Knowing how a map is constructed inside Source helps you to understand your own process and what you need to do with your own maps.

The tutorial covers:
How the map constructed?
What elements are used?
How everything comes together in Hammer Source.

Read more ...

Lighting Compile Options

by Timothy 'YM' Johnson @Nodraw.net

Today I’m going to discuss the lighting conventions of source. Source has been evolving steadily since Half Life 2, with the introduction of HDR with Episode 1 and then per-vertex lighting for static props and shadowing textures with the Orange Box. These new methods for calculating lighting at compile time have become the standard for source, everything produced since the Orange Box uses them.

Unfortunately the improved lighting introduced with the Orange Box was not added to hammer’s default compile settings, even as options, so we must add them ourselves. That means we need to know what they are and what they do. There are three options that we’re going to look at today, texture shadows, per vertex lighting for static props, and exact outline shadow casting for static props. So what exactly do they do? Read more ...

Hammer Source Interface Crash Course in 15 Min

by World of Level Design

Hammer Source Interface Crash Course in 15 minutes. The tutorial covers the entire interface to get you started mapping in Hammer Source. Most commonly used functions are covered.

After watching the 15 minute video you will be comfortable navigating around the viewports in Hammer Source and you'll be ready to start mapping.

Read more ...

DoD:S, TF2, CS:S and HL2:DM Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• [Windows] Added support for raw mouse input. Raw input reads directly from the mouse, bypassing Windows control panel mouse settings. This addresses issues with high DPI mice, and provides for a more reliable controller experience at various resolutions
• [Windows] Improved custom mouse acceleration
• [Windows] Updated mouse configuration UI to support raw input and acceleration; added tooltips to some of the options
• [Windows] Fixed UI tooltips so that they display correctly on first hover

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4669/

Source engine day/night cycle & dynamic weather

by biohazardpro

The position of the celestial bodies is dependent from season and clime. Right now the 2D skybox uses one texture with some overlays applied and a procedurally generated static mesh for stars.

All weather effects, daytime, clime and season are synced between client and server. Weather is randomly applied based on the current climate and the time of day can be read from the hosts computer.

Additional information:

The shadowmapping code is written from scratch and not based on Valves technique in any way. In my current build two shadowmaps at 3072² and 1024² are drawn to allow a shadow with a range of 10k units (the video just shows the former one though), all factors are variable and can be changed to the users liking.

During a second pass of the main view various information (worldspace normals, screenspace normals, depth, sky mask, sharpen mask) are drawn via MRTs to different textures at once to allow post processing effects like SSAO, DOF, edge detection and godrays. All screenspace effects can be individually toggled as well.

The weather effects include particle effects, fog, color correction and sounds, every weather routine can be assigned a weight to allow more variety. Particle effects are partially drawn in worldspace and a seperate view similar to how 3d skyboxes work.

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Fixed Steam Cloud showing as endlessly syncing for some games
• Fixed a case where Steamworks matchmaking could lose some keys set in the lobby, when running against the new matchmaking server
• Fixed an issue where some windows could appear briefly before they were ready to be shown
• Fixed game download stalling for some users when downloading games with DLC
• Windows: Fixed Steam client update stalling for some users with HSDPA modems
• Windows: Fixed compatibility for in-game overlay and games calling GetRawInputBuffer
• Windows: Improved performance of .dmp file writing on client asserts/crashes
• OSX: Improved retail game install to minimize amount of game data that needs to be downloaded after initial install
• OSX: Fixed badge count listed as ‘1’ after auto-joining a server using the server browser

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4654/

TF2, CS:S, DoD:S and HL2:DM Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Fixed a bug with voice recording intermittently not recording after playing in a level for a while (Mac)
• Fixed a rare client crash caused by text rendering (Mac)
• Updated the server browser localization files

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4633/

Midweek Madness DoD:S for $/€2.50 £1.50

Act now to take advantage of huge savings on Day of Defeat: Source!

Enlist in an intense battle of Axis vs. Allied set in World War II Europe. Day of Defeat: Source is 75% off during the Midweek Madness sale. Offer ends Thursday at 4pm PDT.

ONLY  $2.50 or €2.50 or £1.50

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4626/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Updating store pages to show stats and launch options for games you own.
• Updated Speex and JPEG libraries
• Fix a memory leak when toggling the game viewed in the details view
• Fix a crash when receiving and merging updated data for stats/achievements in some situations
• Fix sometimes failing to fully recognize a game as exited for certain launcher app setups
• Fixed navigating to game guides in the store
• Fix Steam Cloud bug where users who converted from the demo to the full version of Everyday Genius: SquareLogic, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, or Jolly Rover would have their progress reverted to the progress they made in the demo while opted into the beta
• Fixed community chat bug
• Fixed displaying Steam Service dialog under OSX
• Fixed a couple rare crashes and added more instrumentation around potential memory corruption
• Fixed Steam API logging
• Improve tooltips support under OSX
• Added installer support under OSX for an upcoming game release

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4611/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM Update Released

The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Fixed a dedicated server crash when HLTV disconnects
• Fixed a crash in the materialsystem

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4577/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM Update Released

The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Removed the rate limit for the "status" command when entered into the server console
• Fixed an exploit that allowed people to send fake server messages to clients
• Significantly improved engine vertex compression (large reduction in per-model memory usage)

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4566/

Hammer Tutorial: The Basics

by redBadger @LambdaGeneration.com

 Learn how to install the Source SDK correctly and how to use Valve’s Hammer Editor. Read more ...

TF2, CS:S and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Shared Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• ServerBrowser now sorts by ping by default once again.
• Fixed Mac crash on launch when running Mac OSX 10.5.8.
• Fixed spectator bug where spectating a Sniper looking through scope didn't zoom fov

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4442/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Steam will now use the language selected in the retail installer instead of the current UI language when installing from disc
• Fixed a Steam overlay crash on OSX
• Removed redundant names and improved displaying a large number of tabs in tabbed chat windows
• Fixed web browser layout
• Fixed tab chat dropdown menu flashing for new message in hidden chat page
• Mac Overlay crashes fixed when trying to render to a screen with no game objects being drawn
• Mac Retail install support for install in non-english languages
• Mac support for detecting 10.6.4 with the Apple Snow Leopard Graphics Update (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4286) installed

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4431/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM / Engine Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Added sv_alltalk to the list of convars that are checked for the sv_tags list.
• Fixed a model instance crash.
• Removed engine ConVar "r_ForceRestore"

Other Games

• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch 
• Updated to run on the Orange Box engine with CS:S, DoD:S, and TF2

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4411/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2 Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• Optimizations to multi-core rendering
• Removed -heapsize command line argument. Some detail: This command made sense in Half-Life 1’s memory manager. The current engine manages memory in a way that doesn’t need it specified. Under some circumstances, specifying a non-optimal heapsize causes crashes and/or reduced performance
• Fixed an exploit that allowed people to send fake VAC messages to clients

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4371/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Added support to update AMD/ATI video drivers
• Bug fixes in JPEG decoding of images with embedded EXIF profiles
• Crash fix in voice chat
• SteamService uninstall improvements
• Improved in-game overlay compatibility with some third-party software
• Improved in-game overlay browser forward/back navigation

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4355/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2 / Engine Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• Fixed clients locking up while attempting to load the game and re-enabled signature checking

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4340/

CS:S, DoD:S, TF2 Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• Disabled signature checking to determine if it's the source of some reported launch issues

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4328/

TF2, CS:S and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• Disabled clients loading server plug-ins unless the plug-ins are signed by Steam or the client is running in insecure mode.
• Added a checkbox to the Options->Audio dialog to control muting the audio when the game window is in the background.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4319/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Fix selection highlighting of hyperlink text in chat
• Compatibility fix for Steam Service and MS KB2264107 with 0xFFFFFFFF registry setting
• Fixed issue with Steam Cloud that occurs when a game is launched outside of Steam
• Compatibility fix for in-game overlay and MS KB2264107 with 0xFFFFFFFF registry setting
• Steamworks fix for matchmaking

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4306/

TF2, DoD:S, CS:S / Engine Update Released

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine ( TF2, DoD:S, CS:S )

• Fixed hang when typing "map" twice in the console

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4273/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Fix a bug where installing a game with a demo may not initial install all content with some left to download on first launch
• Fix a bug with ISteamNetworking getting available packet size for Steamworks Partners
• Steam Cloud improvements to support save games in more cases for Steamworks Partners
• Windows: Fix a case where minidumping due to an error could deadlock the client on startup or shutdown
• Windows: Fix a memory leak that could lead to too much memory used or a crash if you remained in a busy group chat for several days
• Mac: Fix client errantly opening a script in a text editor at startup (rare bug)

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4272/

CS:S, TF2 and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• Fixed a crash on startup with some video drivers
• Fixed a bug where the speaker config would be lost on Windows Vista / 7
• Fixed a case where alt-tab would stop rendering models
• Made the ‘X’ that closes the achievements screen visible by default in 1280x720 resolution
• Made disconnect messages wrap so they don’t get truncated
• Made kick / disconnect messages more legible

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4261/

Steam OSX client update released

A Steam OSX client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• [OSX] Improved font handling of non-english (unicode) characters
• [OSX] Restored ability to enter offline mode
• [OSX] Improved performance of in-game overlay

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4249/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Fixed a case where the Steam client could hang on startup for some users with unusual environment variables

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4241/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

New Features

• Updated friends chats to use new tabbed chat interface (see Friends tab in the Settings dialog to turn off opening in new tabs by default)
• Updated in-game overlay browser to use new tabbed browsing interface (Use Middle click on links to open-in-new-tab)
• Tabbed Browser/Chat HotKeys: Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab to switch tabs. Ctrl-W, Ctrl-F4 or Middle click to close tabs.
• Updated WebKit code for client/in-game browser (improved stability and performance on OSX, various browser fixes)
• Windows: 64 bit build of the in-game overlay (useable now with any 64bit non-Steam game you may add)
• Windows: 64 bit builds of Steamworks DLLs (for upcoming titles)

Fixes

• New non-blocking game uninstall dialog
• Improved client shutdown times
• Fix some cases of Steam becoming unresponsive for 5-10 seconds when new game updates are released
• Fixed unused game tags still showing up
• Reinstalling from a goldmaster triggers a content verification if the game is already installed
• Fixed sometimes needing to restart Steam after installing PhysX
• Changed overlay hot-key detection to not consider ctrl-shift-tab to be the same as shift-tab, thus allowing its use in tabbed chat/browsing in-game
• Fixed “hidden” achievements showing up in the game details page and overlay “so close…” ui
• Fixed a crash on shutdown
• Fixed an issue with input tab ordering in group chats
• Increased timeouts on Steam Cloud file uploads
• Fixed Rabobank payment page for iDEAL checkout not showing correctly in the Steam Client
• Fixed a bug parsing certain HTML tags inside News bodies
• Fixed top half of avatar images in chats not being right clickable for context menu
• Fixed a potential crash when failing to parse new stats/achievements data for a game
• Fixed bug/exploit with malformed www. URLs in chats
• Windows: Fixed the “alt” key sometimes sticking in the in-game overlay after an alt-tab event
• Windows: Improved overlay compatibility with some previously conflicting third party applications
• Windows: Fixes to progress bar on win7 task icon in handling paused downloads as well as finished downloads
• OSX: Fix several memory leaks
• OSX: Fix copy/paste resulting in extra random string data

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4228/

How to Make Water and Basic Displacements in Source

by Pinky @LambdaGeneration.com

Back when I was trying to learn Source mapping, I ran into several issues, most of which involved lighting or water. While I have not mastered Source lighting, I can offer some help to those having issues with water. Read more...

CS:S, TF2 and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

• The mat_hdr_level, r_rootlod, and r_waterforceexpensive settings are now saved in the user’s config file.
• Fixed clients being able to connect to servers with spoofed SteamIDs.
• Fixed a bug where some video configurations could get reset by restarting the engine.
• Fixed materials compiled into a map not being loaded correctly if they're in the root materials folder.
• Fixed a case of uneven performance on multicore machines.
• Fixed point contents not respecting detail brushes. This fixes a bullet penetration bug in some community maps.
• Fixed clients being able to spam servers using the ai_set_move_height_epsilon, mission_show, and sv_querycache_stats commands.
• Audio fixes:
  
  • Reduced overlap in the sound timing code.
  • Fixed a case where audio could skip.
  • Fixed voice communication getting corrupted while playing on a Mac.
• sv_pure 2 now protects the game_sounds files in the scripts directory.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4210/

TF2, CS:S and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Server Browser

• Fixed the server browser not saving filter settings properly

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4102/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam Client

• Fixed words immediately followed by a newline not wrapping properly.
• Fixed the "Login" button in the login dialog from being enabled when no text has been entered in either field.
• Fixed the "Next" button in the retrieve account wizard being enabled when no text has been entered.
• Fixed the "Next" button in the activate CD key dialog being enabled when no text has been entered.
• Improved error messages for certain purchase failures
• Fixed "multiple cache instantiation error" on game launch
• Fix crashes that could occur while typing over a selection with an IME enabled
• When receiving the “chat from new user” introduction dialog, make a click on the other correspondent’s avatar go to their profile
• Better hit testing and copy-to-clipboard behavior in chat windows
• Fixed occasional stuttering caused by unlocking achievements.
• Extended Steam Hardware Survey to now be the Steam Hardware & Software Survey

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4092/

CS:S, TF2 and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Tuned thread initialization to improve performance on CPUs with more than four cores

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4070/

Source SDK Update Released

Updates to Source SDK have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source SDK

• Fixed crashes in Faceposer and commentary editor

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4063/

TF2, CS:S and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Increased the resilience of client/server data table mismatches when playing back demos. This will make most old demo files playable again, but with potential visual side effects

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4062/

Day Of Defeat Now Available On Steam For Mac Users

Hey, Mac owners, you can now play Day of Defeat, courtesy of Steam.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/kotaku/523725895841287770

Day of Defeat: Source Now Available on Mac

This week, Valve has added another title from its classic catalog into the growing Mac game library. Day of Defeat: Source now joins Portal, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike Source as a native title for Apple's computer platform
Day of Defeat: Source launches for Mac as a SteamPlay title, allowing current owners of the PC version the option to also download and play it on Mac machines. As a SteamPlay title, users from both platforms can also face-off against each other on the World War II-inspired battlefield.

Day of Defeat began life as a Half-Life mod in 2000 before being purchased and sold by Valve, and publisher Activision, in 2003. In September 2005, Day of Defeat: Source was released.

Read More

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/shacknews/523725895845371855

Now on Mac! - Day of Defeat: Source

Now you can enjoy Day of Defeat: Source, the WWII mulitplayer classic from Valve, on your Mac! Assume the role of infantry, sniper or machine-gunner classes and experience the intense online action set in Europe during WWII.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4058/

TF2, CS:S and DoD:S Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Fixed client crash related flashlight usage.
• Fixed several issues related to alt-tabbing (invisible players, etc).

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4043/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam Client

• Added UI to disable Steam Cloud per-game and per-account.
• Added an icon in list view for uninstalled games that support cloud.
• Steam Cloud will now download files for installed games on logon.
• Fixed Steam Cloud sync failures that occurred because of deleted files.
• Improve text hit testing in chat windows.
• Make player names in chat windows clickable, taking you to that user's profile.
• Fixed tabs in the settings dialog sometimes not drawing correctly.
• Fixed a regression that prevented steam from automatically validating and repairing damaged game caches on launch.
• Shortened the delay between launching steam and being offered offline mode in the case of no network connectivity.
• Fixes the label under the dropdown on the game properties updates page for non-cloud games.
• Shows the "cloud disabled" icon in list view for games with cloud disabled that are not installed.
• Fixes players paying mods showing up as "in-game" rather than "in-mod" in the friends window.
• Fixes the login button in the login dialog becoming enabled when the dialog is dragged after the button is pressed.
• Improves whitespace detection in chats.
• Fixes a confusing error message when attempting to back up to a directory that doesn't exist (it would tell you the disk doesn't have enough space).
• Fixes weirdness with radio buttons when pressing the 'back' key on the backup wizard.
• Fixes game manuals not opening in an external browser.
• [OSX] Makes player names in chat windows clickable
• [OSX] Fixed a class of bugs that could cause steam to hang while shutting down, especially if network settings had changed.
• [OSX] Fixes tooltip flickering.
• [OSX] Cmd+Left/Right now go to beginning/end of line.
• [OSX] Option+Left/Right now go to word boundaries.
• [OSX] Option+Enter now inserts a newline.
• [OSX] Fixes some Windows-specific wording about the notification tray in the preferences/settings window.
• [OSX] Prevents backing up files to the file system root.
• [OSX] Treats the return key the same as the enter key.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4012/

Source SDK Update Released

Updates to Source SDK have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

SDK Launcher
'Half-Life 2', 'Episode 1', 'Episode 2', and 'Counter-Strike: Source' now default to the 'Source Engine 2009' engine configuration.
Users developing content for these games should manually add configurations for these games in the context of the 'Source Engine 2009' engine or can simply use the 'Reset Game Configurations' utility.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3979/

Source SDK Test Maps

by darkpivotstudios

Two cool scenes made in the Source SDK for Half Life 2: Episode 2. The first one was actually inspired by Dead Space, and the train scene was thought up by me with a little inspiration from Mirror's Edge and Split/Second. Enjoy, and I plan to make more! :P

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam Client

• Reduces bandwidth used for stats and achievements on OSX
• Improves reliability when multiple achievements are unlocked simultaneously
• Fix for possible Steam lockup when launching a game
• Added 'view game store page' option on the context menu for friends who are in a game
• Fixed steamclient.dll importing a function not available on Win2k

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3958/

TF2, DoD:S and CS:S Beta Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source Beta have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Made several changes that improve stability for clients running low on addressable memory.
• Changed all HTML controls to use Webkit for the rendering engine.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3928/

Steam client update released

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam Client

• Fixed an issue on Windows 2000 requiring the SP4 update rollup 1 package to be installed for Steam to run
• Fixed in-game overlay generating spurious D3D11 debug runtime warnings about CSSetUnorderedAccessViews when running on downlevel hardware
• Fix regression causing a crash on exit in the in-game overlay
• Small startup performance optimization to not initialize settings dialog data until needed
• Fix the you have been logged in elsewhere dialog to not leave Steam in a broken state on Cancel
• Support for a forthcoming news URL format change
• Fixed Retail not prompting for a CD key when creating a new account
• Fixed VGUI crashing when the number of panels was very large (ie, for users with huge friends/clan membership lists)
• Decreased number of VGUI panels active at once for friends list
• Decreased the time it takes Steam to launch some games
• Fixed memory leak when resizing in-game overlay web browser
• Fixed potential failure or client hang when failing talking to content server directory servers
• Fixed overlapping text for pending group invites in the friends list invites section
• Fixed error message “You don't currently have any games ready to backup..” when restoring a previous game backup
• Fixed Cloud changing last modified times on clouded files.
• Fixed the Cloud sync transfer rate display in list view
• Steamworks - Fixed case where building an installer could randomly fail due to an error in the Microsoft crypto library

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3913/

TF2, DoD:S and CS:S Beta Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source Beta have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

GameUI

• Fixed the desktop resolution not appearing in the list of valid resolutions when using windowed-mode.

Server Browser

• Fixed a crash caused by leaving the server browser open while playing.

Engine

• Added client/server version check on client connect.
• Fixed a crash caused by hitting ctrl-alt-del while playing.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3881/

Team Fortress 2 / Engine Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Linux Dedicated Server

• Fixed srcds_run to work properly with the Counter-Strike: Source beta dedicated server when autoupdating.

Engine

• Fixed the startmovie command not using the codec dialog.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3822/

Day of Defeat: Source Update Released

Updates to Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Day of Defeat: Source

• Fixed a client crash caused by the flashlight
• Fixed an issue where Linux dedicated servers would not automatically retrieve master server addresses.

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3807/

Source SDK Update Released

Updates to Source SDK have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source SDK

• The Source SDK was updated today to fix tool problems for some games and mods. We are sorry for the disruption to your work that the SDK issues may have caused for the past week. Thanks very much for your patience.

SDK Launcher
The terminology for Engine Version has changed and now maps to the year of release rather than to particular products. Here are the options now present in the list of engine versions along with the games which utilize them:

Source Engine 2006

• Half-Life 2
• Counter-Strike: Source
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1

Source Engine 2007

• Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Source Engine 2009

• Day of Defeat:Source
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

Please note that you may need to re-create the game configurations for total conversion mods that were built using 'Source Engine 2007'. Simply run the 'Edit Game Configurations' utility to do this.

Valve games should show up under the appropriate engine version. If they do not correspond to the list given above then you can either manually edit the configurations or run the [I]Reset Game Configurations[/I] utility.

SDK Tools
There are now tools supporting three versions of Source in the SDK distribution. If you are creating content for a game or total conversion based on 'Source Engine 2007' you may need to run some of the command-line tools now located at:

• sourcesdk\bin\source2007\bin

The command-line tools needed for 'Source Engine 2006' and 'Source Engine 2009' are still located at:

• sourcesdk\bin\ep1\bin
  and sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3814/
  http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_SDK_release_notes_archive#05.2F11.2F2010_Release

Team Fortress 2 / Engine Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Fixed servers being inappropriately delisted from the master server

• Quelle: http://store.steampowered.com/news/3503/

Original Day of Defeat Mod Team

NOTE  this is not team of DoD:Source - old mod team of DoD


plazza

Does anyone know anything about them? Who are they, are they still with Valve, how did they get started, etc. ?

• Original Posting - Steam Forum

  http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3640/img1255ka.jpg

Wunderboy
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13620868&postcount=10

Can't remember all the faces. Waldo (Tim) is on the far right, I think Mugsy (Matt) is the far left with the bag and PIU (John) is the one with the combat pants. Sorry to the others, my memory is going with old age.

Waldo and I worked on a few cool projects together post-Valve and he was doing some amazing stuff with MMO tech and games for education titles. As Furyo said he's just moved to Texas and finally got a job working on serious/edutainment game titles full-time.

Insta (Magnus) went to Starbreeze after Grin with a couple of others. We still hang out when we're both free and reminisce about DoD.

I've lost touch with John, Mugsy and a few other the others over the years but I've still got my cheque from Gabe Newell that I couldn't cash :-)

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6843/us2yi.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/1019/theguys.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5681/img1233u.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2941/img1219k.jpg
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/9885/img1218y.jpg
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8438/herewebe2.jpg
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/9126/dodsoundteam.jpg
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/3777/1121235img.jpg

TF2 and DoD: Source Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source

• Fixed a case of client-side hitching caused by writing a file to the hard drive too frequently

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3452/

Engine Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Enabled Steam Cloud support for key bindings and custom spraypaint images 
• Added Options->Multiplayer->Advanced option to toggle off/on: default is on

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/3407/

Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Fixed a bug with voice recording intermittently not recording after playing in a level for a while (Mac)
• Fixed a rare client crash caused by text rendering (Mac)
• Updated the server browser localization files

• http://store.steampowered.com/news/4633/

Tweaking Hammer for Efficiency

by Timothy 'YM' Johnson @Nodraw.net

Like any engine, after a bit of love and attention it can run much better, spend some time setting hammer up how you like it, get something that you like and get it to work for you, it’s your workflow. Read more ...

Dynamic Materials with Proxies

by Andy "Velvet Fist, Iron Glove" Durdin @Nodraw.net

This picture constantly rotates.

Material proxies are a neat little feature of the Source engine that let you alter various properties of a material dynamically.  This can produce some neat effects, as the texture position, scale, rotation, transparency and much more can be changed continuously, or even in response to game events.
Take Half-life 2, for example.  You know those combine force-fields, that ripple with energy, and fade out as you move away from it?  Or in Team Fortress 2, you’ll have seen the rotating radar screen in the 2fort basement.  Both those effects are done with material proxies. Read more ...