Posts by Campaignjunkie

  • eX textures release

    Quote from st0lve

    I wish that they would look that awsome in Source, cause the "plain" .tgas are boring, and hell, I do not want the crap with adding normal maps for every single texture...

    Actually, I don't think it would be that difficult. Maybe slightly time-consuming, plugging in all the filenames and configuring the material properties, but it wouldn't be too bad. Heck, I'll do it if no one else will!

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    I think Erik Johnson talked about this (kind of) in this interview:

    Quote

    I think the real mistakes are happening on the individual MOD teams themselves. They are becoming far too hesitant and conservative in their approach to how they design, develop, and release their games. If you go back and look at the first versions of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, or Day of Defeat, you'll see rough games that focus around a single game play idea. The first version of Team Fortress for Quake only had 5 classes, and wasn't even a Team game. In the first version of Counter-Strike, it was virtually impossible to tell the CTs and the Ts apart. The goal of all MOD teams should be to go out and learn from the community as to whether or not your game idea is a good one or not, and plan on releasing as often as possible. Right now it appears that too many MOD teams believe they have to build the next huge hit with their first release, which is a plan that is pretty likely to fail. [...]Sometimes it feels like the MOD community is becoming more and more like the "professional" game community, where products are being approached as something that should take a long time, ship once, and then everyone moves on to the next big project. MOD teams that are approaching building games from this perspective are throwing all of the advantages they have out the window, and are just competing with every other game developer in the world.

    ... Which pretty just sums up my opinion. Mod teams have a certain delusion of grandeur that convinces them "Hey, let's copy Halo and release in about a year" or"I want my own version of Resident Evil." Call it lack of technical skill, lack of resources, whatever - in the end it's lack of creativity, IMO.

    EDIT: Oh, and there's always a 4th, very good mod you can map for, other than CS:S, DOD:S, or HL2DM... HL2 singleplayer. It's good stuff.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    I think most HL1 doors were 80-96 units tall. Keep in mind that the player's camera is located at the chest (about 64 units high) while the player hull is 72 units tall, so 96 starts to look a little more reasonable. If you're building this for singleplayer, big doors are somewhat necessary for most monsters to fit through comfortably.

    So far it looks good though, the office especially. (I would unstretch that rug though, it's a little too much)

  • Remaking Xen Textures

    Quote from Captain P

    So, what's going on right now then? Is the port getting along fine or...? There's not a lot of news on the site these days...

    I really wouldn't know, I left months ago. They're doing some sort of restructuring, apparently. I'm sure they'll figure something out though, PV and the team are very resourceful people.

  • Hi-tech labs

    I played the real thing - my friend got it for his birthday as a cruel joke. It wasn't that bad, but it clearly wasn't good either. Some nonsensical design decisions (stupid sidekicks, save gems, shooting mutant frogs with guns for a whole level) were particularly glaring. From what I heard though, the 3rd portion of the game n Europe was supposed to be quite good, assuming you can play it long enough to get there.

  • Remaking Xen Textures

    It was a little more complicated than polishing off a few maps. While there was a good amount playable (Adam's stuff especially), there was also a lot that wasn't (err, mine, among others). I'm not really exactly condoning the act of throwing the work away, but you have to understand that staff turnover was absurdly high and not much was getting done with HL2 sitting in front of everyone. It's like telling someone to keep watching black & white television when a High-Def widescreen is sitting next to him.