I've recently cut down on this section of the mod page, to lessen the amount of unnecessary information. The 'Map Progress' counters were removed as a redundancy, and the 'News' section has been replaced by the new Dev Logs. Now only permanent information is shown here.



Story


In Lament, you take the role of Michael Anderson, a researcher and archaeologist living in England, 1845. In the wake of a disastrous expedition, your childhood friend and fellow archaeologist, Johnathan Crawford, has grown distant and sullen. Research is slowly crawling to a standstill, and doubts are creeping into the darker parts of your mind. Plagued by nightmares of an unspeakable monster stalking the halls of an unfamiliar place, you contemplate throwing the years of fruitless searching away. Anything for some peace of mind... right?



Features


  • Highly detailed and interesting environments to explore.
  • Deep, non-linear story taking place in the Dark Descent universe.
  • Point-and-click adventure elements. Click something of interest, and Michael will comment on it.
  • Tons of custom textures, models, particle systems, and sounds.
  • Scripted events and set-pieces to discover throughout the levels.
  • Detailed and unique soundscapes for every level, aided by custom and modified sound effects.
  • Updated versions of vanilla physics entities, with new collision meshes and tweaked physics.
  • Full and Lite versions. Full includes all the pretty lighting effects, particles, and details. Lite is a more performance-friendly version which includes reduced shadow casters, decals, particle systems, and reworked level design, while still retaining the overall look and feel of the levels.

Description


"Lament" is my first custom story for Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It has served as a fantastic learning experience for me, and I fully intend to make it the best it can possibly be.

I'm trying to make the story as understandable as possible while keeping the required note-reading to a minimum. Notes are still there, of course, but they serve to add depth to world the player explores, not to explain the core story.
There's quite a wealth of new stuff included as well. New physics entities and particle systems, as well as modified enemies, critters, and materials. All of these are used to bring the world of Lament to life, and bring it to greater heights than was previously possible.



As a final note, this page will not be updated regularly, mostly because the world is cruel to high school students, but I do try to keep everyone updated on the mod's progress in my Dev Logs.

Cheers.

  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
RSS Articles

Heyo,

To start today's Dev Log, I'm happy to announce that it's currently Summer Break (and has been for the past three weeks), which means I have more time to procrastinate! I mean more time to work diligently!

So, ah, *ahem* let's get on with it.


SUNLIGHT!

No gifs this time, but I do have some nice screenshots.


So, first order of business deals with the level in the above screenshot. Or, more specifically, the ridiculous scale of the level in the above screenshot. I'll dial back a bit to explain.

That level, in all it's majesty, is probably the largest thing that's ever been made in HPL2. I'm not saying that to toot my own horn (most of it's just decorative, anyway), I'm just saying there's no reason anyone would have wanted to build something so big that the game can't even render it by default.

Therein lies my dilemma. I want to include this level in the mod. Of course I do, I've spent days upon days on it alone. But doing so would require every single person who downloads it to manually change the game's settings to allow it to render at a further distance (the default limit is 400 meters, I've changed mine to 1200). Fortunately, changing this value doesn't have any effect on the game aside from letting it render farther out, but most people would be understandably hesitant to dig into the game's files and change a setting like that.


Hell is 12 dozen spotlights.

I have seen the true face of Hell. It is twelve dozen spotlights.


The other interesting thing about this level, aside from it's scale, is the way I've had to light it. Since lights start bugging out at radii above a value of 100, I've had to use gobo'd lights to fake the shape of the sunlight coming through the mountains. An interesting experience, to be certain, but an enjoyable one at that. A bit like making a painting.

With twelve dozen spotlights.


Who the hell took the time to polish these floors?

Can you believe this tile predates floor wax? I can't.


This bit is actually about something I figured out a long time ago, but never showed, and have never seen done anywhere else, so I'm showing it now. Reflective surfaces!

World reflection is pretty expensive rendering-wise, so it was important to get the materials to look normal whether the player had the effect turned on or off in their video settings. Fortunately, I ran into very few snags, and the system works very well. Basically, the game thinks it's rendering water, which is the only material that can have dynamic reflections. All I've done is fiddled with the settings so it looks natural, and then layered it on top of another textured plane.

Sadly, it's applications are still limited. Without being able to soften the reflection, it isn't possible to accurately simulate any materials outside of those that reflect light very sharply, like the polished floor in the screenshot above. That means wooden floors are out of the question, as well as most rough wet surfaces and metals. Still, it adds a lot to the scenes it can be applied to, and I'm glad it works as well as it does.


The last thing I want to mention is my current post-release plan for Lament. Mainly, that the short prequel and sequel I had planned (as mentioned a while ago in an article) will no longer be made. This is mostly because of the decline in Amnesia's modding community, but also because I haven't really thought of anything interesting that would make those custom stories worthwhile projects. This probably isn't much of a surprise to those who actually remember when I first made that announcement, but I felt it necessary to mention. Trilogies are overrated, anyway.

I do, however, have other projects to move on to from here. When I'll announce those, I don't know, but rest assured they will come.


That's all for today's Dev Log, I hope you enjoyed reading it, because I spent way too long writing it. Until next time.

I remain,

Craa

Dev Log #2 - Three Years' Time, and Fancy Particles

Dev Log #2 - Three Years' Time, and Fancy Particles

News 7 comments

I need more sleep, and all I got was these neat particle systems.

Dev Log #1 - Renovations, Optimizations, and Color Palettes

Dev Log #1 - Renovations, Optimizations, and Color Palettes

News 7 comments

We got lighting! We got colors! We got... er, less trees!

Entities, What With the Physics and Such

Entities, What With the Physics and Such

News 3 comments

Physics are cool, but school is not. *drops mic* *hastily picks it back up to check if it's broken*

Quick Development Update

Quick Development Update

News

Gonna be out of state for a month, will still work on my laptop, but it'll be slower than usual.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 69)
Thinbut
Thinbut

Come on. Don't abandon this promising mod!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

Please respond!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
ʟogan
ʟogan

cmonnnn mann

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
ʟogan
ʟogan

cmmooooonnnnnn mmmaaaaaaaaaaannn

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

Ah, pray tell me, that this is not abandoned! For beautiful lighting, vast landscapes, tell me that this work of art would be finished? To experience what wonderfully terrifying encounters may there be in this mod, surely it wouldn't remain but a dream? O, the screenshots tell such a story, of mastery of this old and outdated engine, of pushing the HPL2 Level Editor to its furthest limits! Tell me, that I would see this finished within my lifetime...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

pLs gib de liting so nIce pls

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
OddStuff
OddStuff

When will this come out? It looks great!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
TheGamerPro9071
TheGamerPro9071

How is the mod going? Looks so cool!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Wilhelm_von_Dornberg
Wilhelm_von_Dornberg

Is the mod still in development? Or is this just another of those long pauses you seem to take every so often?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Guest
Guest

How's development going?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account:

X