Hey everyone, thanks for waiting. I had to delay the update by a day because of a few issues: first being that a test for one of my college classes' website was down so I had to take it at the last minute yesterday and also we have been having some huge problems with the SourceSDK that sapped a lot of development time over the past few months and I wanted to get a bit more mapping done before we made the update.
That said we do have some progress to show for, not as much as I would have liked but some is better then none. We also were having issues with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 from June to the better part of July so we were unable to get any work done on the source code for CI as much of that dev time went to Space Crusade.
The SourceSDK 2007 hammer would not run at all at first but then once I got it fixed I start getting the black view ports bug. After dealing with this and trying to fix it, giving up on it, and then moving to the 2009 hammer we had wasted two and a half weeks of development time last month. Couple that with the mod not actually being able to run and we had a large problem on our hands. I think I might have fixed both issues though (going to the 09 hammer and I got the mod to run today in time for the update) so hopefully the next update will be more substantial.
I got some work done on the Underground Bunker 2 map as well as some more work on the outer area for Black Mesa 2. I decided to go a different route with the BM2OA1 (Black Mesa 2 Outer Area 1) map as before we were going to have a path that goes all the way through the mountains to the other side near the dam, but know I think I will take us through a tunneled route. I am still working on the details but we will enter into an underground tunnel system that will take us to where were going to end up before, but this way it will take less map to do so.
Here are the screen shots:
This is part of the new area and I have several ideas and throw backs to HL1 that I think we can incorporate here. This will lead into the shell manufacturing area where the "stand off-style boss fight" will occur.
Another perspective of a hallway that links the two new areas together.
An eye candy shot, there is not any progress shown, I just thought it looked cool and since I only have one real capture for this map, thought I would fill in the gap with it lol.
This is a new area I just built yesterday, I scrapped the entire area that used to be here when I decided to change the direction of the map. Right now there is no actual geometry painting in this area, I just subdivided the displacements so they were not blocky and raised it to match the height of the current pathway for this update. This will lead to a culdesac like area where a resistance build leading into the tunnel or mine system will be located.
I was unable to get any coding done for this update as our other code-based game, Space Crusade, was slotted for that time due to the IDE issues in June, when it was originally slated to be worked on. Hopefully by September I will be able to get some major work done on the over heating function as well as solve the iron sights bug.
Thanks for following us during these snail-mail paced updates, hoping to break this cycle soon though.
Geowil.
epic lighting in the combine areas. i like the use of curves too.
That just looks terrible and ugly. You guys should not be posting early dev blockouts with basic lighting as a media update. Especially something that makes front page.
Unless that is legit the final map....
Possibly, but I do not like to work within stereotypes. This is the way I show my map progress, since I do not have a tonne of time to spend every cycle mapping, usually around 90 to 140 hours per two months, it is usually in short bursts so we end up with screens like these.
Plus we are still in early development and I could change my mind at any moment for a map, that being the case I do not like to fill them with things until I am sure that we are going with that approach (see comment on last screen for an example) so I do not waste the time I do have to put into mapping.
I would rather take a year working on a map and get it near perfect then to pound out a mod in six months and have it be half baked. That is just my work style. Trying to subject my release style to the status quo of "once it is near finished" would mean I would be making updates about every 8 to 10 months, far too long imo to hold the attention of any would be followers.
Thought you do have a point for people who are just starting to follow us and are not used to how we do things.
I meant to say working on CI as a whole and not just mapping (referring to the 1st paragraph where I listed the dev time for CI each cycle). Quite a lot of the time goes to writing the story as well as testing things my ideas for maps and working on the code.
In case you did not know this is a one-man project essentially; I have other development members but they are pretty much either non-involved with CI, on other projects, or bug/alpha&beta testers.
looks...plain
A) " ...we have been having some huge problems with the SourceSDK that sapped a lot of development time "
B) " ...having issues with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 "
C) " ..SourceSDK 2007 hammer would not run at all at first but then once I got it fixed I start getting the black view ports bug. After dealing with this and trying to fix it, giving up on it, and then moving to the 2009... "
All madness I say; sheer madness !
I know lol. Sometimes I forget just how buggy the SourceSDK is, or has become actually, ever since that major update last year (august?) seems to be very unreliable.