[Mecha the Slag]

Hi, I'm a bit new to this area so please forgive me if my question is obvious. I've searched on the issue but gotten no answers.

Left 4 Dead has a special hint text. The old HL2 hint text is still there but a new one appears in L4D that appears to be independent. My issue arises when I have no idea how to access it. I've used this page so far in order to get the name of a text in association with GetUserMessageId, but I haven't seen a list that tells the L4D special hint text's name.

Anyone that can help me out here is credit to team

edit: also a way to print to this hint box would be great, thanks!

[Mecha the Slag]

alternatively a way to add lines to the left4dead_english.txt language file without actually being required to manually do so would be sweet!

[Downtown1]

If you can figure out how to access the L4D hint text box, please let the rest of us know .

[DJ Tsunami]

14:16:22 meta game
14:16:23 GameDLL Information
           Description: L4D - Survival
           Mod Path: E:\l4d_2\l4d\left4dead
           DLL Path: e:\l4d_2\l4d\left4dead\bin\server.dll
           Interface: ServerGameDLL005
           Engine: Left 4 Dead (2008)
           User Messages:  Name                              Index  Size 
                           Geiger                            0      1    
                           Train                             1      1    
                           HudText                           2      -1   
                           SayText                           3      -1   
                           SayText2                          4      -1   
                           TextMsg                           5      -1   
                           HudMsg                            6      -1   
                           ResetHUD                          7      1    
                           GameTitle                         8      0    
                           ItemPickup                        9      -1   
                           ShowMenu                          10     -1   
                           Shake                             11     13   
                           Fade                              12     10   
                           VGUIMenu                          13     -1   
                           Rumble                            14     3    
                           CloseCaption                      15     -1   
                           SendAudio                         16     -1   
                           RawAudio                          17     -1   
                           VoiceMask                         18     9    
                           RequestState                      19     0    
                           BarTime                           20     -1   
                           Damage                            21     -1   
                           RadioText                         22     -1   
                           HintText                          23     -1   
                           KeyHintText                       24     -1   
                           ReloadEffect                      25     4    
                           PlayerAnimEvent                   26     -1   
                           AmmoDenied                        27     2    
                           UpdateRadar                       28     -1   
                           KillCam                           29     -1   
                           MarkAchievement                   30     -1   
                           Splatter                          31     1    
                           SplatterClear                     32     0    
                           MessageText                       33     -1   
                           TransitionRestore                 34     0    
                           Spawn                             35     1    
                           CreditsLine                       36     -1   
                           CreditsMsg                        37     0    
                           StatsCrawlMsg                     38     0    
                           StatsSkipState                    39     2    
                           ShowStats                         40     -1   
                           MusicCmd                          41     -1   
                           WitchBloodSplatter                42     -1   
                           AchievementEvent                  43     -1   
                           PZDmgMsg                          44     -1   
                           HideLoadingPlaque                 45     0    
                           VoteRegistered                    46     1    
                           DisconnectToLobby                 47     0    
                           CallVoteFailed                    48     1    
                           SteamWeaponStatData               49     -1   
                           SPHapWeapEvent                    50     4    
                           HapDmg                            51     -1   
                           HapPunch                          52     -1   
                           HapSetDrag                        53     -1   
                           HapSetConst                       54     -1   
                           HapMeleeContact                   55     0    
           56 user messages in total

KeyHintText maybe?

[Downtown1]

What does all that stuff mean? I would love to be able to send custom text messages in L4D like scores or spawn notifications etc.

[DJ Tsunami]

As you can see they're called user messages. Look at usermessages.inc to see how to create them.

[Thraka]

I looked at usermessages.inc, and the wiki. There isn't much on how to use the stuff. But I agree Downtown, it would be awesome to be able to send custom messages.

[Dragonshadow]

Yea I looked aswell and there isn't much of anything on it.

[DJ Tsunami]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN The message contents are encoded by the mod. Unfortunately you pretty much have to reverse engineer them yourself if you're not visible from the SDK.

Luckily the L4D SDK shows how KeyHintText is used, something along these lines:

KeyHintText(client, const String:message[])
{
    new Handle:hBf = StartMessageOne("KeyHintText", client);
    if(hBf)
    {
        BfWriteByte(hBf,   1);
        BfWriteString(hBf, message);
        EndMessage();
    }
}

[The JCS]

Originally Posted by DJ Tsunami Luckily the L4D SDK shows how KeyHintText is used, something along these lines

Is there a real SDK? With the L4D engine?