Black Mesa mod for Half-Life 2

16 comments by Raminator on May 29th, 2007 digg this super bookmark

Welcome! It's time for more updates and more media! Quite a bit has happened over the last few months, and this article is longer and more in-depth than the one on the front page of our site.

First of all, the beautiful Alienware PC, awarded to the Black Mesa team by ModDB for winning Best Upcoming Mod of 2006, is now being auctioned off on eBay! This top-of-the-line gaming PC boasts, among other things, two gigs of RAM, dual core processors and an 8800 GTX! All told, the retail price tops $3000. All of the funds collected, as well as the $1000 given to the team for winning Best Upcoming Mod, will go towards any expenses necessary to help make this mod even better.

The winning bidder will be shipped this PC, along with some exclusive Black Mesa media preloaded on the machine. A vinyl decal with the Black Mesa logo and developer signatures is also applied to the side of the case, and an honorary Black Mesa developer hoodie is included in the auction. All the media we've ever released is neatly organised in a folder on the desktop, but other than that the PC has not been touched and has never been connected to the internet. As per Alienware's standard, there’s no preloaded trialware either. Although the exclusive media isn't a build of the mod or anything, it is something worth checking out, but we want to keep the details a surprise! And to make the deal even sweeter, the winner of the auction gets a guaranteed beta testing slot for Black Mesa! We will not be holding a public beta test, so this could be your only chance to obtain a spot in the beta!

Many thanks to all the voice actors who applied to be on the team! From the hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of applicants, the team have chosen nine very talented voice actors who will bring Black Mesa's characters to life. Please welcome our nine new voice actors:

- Adam Dravean
- Adam "LordArbiter" Stroud
- Cris "Valo118" Mertens
- Kevin "debeerguy007" Sisk
- Mandy "Wheatjam" Kuhns
- Mike "CornetTheory" Hillard
- Mike "Slammfire" Ortego
- Mitchell "RumSlush" Wooster
- Victoria "CatzEyes93" Teunissen

In addition to the voice actors, several new members have joined the ranks of the developer team. Please welcome:

- Anthony "OnboardError" Stone
- Johannes "outlive" Tripolt
- Kim "citric" Dahlgren
- Mark "Jenn0_bing" Foreman
- Matthew "schwenz" Schwenk
- Laurence “b14de” Whaites
- Russ "BurningIce81" Briggeman
- Sean "xensuna" Ryan

Speaking of team members, we would very much like to ask everyone to take a look at the portfolios of our own very talented Jeff "CGJeff" Smith and Daniel "Raminator" Junek, both of whom happen to be in the midst of a job search. Help these guys break into the industry! While you are at it, help our level designer Chuck "Atrocity" Wilson win a scholarship by voting for his Black Mesa entry in this contest!

Now that the voice acting team is complete, we are closing all applicants for voice acting. We’re also going to be closing texture artist applications. We are, however, opening up two new positions:

Firstly, we are seeking talented programmers to assist our current hardworking programmers, Paul "Zero" Peloski and Mark "Nokia" Abent. Programmers must have experience in C++, experience in coding for Source is a huge plus. In addition, we are seeking the specialized position of Effects Artist, who will create various ingame effects and shaders fulltime for the Black Mesa team. Details on both of these positions can be found on the jobs page.

And yes, we have some more media to show! You may have seen the exclusive render of the WIP skinned loader we showed during a ModDB interview, now the skin is completed and there is a higher quality beauty render on the media page! In addition, we have some more shots of Residue Processing, new shots of the multiplayer map Rapidcore, and a Bullsquid animation video, showcasing some of this ferocious Xenian's animations.

Finally, you may have noticed the community projects have been closed. Finalists have been chosen, and three new ones have just been opened! Feel free to check out the details on the Community section of the site, as well as read up on the new ones!

We are making tremendous progress and the Black Mesa team has never been doing better. Soon we'll have some exciting new features to inform you about and show off, along with some other surprises, especially where Community Project winners are concerned! Stay tuned.