Thrik

Black Mesa Source?

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oGlhgVz5r6E&fmt=22

I'm really amazed this is still going. I think the first shots I saw were in 2004, and it looked pretty shank. But now it looks pretty much professional quality as far as Source goes (which isn't a surprise as I know a lot of pro-level people are/were working on it).

I really hope what they deliver lives up to the media. If it does then that's going to be one tremendous achievement. :tup:

Edited by Thrik

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This looks awesome! I hadn't heard about it, and at first I guessed this would be some kind of different story set in Black Mesa.

That got me thinking that an adventure game set in the Black Mesa facility before all hell broke loose could be even cooler. You would play one of the scientists, perhaps helping to prepare the experiment. In the end you would be killed by a headcrab.

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In the end you would be killed by a headcrab.

Teeee. I love the anti-climatic nature of that — I heartily approve of this game pitch.

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I'm having a Half Life fanboy explosion watching that trailer. Some parts of it still look very rough, but the presentation and (what's show of) the clean-up and delivery of HL1's biggest moments look spot-on. Pretty sweet.

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...but is it in-game? :erm: It looks positively awesome but there's a couple of 'uncanny valley' type moments like the pinpoint magnum shooting and the cinematic, Sony E3'ish, camera sway. The graphics are (considering it's supposed to be a source engine mod) rather jaw dropping as well, it makes Left 4 Dead look like shit. [...swift edit...] Or, not... I watched it again, this time in a higher resolution, and I can safely say I may have overreacted a tad (:mock:) but yes that skybox is amazing. I thought it was part of the scenery at first (:blink:)

Still; what are they going to do in regards to AI? There are no direct equivalents to the Marines and Assassins in Half-Life 2. I'd hate for them to become faceless storm troopers you gun down nonchalantly.

Edited by Cigol

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...but is it in-game?

I hope so, since it's a moment I recognise from the first one. Likewise for the rest of the trailer, there was quite a bit I remember playing through, and not just things like the tentacles coming from the pit. It looks like they're being faithful even with the fairly nondescript rooms.

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They're clearly using the same Source engine "cinematic post processing effects" that Valve use in all of their trailers. The exposure control, camera fluidity, and extra layer of motion blur are all things that Source, to my knowledge, doesn't do in real-time right now, but are available for non-realtime playback (eg for video projects). You can see these effects all over the place in the TF2 trailers and the L4D opening cutscene, but they're not in game to the same degree.

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Still; what are they going to do in regards to AI? There are no direct equivalents to the Marines and Assassins in Half-Life 2. I'd hate for them to become faceless storm troopers you gun down nonchalantly.

Their site/blog said something about expanding the AI.

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Well that footage was spectacular after not hearing about BMS for a while now. I think what has me most excited is the small section where he blows up the guy on the stationary gun and then shoots the two guys coming down the ramp. Its a section of gameplay, and it doesn't really look all that edited... and from what I can see it looks like it plays great.

I did feel the machine gun sound was a little weak, but I can look past that.

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That got me thinking that an adventure game set in the Black Mesa facility before all hell broke loose could be even cooler. You would play one of the scientists, perhaps helping to prepare the experiment. In the end you would be killed by a headcrab.

Holy shit, I didn't know something almost like this actually exists, as an additional co-op mode for the PS2 port of Half-Life, which was unofficially ported to PC Half-Life (not the Source version). Except they don't get killed by headcrabs (probably) and I'm not sure how much of an adventure game it is.

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They've got an impressive art team, so the end might not be a complete skybox. The following trailer was released in 2006-ish, it was already looking quite awesome :

Their dev blog is also a good hint that these guys are working on environmental functions that could make this really impressive :

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Wow, their blog is generally very insightful. I do really respect the professional approach they're taking to this, and it's a far cry from what initially looked like a project guaranteed to fail when it first got going in 2004.

I think as far as HL1 remakes go, it couldn't be in better hands other than Valve themselves.

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That's an epicly crispy-looking skybox at the end, oh man.

I'm having a hard time believing this, but according to their project lead:

the canyon is fully 3D with the exception of the extremely far mountains on the horizon, which are 2D.

thread link

That's quite an epicly amazing-looking 3D backdrop, then, for Source. (or anything else, for that matter) :tup::tup:

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I'm willing to bet top dollar they're simple 3d models with awesome textures.

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Oh wow, yeah if you watch the original 720p WMV you can see that the background is in fact 3D. You can even see the animation of the river that goes off into the distance. :tup::tup:

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Day of Defeat: Source had some impressive 3D skyboxes... they weren't trying to convey the same large scale scope as that one, but as toblix suggested, it's probably some very cunning texturing and normal mapping. That's a great thing about 3D which isn't always easy to think about -- scale is more or less irrelevant. You could be showing an action figure's face close up, or you could be showing Mount Rushmore, but all that's really relevant when you get down to it is how many polygons you're drawing on screen and how much texture data is streaming through memory.

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Wow. This is mighty impressive. It's Half Life in the HL2 engine, isn't it? Will Valve pick this up and publish it?

Rose: We really haven't had too much interaction with VALVe in terms of what they like and dislike. They have indicated they would like to see one of our builds at some point, although we're not quite at the stage to show them anything! We're really waiting for their opinions and thoughts come release date.

Montero: Valve has always held firm that they knew someone was going to do what we are doing. Their overall reaction just seems to be to sit back, and see what we do with the project

.

Valve also asked them to drop 'Source' from the title of the mod to differentiate it from official Valve product, but that's it, so they seem to be supportive but hands-off.

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Mm, I guess they asked to stop using "Half-Life" in the title, not "Source"...?

Maybe I'll actually play through the Half-Life story now. HL1 never appealed to me in the same way that HL2 did. But that was 10 years ago.

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Mm, I guess they asked to stop using "Half-Life" in the title, not "Source"...?

Maybe I'll actually play through the Half-Life story now. HL1 never appealed to me in the same way that HL2 did. But that was 10 years ago.

I don't think "Half-Life" was ever in the name of this game.

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Mm, I guess they asked to stop using "Half-Life" in the title, not "Source"...?

Mm, no.

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I work with one of the artists who's also working on Black Mesa (no idea how he has time to do great work at his job AND on his mod, but he does), and it definitely sounds very real. I kept needling him for a more detailed release date, but all they've got for now is "2009".

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