create a custom deacle

Making a custom decal is a simple process. All you need is an image, and a paint program capable of simple palette manipulation and image scaling. Paint Shop Pro is ideal, and is available as shareware from http://www.jasc.com. The steps for creating a decal are: 1. Paint or scan an image. Make it 64 by 64 pixels in size, either by painting the image to that size, or by scaling your scanned image (or larger painted image.) ). Painting in black and white is recommended, because the final decal will be displayed as one color only. You can choose the color of your decal and you can change that color at any time
between games using the game interface. Save your source decal as a black and white image, however.

2. Use your paint program to make the image a "grayscale" image: that is, the palette (the colors that the image uses) should be a ramp from white to black. If you are painting the image yourself using Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, or some similar program, you can specify that you want the image to be grayscale before you start. With the palette going from black to white, any white in the image will be totally opaque, and any black in the image will be totally transparent (invisible). Any gray in the image will be translucent: very translucent if it is near-black, and close to opaque if it is near white. Some applications will ramp the palette from black to white when you select "grayscale." That is, if you look at the color palette, the first color (usually the upper left-hand corner color) will be black, and the last color (usually the lower right-hand corner color) will be white. In this case, you want to invert your image, such that the black portions of your image are the parts that will be opaque, and the white portions are the parts that will be transparent. Be sure you check what the palette looks like after you save your file, and adjust it if necessary. Think of it this way: if your decal looks like a chalk drawing on a blackboard, you want the first color in your palette to be black (which will come through as completely transparent), ramping to the last color which is white (which will come through as opaque). If your drawing looks like a pen drawing on white paper, the first color should be white, ramping to the last color which should be black.

3. Save this image in your half-life\logos directory as a Windows bitmap (.bmp) file, and it will automatically show up in the list of decals you see in the launcher interface. There you can choose the decal's color. Changing the color of your decal during a game will not take effect for that game. Only after you restart your game will the new color appear.

If you would like to view pre-made decals, several are shipped with Half-Life and can be found in the Half-Life\logos directory. These will give you a good idea about the file format and appearance of a decal, before it appears in the game.

IV. 3D HARDWARE ISSUES

Half-Life has the ability to use both OpenGL and Direct3D. Many cards with support for 3D acceleration will provide both OpenGL and Direct3D drivers. Which one is better depends upon the quality and performance of the drivers themselves, and will vary from card to card.

The latest release of DirectX, version 6.0, is included on the Half-Life CD. It should be automatically installed as part of the Half-Life installation process. If you need to reinstall at a later time, open the DirectX folder on your Half-Life installation CD and run dxsetup.exe.

In general, make sure you have the latest versions of the device drivers for your display hardware. Most graphics card vendors make them freely available on the Internet, and a collection of links to sites of many popular cards is installed on your hard drive along with Half-Life. The default location for this file is:

C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\media\DrvPage\default.htm

Video configuration is set in the Configuration\Video\Video modes menu in Half-Life.

The following section explains the known driver and compatibility issues for specific chipsets at the time of Half-Life's shipping. If you have any questions about which chipset is incorporated in your graphics card, consult the documentation that accompanied your card, or contact the card manufacturer.

3DFX Banshee, Voodoo 1, Voodoo 2, Voodoo 2 SLI

Get the latest drivers from your card manufacturer or get the latest drivers directly from the 3DFX site. Half-Life ships with the current, tested GL mini-driver. Make sure that you have Glide version 2.54 or above. Half-Life does not support Direct3D on Voodoo cards.

The Voodoo 2 running in SLI mode on Windows/NT is prone to crashing. The solution to this instability is to either get an updated driver from 3DFX, disable SLI mode, or run under Windows 95/98.

3DFX Rush

With the current drivers, Half-Life supports the Voodoo rush in software mode only. Check with 3DFX for an updated driver that offers support for Half-Life

NVIDIA Riva 128

You must have Windows 95 OSR 2 or later, Windows 98 or Windows NT. As of shipping, Half-Life Riva 128 OpenGL support requires the latest reference driver from NVIDIA. Get this driver off of their site, www.nvidia.com. Direct3D support is currently unavailable. Contact NVIDIA for a Direct3D driver that supports Half-Life.

NVIDIA TNT

Half-Life supports the TNT in software, OpenGL and Direct3D modes. Get the latest driver off of NVIDIA's site.

Matrox G200

Half-Life supports the G200 in software and Direct3D. Get the latest driver from Matrox's site, www.matrox.com. Matrox will also be providing a GL mini-driver that will support OpenGL in Half-Life. Check with Matrox for details.

S3 Virge

Half-Life supports the Virge in software mode only.