January 2010 update news - The Intern's Story mod for Half-Life 2

So it's 2010 and we have missed our
unofficial deadline by quite some margin. Not that I ever stated that
this was when I would like to have released TIS 3 but it would be
have been nice to see how it would have done in this years Mod DB
awards.
So where are we and what's the news?

The highs and lows of a dev.

This final episode is quite clearly
divided into 4 chapters and three of these have been mapped. I am now
going over the chapter 1 maps, polishing and optimising. I confess
this is something that I find quite difficult as it is a lot less fun
than the initial design and mapping that allows the creative side to
flow as well as allowing a lot of discussion for the team.

It is all looking rather good if I say
so myself and with a bit of technical genius from one of our boffins
we have the ability for forested skyboxes. We have had a rather good
Voice Actor gift us with his talent, a snatch of which I will post
for you to hear. VA's still wanted though.
We are also still looking for a level
designer for the missing chapter as I feel this is an area that would
benefit from a style unique from my own. So if you, or you know of
anyone that would like to try their hand at non-euclidean mapping, :)
please drop me a line.

I have a new PC on which to rebuild the
existing maps which has been a been both a blessing and a pain. Maps
now compiles 100% faster as hammer can take advantage of multi-core
processors but the optimisation tool, +showbudget hates the maps and
spikes all over the place and shows the fps as a minus figure! This
had me pulling my hair out quite for quite a time until I had a
brainwave and tested an EP2 mod for TIS 3. Seems like the maps are
fine in EP2 and it is the EP1 engine that is actually unoptimised! So
another dilemma, continue with building in EP1 or move up to EP2? I
have always wanted to release for EP1 as I know a lot of people
didn't actually bother with EP2. Using the EP2 engine would reduce
the target audience, which I think is quite small anyway and this
seriously concerned me. The answer we came up with was quite simple
in the end, as it turns out. Release in both formats and hope that
Mod DB don't mind me clogging up their server space. :)

So it's definitely onwards and upwards
after a bit of a hole was climbed out of and the Xmas break has
allowed us to recharge our batteries for the next leg of the voyage.
One that is likely to be a bit slow due to my own dislike of this
particular stage of design and tweaking.

So wish us a fair wind and the that the
stars are right and we will push on to that high plateau of
completion where wonders await.
Quin.

For this update I have included a few
new screenshots as well as some discarded concepts to keep that
appetite suitably whetted and a new theme by Allicorn. As usual
though, I am trying not to give too much away about the story, just
hints of the true nature of the dimensional expanse of the piece.