Blog - Vosla

0 comments by Vosla on Jun 20th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

A noobs point of view on map detailing.

I had run in a roadblock several times with my level editing regarding detailing a few times.

You can do pretty detailed brush work with the Half-Life Engine but the smallest unit is around one inch or so. On more than one occasion, I wanted greater detail with props and made a pitstop at using sprites which are completely useless if you are able to change your viewing angle much around them as they stay in one axis to your view - except for the Z axis. Remember the trees in "They Hunger" mod? So I went back to brush models with 5 sides invisible and one visible with alpha blend. Good for small props like a clock on a fireplace ledge. Such props are more then sufficient for maps which have faster action or much space to explore. Look at "Natural Selection" mod for a perfect use of such brushes.

One of the many reasons you have never seen maps made by me and probably never will is the fact that I want too much details. I know that it is just bad planning as I am a fun mapper and give little thought to proper planning. And my level tend to have slow pace so people have time to look at things - which reveals such things like bad texture placement, bad lighting and ugly brush models. I wanted details, so I started looking for real models, changing their texture to fit my needs. But it felt cheap to use them. I surely don't need to remodel simple furniture - there are plenty of chairs out there... I want my own models. So I went for the swiss knife of Half-Life modelling: Milkshape 3D. Bought a license (it's bloody cheap! And shareware to try at first), had a download and three days later I had my own "bodyshop" to chop up some stuff. Thanks for some nice tutorials out there, I had my first model built vertice by vertice, face for face and textured in roughly an hour. It's an CD case (yes, I could have just made a box and resize it, I know!) and in the game it's the size of a pizza box... a BIG pizza box. ;-)

The point is with this blog entry that fun mappers should give it a try to make some models or at least use fitting prop models in their maps. My gaming alter ego traversed dozens of cafeteria levels and most of them looked like some CSI team had been there and took everything back to their labs. "Realistic" cafeterias had some rubbish on the floor, coffe mugs on the tables, plates, some food and maybe some overturned tables or chairs. You see good and bad examples in the original Half-Life maps.

0 comments by Vosla on Jun 14th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

I just installed Poke 646 : Vendetta again to replay a great mod.

It's made for Steam but I like to use my WON version of Half-Life, so I installed it there.
The mod is said to run under the WON version and it does. But some features are missing and I faced a crash after the intro. Doh! Well, it was made for Steam after all.

Had a quick look into things and found my PC too dumb to cope with the version of FMOD.DLL used, so I replaced it with another version which does work. I also picked the parts of the Steam splash screen for the game and put together a splash screen for it - as the unaltered version shows the standard Half-Life background. The logo.avi was also the original so I created a blank logo.avi and put it all in the mod's directory. Only thing left was the startup music which I have no idea to implement under the WON version other than making a logo.avi with the music (and i never heard of an logo.avi with sound - will the music play?). Maybe I try that another time.

For those interested, I assembled a dirty fix. Make sure to read the text inside the zip, backup your FMOD.DLL in the Vendetta directory. Maybe I'll update the fix if I can implement the startup music. ;-)

Update:
I made my own LOGO.AVI with the gamestart music but that didn't work. So no music in the menue. :-/
There are SIERRA.AVI and VALVE.AVI left to put the gamestart music in but there is no point to actually do that because Vendetta has its own titles rolling when you choose a new game - it's the first map.

0 comments by Vosla on Sep 10th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

New Game - Same Error

In a successfull attempt to piss off its costumers, EA decided to use exactly the same protection scheme as in Bioshock. Limited installs, a potential security risk and - as it happened with other games from EA - a big middle finger when EA loses interest in supporting the game.

If this would have driven off pirates to copy the game and spread it, I would still not have approve such rediculous copy-protection but the joke is exclusivly on honest buyers.

The pirated copy was available on the net prior the official release date. Free download - no install hassles - no stupid updates for a copy-protection (!!!) that sometimes decides to crash your PC - no limits on numbers of install - excepts some copies were infected with trojans.

I planned to buy the game - despite broken promises about "new gaming" concepts (nothing new in there).

Now I simply feel being insulted. I was about to spend good money and I was about to be treated as a thief?

I don't advertize pirated copies - I own dozens over dozens of paid-for games - but enough is enough!

I won't buy this game with this insulting protection - Keep it, EA! I'm through with you lot!

So it's back to Half-Life, huh?

0 comments by Vosla on Jul 13th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

If you had a look at the modding scene lately,
especially the Half-Life one, you may see what I see. And it's being a long time coming.
Ambitious plans, presented with lots of eye candy, maybe with nice music and exhaustive text details.
You come back later... and there's nothing.

I'm not talking about how long
I patiently sat on my fat ass to finally take HL:Paranoia home.
I'm not talking about Black Mesa: Source.

Those are (were?) big projects and I understand that they take loads of manpower and precious time to get them done right.

I'm also not talking about projects by single persons.
Those projects are prone to die before release because it's a lot of work for one person to do, especially if you have a life outside computers.

I talk about small projects with a whole team
of promising (boasting?) young men which are promoted like there is no tomorrow and then to be cancelled out of thin air.
Having the main coder suddenly remember that he has to finish school.
Having the mod leader joining the army like he didn't know beforehand.
Having other key members marry a jeaulous wife and to vanish from sight.
Having a bunch of youngsters dancing on the tables how cool their project will be and then - like a premature ejaculation - everything is suddenly over.

Not to mention projects that were simple 'social' experiments how long you can fool people to support a never-to-be-released mod. Feel being hated for your 'studies', you twits!

That's not funny!

Half-Life 1 is way over its time.
If you really like it, It's up to us fans to keep it alive!
At least Half-Dead... ;-)