Comments - Tech-Imp

Aye the intent is to after I finish up some loose ends. Life has many curveballs its tossed my way and I have the bruises to prove it >_<

Most intriguing. Its not very often that I run across something so simple it works to a far greater depth than I was expecting. Bravo ^_^

There are quite a few corners I can cut if time were to suddenly become a major concern. Thankfully those cut corners are mainly only graphical in nature and can be later patched in with little issue for "breaking the game". I do have a few friends that have offered to help at key points (whether for testing or coding)...

But yea....it would be nice to have some other dependable people around.

Ty....working on character modelling and animation for the other 5 seconds of it.

Not dead. Its just taking a lot longer than I expected. Working essentially solo doing all manners of tasks (modeler, animator, designer, tester, media manager, sound manager, scripter, coder, and more) when the rest of stuff in my life doesn't come with a pause button tends to be a bit more intensive than I anticipated.

No matter....I like a good challenge.

Keep popping back in from time to time. I'm trying to make incremental updates, no matter how small.

Also note: Headcrabs (and the zombies created by them) are due to Inter-dimensional means (the events of HL1), not an outbreak of sorts.

No. Though keep in mind that they do not necessarily need to exist in different realities. There was no strong indication that Aperture (or this locale) is anywhere near Black Mesa. Thankfully Valve is vague enough to allow sufficient leeway. However if it caused a continuity error, it could be easily justified as a parallel reality, which would work well as a segue into my next project.

The engine itself isnt whats in question. All of Valves games use the source engine with an additional layer of logic on top of it. At its base level, it is capable of handling physics interactions, bullet physics, and multiple users.

What L4D brought to the table was the AI Director to properly spawn simple AI constructs (common infected) with those of a rarer variety (special infected) based on a bunch of different factors. It is the Director, not the zombies themselves, that is the chief technical addition.

Portal on the other hand, expanded the physics along with allowing "portal layers" (essentially placing a door/gradual teleport) to be placed at will. Notice how none of the enemies in Portal ever move toward the player and all are bound to their posts? That was a combination of the limitation of the current AI system and a game design choice.

While not easy, it is entirely possible to layer the L4D AI Director over Portal's existing architecture. If not, It is possible to create a working replica of what is known from a black box perspective of the AI Director. Granted it wouldn't be the real Mccoy, but it would be close enough that players would feel at home.

Yes. You venture into one of the Aperture Science buildings. We'll just refer to it as "Test Site B" for simplicity's sake.

This snapshot is more than a year old. The map its on has been redone at least 3 times. There are no particle effects such as fire, any dynamic lighting, nor any of the grain that would be present. That is why this (and the other pictures currently labeled with the OLD tag) are old.

Actually...you know what...since that send me down another path I haven't been thinking about in a while, Ive released one more small tidbit of info on the features page. Enjoy

I agree entirely on the 1 portal gun available to players...which does bring up the point in my mind that I will need to alter encounters based on the number of live bodies (aka player controlled vs computer controlled). Thanks ^_^

And then I thought about it a little longer. Since impulse 101 brings all the weapons over to portal there wouldnt really be a need to do vice versa. Rather than leaving the physics as the difficult thing....you can leave the AI as the open end.

Technically you can port over the portal gun into HL2. There are descriptions on how. Getting it into L4D may prove a bit tricker at this point in time.

It looks good...but one thing catches my eyes. Why is there a spotlight on the wall. Nothing is projecting in that direction and the light above wouldnt cause a circular pattern. None the less...a very nice picture.

Im assuming he had some issues since the SDk only came out in recent months. In one of the videos he mentioned some of the AI was off since he was using workaround for some parts. I'd assume that would be why its been so long.

It was a quick coverup I did. That is why everything looks jagged and disjoint. Rather than focus to hard on that particular point (aka making it a pretty hole) I was working on the rest of the level. This particular picture is up because it is one of the few (properly) textured areas, and I kinda needed to show some of the progress. Grey on grey, unfortuately, does not translate well in a picture for showing depth. If you would like to offer your services, I'd be more than happy for the help.

Im not an artist, but this is realtively early on. It has none of the effects added or the extra props that would be moveable. What you are looking at is a cop car flipped over onto another car that was attempting to leave the scene. The reason for the flip? The officer decided to hit the tank. Unfortunately...it was not a wise choice. Level design is iterative. Not all the bells and whistles need to be present in all versions.