Half Life 2: Raising the Bar REDUX: January 2022 Update news

Hey everyone! Welcome to our January 2022 update! Due to a lot of us being busy over the Christmas period, we had to delay the last quarterly update – but 2022 is going to be a huge year for RTBR, and what better way to kick it off than a reveal, at the end of this update, of perhaps one of the most ambitious restorations in a cut content mod? Stay tuned for all the awesome stuff between!

Rebels

To get things started, our new rebels! Their design takes inspiration from concept art, and are still on parity with our metrocops, as they wear this flak jacket/vest beneath the metal chest plate for comfort whilst walking the beat. As for the variation – there are literally hundreds of different variants for the rebels across all male and female heads. Designing these models initially started off with recreating HL2’s rebel variants, but with each small change on those models (arm pad placements, colour variants) made into modular pieces instead. Then, we added a few extra options sourced from the concept art. The exceptionally modular approach to these models means it would be relatively straight-forward to add additional bodygroups, skins, and head models in the future – further enhancing the individual personality of every rebel you’ll come across! We will be taking a similar approach for medics, down the line.

Minetown

Minetown, the final map of Division 2, continues to eke along the road to completion. Our priority has generally been working forwards and so Minetown is still in need of further work, but SCP’s touch-ups have pushed it just that little bit closer. We will be continuing to touch up Minetown from time to time as an idea strikes a member of the team, until the opportunity comes to focus on it wholly. There’s some exciting ideas rounding off Division 2 within Minetown, so we’re committed to getting this map right!

New Hands

Over time, our arm models – adapted from the wider suit model – have been outmoded by other models we’ve created for the player and around the mod. Andy created a set of arms especially for viewmodels, repairing much of the texture issues caused by not having a dedicated arms model.

Zombine

As we continue to work away at Ravenholm, our zombie roster continues to bolster – including the revised Zombine! Naturally, our Zombine is heavily inspired from our redesigned soldier, and it’s a great translation of that concept into the gory, gnarly version you’ll be fighting on occasion in Ravenholm.

Cage Light

Sometimes we source models from a variety of places in designing our maps – one of the benefits of creating a Valve game-based mod! However, sometimes the execution of an asset is not as good as concept, as was the case for this hanging cagelight model from Portal. To ensure it didn’t stand out as looking especially basic, White gave it a total remake that serves its purpose far better than before.

Crosses

In Ravenholm, Grigori’s faith has been one of the few things keeping him fighting the good fight. You’ll have a small window of opportunity in Quarrytown to spend some time in Grigori’s own base of operations – the last Church of Ravenholm – and see some of his handiwork.

Eli Den

Eliden continues to move along, with more detail added into the environment. You’ll be seeing even more regarding the level in just a little bit as we showcase the other big new character in Eli’s Lab – but these shots prove Maxwell’s lab will stand out from all the other lab environments in a big way.

Maxwell Furniture

Directly inspired by concept art and put to great use by CW3D, these props join some of the other unique additions to Maxwell’s lab intended solely for designing his environment to be as unique as possible. Maxwell has his own character in RTBR, shown through the personal choices in his living space.

Weapon Animations

Weapon animations are a continual focus for Silent, who is regularly reworking the arsenal as his skills develop. The pistol and revolver are two he has recently remade – take a look!

Citizen Corpses

As we replace all character models in the mod for style consistency, the corpses from Half-Life 2 (that, ironically, are using an older Citizen model as their basis) were one of the first corpse models remade, with special attention paid to keeping it in line with our existing citizens. A female variant was also modelled to ensure detail is kept consistent within the models, though not pictured as the only difference is in proportions of the model.

Outercanals03

With Inner canals through to Outercanals02 more or less finalised, we have now begun working on wrapping up the canals section of Division 2 with Outercanals03. Much more naturalistic and less manmade, this set of canals is a look at what the environment far outside of City 17 begins to look like when far enough away from the Wasteland to still be considered somewhat verdant and naturalistic.

Quarrytown02

With Quarrytown01’s art pass concluded, Flash continues to push ahead with the second map of Ravenholm, honing in on the visual language of Quarrytown and keeping up the atmosphere built so far. Quarrytown still has some ways to go, but Flash’s work continues to make it a vivid re-enactment.

Flare Box

The flaregun in RTBR is intended to have a very unique functionality that makes it much more enjoyable over the cut variant. It will be a definitive “weapon”, not just a utility tool, and this naturally begets ammo pickups in gameplay. You might well find, however, that these pickups come in handy before you arrive in the arctic onboard the Hyperborea…

Skitch

The critter that perhaps needs no introduction – Skitch – is now fully working inside of RTBR! He is a functional NPC with a full range of facial flexes, sound effects, interaction and choreography animations, all of which allows him to become a character in his own right. Skitch was the hard work of a number of people on the team, each of whom will discuss their own contribution before we show you a few clips of Skitch in action around Eli’s Lab!

Just to address two points quickly – in the original concept, Skitch was a female and quite a bit smaller. In RTBR, we’ve made Skitch male to preserve that “girl and her dog” relationship between Alyx and Dog in retail HL2, whilst also making Skitch larger to maintain the idea that, provoked and with his companion in danger, Skitch could be a legitimate and terrifying creature.

First, from Andy: When I set about creating Skitch for RTBR there were a couple of features that I felt were truly needed and make him recognisable. First was the overall head shape with its small sunken, beady eyes, followed by the two distinctive large fangs. The next features were Skitch’s long grasping forelimbs and hunched shoulders. After that I went my own direction favouring a short tail and trying for a blend of primate and reptile. I chose to ditch the collar and lead because I wanted Skitch to appear independent yet protective of Alyx and not subservient. After creating multiple colour schemes, including tan and orange featured in one of the references, we did finally settle on a natural pale khaki with mottled pattern.

Next, a few words from Kalimando, who did all the animation work on Skitch:

Kalimando: Hey there, I’m Kalimando. I animated Skitch. I was initially brought on the team to work on Skitch for various other problems with the model, but what Skitch offered me was an opportunity to try out the various methods I’d been tinkering with in my own time, creating blend trees, pose parameters, facial flexes, and serving all those parameters to someone working in faceposer; Also, getting the inverse kinematics to work, figuring out what all that was about. When animated Skitch I kind of treated him a little bit like a bird and a little bit like a panther. He’s kind of got a predator’s body type, though he’s mostly passive in the game, so you need to draw a line between perfunctory motions and cute little ones. I hope you enjoy the final product!

Finally, a few words from Amicus, who created the SFX for Skitch:

Amicus: Hey guys, Amicus here, and I created the sounds for Skitch. When figuring out what direction we wanted to go with Skitch's vocalizations, we knew right off the bat that he should have sounds similar to that of a baby crocodile. When he is being spoken to by one of his companions and friends, he will respond with the almost laser gun sounding bark of a baby crocodile. But he can't always be cute... he's a killing machine! So, for his...scarier side...he will hiss and roar like the true monster he can be when his friends are threatened...and you really don't want to get on this lizard dog’s bad side.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – a sneak peek at some of the interactions you’ll witness within Eli’s Lab and beyond! Please note the surrounding environments and choreography is still up for some further refinement.

Finishing Up

And that’s all for our first update of 2022! Division 2 continues to be some of our most impressive work to date, and with Skitch fully implemented, now it’s about refining everything in the release. We will hopefully have very exciting news for you soon regarding getting your hands on a new version of the mod. Before closing up, here’s a few more roles we’re still on the lookout for:

• Competent level designers – We’re still open to having both additional support in the art pass and blockout departments
• Facial flex/sculptor – We’re still in need of someone comfortable with sculpting head meshes in the context of Source (so creation of VTAs as well)
• Texture/material artist – We’re planning ahead to Division 5 and we’d like to start getting world textures for the arctic put away, including variations of snow, ice, rock, and that kind of thing, so someone familiar with creating usable world textures in Source would be handy

If any of these roles look good to you, please add me on Discord at Kralich/David#0901. Thanks for coming, and let’s make 2022 one hell of a year!