Alyx and Gordon head off for a subterrainien adventure to hunt down a suspected Combine Advisor lying hibernation in a local mine complex.

Post news Report RSS Half Life 2: Deep Down - Map 1 complete

I'm happy to report that the first map has now entered beta testing and I'm getting some interesting feedback...

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When the concept for Deep Down came about it seemed pretty straight forward. A simple Half Life 2 adventure featuring a fully functioning Alyx with a professional look and feel to it.

Things get less simple once you start getting into puzzle sections. Alyx is often in the way.
So I've had to come up with ways of leaving Alyx behind but seperating Alyx and Gordon in a way that seems plausible to the player is tough sometimes. Also, as I can't afford to pay the wonderful actress Merle Dandridge to voice new lines for Alyx (I hope Valve pay her lots of cash for the wonderful job she does) I'm having to get creative with the existing library of Alyx dialogue. There's often a line that fits most situations perfectly but sometimes you have to get a little creative.

One huge problem is that (like white men) Alyx can't jump. Well not horizonally anyway. All of her jump moves are scripted and it mainly involves her jumping over a railing or down from a ledge.
I'm looking into her climbing animations to get round this. So Alyx will climb her way to a location whereas Gordon will jump as he has the Hev Suit jump boost. It sort of makes sense.

There's one final challenge with Alyx. In the official games, there are some foes she doesn't come across. As a result, her code (while amazingly versatile as it is) may not know what to do with certain bad guys (I'm thinking Antlion Guards).

Some combinations of entities cause the game to crash (the Jalopy and Antlion Workers for example, Poison Zombies and Barnicles) so I'm hoping I don't run into problems when I try to pit her against different enemy NPC's that she's not previously encountered before.

One final challenge I'm facing right now, is to get the level changes to work properly when Gordon and Alyx are in the car. I can change level just fine with them on foot but currently the game is crashing when i drive through the trigger. If anyone has any experience with the entity info_target_vehicle_transition I'd love to hear from you. It's driving me nuts!!

Till next time...

Jim

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Raygoza
Raygoza

I am sure that HL2 has some cases when they do start up a other map after driving past something and not just load the next area and forgetting about the previous one which makes you able to return but with a loading between those two places.

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Jim_Partridge Author
Jim_Partridge

Yes! you are correct. I solved the problem.
So for each map you want to create a situation where someone can type in Map mapname and load it directly or have someone change level into it from the level before.

I was doing that bit wrong. I had an Alyx and the car already spawned, you can't do that because when you change level into the new level, the engine says... you want to bring alyx with you into this map, but wait, there's an Alyx in this map already with the same name as the Alyx you're bringing into this map.... GAHHH it's all too much for me....!

and crashes..

So instead i link the new car and Alyx to a point template and only spawn them if the map is loaded directly using the Map command in the console. Logic_Auto is very handy like that.

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SPY-maps
SPY-maps

Hi Jim,
long time no see, good to see you are modding and mapping again!!
i still was tracking this one so i did get a update and was quit surprised. nice to hear you did fix the crash mapload with Alyx, also am i, again, like with your previous mod version, very glad that you have decided to get rid of Alyx. (We see it so much these days, in games, that even in the sp mod you have team mates (bots) who spoil all the fun. even when they have great ai, I want to kill all enemies, in my own tempo. not rushes by bot team members. so glad you are leaving her out again, accept some parts as i understand, just so there is some kind of story line. I am still working (3 years) on my latest mod and use Alyx in the same way. She is to be seen a few times and that is it. My mod is almost done, (20 levels) and will be released within the next 8 weeks max. but this is not about me but about you.
you talked about that the atlion guards will not attack her, i had the same problem but then with the Vortigaunts not attacking my player figure. My friend Baltic did a easy way to fix this and with this you can make everyone a enemy of everyone. should you like to know more about it then just pm me if you wish.

good luck and nice your back!!

Leon

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Jim_Partridge Author
Jim_Partridge

Hah must check my notifications on ModDB, I don't get told about half the messages that hit my mod page. Sorry for the delay in my reply.

Much in the same way that we see in the real Ep2, Alyx is around for some sections (mostly the driving areas) and then I sperate her from the player at various points.
Most of the on, foot puzzle solving etc is done with Gordon alone.

It's fun to have her there but she can certainly stifle gameplay. She's almost unkillable and takes down combine without breaking a sweat which makes battles not very Alyx freindly.

Mostly i just like her to be there to congratulate the player when they solve a puzzle. She's also good for nudging the player in the right direction (this lift isn't working, can you get it moving? etc..).

I've learnt a lot about scene scripting etc.. from having her in this mod. I feel now there is pretty much nothing I could not achieve with the Source engine given the time.

I'm definately done with HL2 after this mod.

Think i'm going to create some nice small L4D2 survival areas, although I have considered building some maps for the Synergy Mod based on much of the template work I've created for Deep Down. Would be a shame not to re-use it.

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