Released a preliminary collection containing many updates to most weapons, along with other across-the-mod effects! See the thread in the description below for video, details, and alt download link.
Black Mesa is fantastic. It's more detailed, intricate, well-paced, coherent, and full-featured than most full games, let alone mods.
I don't think that some of its particle effects are quite at the same standard as the rest of the project.
Forums.blackmesasource.com
This first collection contains improvements to the following particle sets:
Glock
-Brighter and punchier flash, added a bit of smoke, and increased presence of the sparks from "wait there are sparks" to "slightly visible"
Magnum
-Punchier and more centralized flash as opposed to the old mess of random flares, added a quick flaming sprite on the muzzle, prettied up the initial smoke puff, added a smooth rope-based smoke trail
MP5
-Brightened up the flash, added a slight blue tinge to match the third-person flash, also added some smoke
Shotgun
-Larger and punchier flash, added some small round particles to simulate buckshot bits, more/brighter sparks, smoke transitions from quick thick puff to wispier residual stuff more smoothly and naturally, wispy smoke moves and behaves a bit more naturally
RPG
-Added a big initial smoke puff to the flash, residual muzzle smoke is a bit darker and wispier, projectile trail is now rope-based (more consistent and natural)
Tau Cannon
-Added a muzzle flash (there wasn't one at all!), added lots more flavor and spice to the projectile impact while reining in some of the wilder and uglier orb-scattering
Gluon Gun
-Initial shockwave is shorter and punchier, and now emits a quick burst of flickering orbs, flickering orbs around beam are larger, more numerous, and twist around to mirror the energy coil
Hivehand
-Muzzle flash is based more around goopy liquid, projectile trail spiced up with some neat black-glowing-white bits, projectile impact now emits some buzzing orb-things, more natural -looking goop, and has a brighter, punchier flash
Stationary turret
-Vastly improved muzzle flash mostly along the lines of the third-person MP5 flash, also uses way fewer particles
Generic impact
-A lot more punchy and forceful, transitions into residual smoke which is a bit thicker but doesn't last quite as long, slightly larger
Metal impact
-Added a bit of quick, dark smoke, brightened, enlarged, and shortened the flash
Flesh impact
-A bit more emphasis on the misty stuff (more visible at a distance)
Human/alien gib effects
-Added some mistsmoke to the main explosion, re-aligned the big fluid things to more clearly reflect a 360-degree explosion, added lots more detail to the bleed-out attached to gibs
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One of the things I would very much like to improve is the basic explosion you see for e.g. all types of grenades, but this appears to still be the pre-2007 hardcoded explosion, meaning there isn't really anything I can do about it unfortunately
If I ever get this very un-fun bug worked out then an optimized and improved world effect set for Unforseen Consequences will be next up, which should hopefully also include other minor things here and there (possibly more improvements to the stuff in this pack)
Anybody want to make a side by side for this?
Black Mesa Particle Improvement Pack 1 - Weapons and Impacts: * Youtube.com