Originally started by the16mapper
Welcome back! It’s been over a month since the last article, but don’t worry, we have so much to show. Let’s jump right into the map progress, shall we?
MAP PROGRESS
First of all we have Unforeseen Consequences. Cold and foggy coolant storage areas in Sector B complete with sewers and more storage areas that are now bigger and better than ever!... Of course, with some technology and coolant leaks, because everything in Black Mesa is an OSHA violation. Our mappers have finished most of Unforeseen Consequences’ maps pretty quickly, so there’s a lot to show you.
Mappers: the16mapper, Dabzik
As you can see, c1a1b has been transformed to have a wonderful atmosphere, c1a1c has been expanded overall and c1a1d is now a way larger map! If you haven’t noticed, there’s also fog added. The fog system is extremely customizable, allowing for custom start and end positions, blend time and even colour! But let’s not bore you with the details and instead, move on.
Moving on, the Hazard Course. The first map has been redesigned into a starting area that you can see in Half-Life's PS2 port’s Hazard Course, and even with similar lines. The area includes a cafeteria, a little bit of the Medical Center that you see in Opposing Force, 2 miscellaneous rooms, and a control center mainly to monitor the entire Hazard Course and it's systems.
Mapper: John Pot
Keep scrolling down, the ‘Map Progress’ part is not done. And the Hazard Course is not done yet.
Now, let’s move onto We’ve Got Hostiles, full of crates and soldiers. The mapper for it is recreating it completely from scratch, and so far it’s looking pretty great!
Mapper: the16mapper
The sections are now more separate. You can notice Storage Area 1 mostly has military supplies while Storage Area 2 has explosives stored in it. Expect some HECU action!
This is still not all of the progress that we have made; we have On a Rail left to show you all!
Mappers: John Pot, John Smokes
Yep, now it’s way bigger and has more optional areas for you to explore! Of course, the chapter itself won’t be extremely long, but we will try our hardest to make it more fun to play through.
Now, for the last part, we have Forget About Freeman. This is made by John Smokes and looks amazing! We haven’t shown you it all that much, however, which is why we’re showing it to you now.
Mapper: John Smokes
Now that the map progress is over, we can move onto the new additions.
ADDITIONS
First of all, we have added the panthereye! It has 2 attacks; claw and leap. It has 80 health, runs fast and deals medium damage. Look out for it!
Now, it’s time for some underwater fauna; the Archer! It’s an underwater creature firing plasma at you and being able to bite you. It, of course, doesn’t have all that much health. It’s also not as annoying as leeches and not as powerful as the ichthyosaur.
Did you think that this was everything? Nope, we still have more, so much more to show!
This… Is a powerful grenade launcher firing MP5 grenades. It deals a lot of damage and fires relatively fast. Don’t blow yourself up!
Let’s distract ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, and instead look at a creature that can cause mass destruction.
Ah, there it is. The charger. It is an extremely fast flying creature firing plasma balls at the player native to Xen, forcing you to dodge it as fast as possible. Watch out for it!
Let’s move onto something that is not as powerful. The new HECU variation! Yes, that’s right, we now have an HECU sniper variation! This was originally suggested by the wonderful lad in our discord server with a nickname of STAHP.exe#8728, so if you have something to suggest or ask, join the server!
Are you still thinking that this is everything? Nope, there’s way more HECU variations! Their arsenal was expanded substantially and they’re way more of a hazard to the player now!
Of course, showing off the military isn’t enough, so let’s show off the science team, or, well, their equipment; the iconic HEV suit!
Unfortunately, this one is occupied by a headcrab zombie, but it’s all fine, really! The zombie has a power parameter that reduces damage taken by him, similar to how you, the player, can take batteries and charge your suit! You will encounter these zombies as part of the lost survey team in Xen, or maybe even on Earth? Who knows...
You can listen to some of it's sounds
But let’s move away from the topic of zombies and instead look at weapons… Or rather, animated weapons! DaKashi made the shockroach glow, and the hivehand, snarks and chumtoad blink. It’s a very impressive detail and we think it deserves attention.
Now we’re finally done. Join the discord server if you haven’t already, and remember, stay frosty for the next article!
Half-Life: Extended © 2021 by the Half-Life: Extended Team is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International 
Nice Update m8
Thank you!
This looks great!
pretty darn great
Amazing!
Thank you.
Cool asf. I am really looking forward to this!
We are rather looking forward to this analysis.
Hell yeah! I'm also glad to see that the sniper was added :)
Totally! Your suggestion was nice.
This looks pretty neat in my opinion, good work!
Thanks!
Would you be willing to release the damaged hev sounds without the zombie noises in them?
It's a possibility, but the sources of the sounds are probably no longer present.
I didn't bother saving backups for the H.E.V Sounds but shouldn't be too hard to recreate them as is. I used Audacity.
Sweet, and I love the PCV variants like from Opposing Force
Very good job, but, please, don't go far from canon half-life, don't add too much enemies from alpha, or do it with taste, you see, it's not cool, when you are in familiar place and, for example, instead of zombie or vortigaunt there is shock soldier from opposing force. And yeah, you would be better to not add race X, because it will go to earth after gordon freeman go to xen. Or, you can add small appearances of one or two race X representatives, like in op4, when shock soldier teleports away with scientist. So, good luck!
Don't worry, we won't. We will keep Race X only as a cameo (if we even will) that you will be able to see on some cameras. Alpha enemies won't be added too much, since we don't have too much of them either. Thanks for the kind words!
Nice update bro im following this one
This looks awesome!
Le epique!
Well done! Can't wait to play it.
It's going to take a time but we are working as hard as we can!
PART1
Having the op4 monsters will be great for mappers intending to build mod projects based upon their fantastic code. Assuming they will release the FGD along with their mod once it is complete.
1st Pic: Looks fairly good and close to the original but even in the original I found this place somewhat plain looking. Perhaps add some additional decals of sort. Perhaps some destruction or alien spit sprites etc. Anything to add some more color to that place.
2nd Pic: I do like this one. It looks very well made. Eventually add a smaller alert light attached onto one of the walls shining in red or yellow with or without an actual alert sound to add even more to the brilliant atmosphere seen in that screenshot.
3rd Pic: Clearly needs a lot more work. I'd carve the ground brush into several segments and add a trim frame around the whole structure. Something in black turning this whole floor into many minor segments. Somehow they had to place this steel construct in there right? And it certainly wasn't 1 giant steel segment originally. How would they've gotten that through the door otherwise. :) Few signs probably wouldn't hurt either.
4th Pic: It looks descent enough. Eventually add lights onto the walkway like I did here: Media.moddb.com see bottom left.
5th Pic: Very lovely hallway and lab. Suggestions: Add few models or brush based stuff onto the table inside the lab. Add posters or facility guideline signs into the hallway.
Eventually add a slightly transparent Black Mesa Logo onto the Window like the very talented guys did for "The Core": Media.moddb.com You could even place a transparent puddle along with a mop & cart plus a "slippery warning" sign onto that hallway. Some more sign posting. Possibly even a small tag sign giving the lab a proper name or designation as to what type and kind that lab is.
6th Pic: The ceiling could need some additional work. How about adding some vent shafts or steel fences along with pipes and cables running behind it? Might look good on some places for this huge room.
7th Pic: While the texture choices are like in the original. More is certainly possible. Don't go to far astray of the original texture choices but still it's not wrong to tinker around a little bit and finding ways to improve upon certain things. I think the ground floor and Ceiling definitely require some more love and variation. Trims of all forms and variations are usually a good way to enhance a floor.
8th & 9th Pic: Same as for number 6 & 7. Also some more facility signs. Like smoking prohibited etc.
Thank you for all the feedback, about the BM logo in the window...
Really cool idea!, I didn't think in that.
PART2
10th Pic: That car that rushed into the Steel gate doesn't look to convincing due to the fact that it is a model. Either customize the model that the whole front section looks wrecked: Ovb-online.de Or perhaps use a Brush based Car instead that allows you to do the exact same thing. Some decals and an oil paddle plus perhaps tire traces might look very good and convincing here. Perhaps a dead Scientist lying on the engine bonnet. Got thrown out the window when the crash happened.
11th Pic: Now this looks very lovely. But I bet all the yellow lights up there are all the same texture. I suggest to make a texture duplicate in wally and give it a different name and then let it flicker and giving no texlight. Or to carve some segments out give them a name and then use different light settings per entity setup. That'll enhance that room and the atmosphere in this room even more. As usual few more signs wont hurt.
NPCS just standing in a corridor are silly. How about of letting the Zombie eat a dead corpse instead and when the player walks in it stands up and attacks.
12th Pic: It looks decent. Not sure if these 2 tiny lights would be sufficient to illuminate the wall though.
13th Pic: Very lovely. I suggest to add yellow/black Stripes in Front of the Security Door to separate the street of the door. There are better fire sprites available than the one shown here. Let me know if you want em and I search em on my HD for you. This is truly a lovely area. Still little empty though. How about some Military Trucks here. Idea: That red/white barrier. How about breaking it into 2 pieces. 1 Still attached to it's holding apparatus and the 2nd piece laying broken on the floor. Possibly smashed by an escaping Black Mesa employee or by entering Military Trucks. These tiny details often tell us stories of things that transpired during the player's absence.
I'm missing few Air vents and ventilators pumping in fresh air into that area.
14th Pic: Very lovely area but if it wasn't for the blood decals and those soldiers down there one would assume that everything was normal as usual. I'd add few broken lamps, some flickering. Possible bullet impact decals and explosion effects onto the walls for show 'cause it looks like a larger fight took place in this room. Whether this is just shown for promotional efforts or an actual finished playable map I can't tell. So judge accordingly.
The NPCS sound stunning. While all of these have been seen before and used in various mods it's still amazing to get them all combined into 1 huge mod. I think the HEV suit sounds are a little penetrative to the ears. So it would be best if you hear them only slightly. Best when you're almost standing next to the Zombie just like experienced in Black Mesa.
All in all a wonderful newspost and I salute you guys. Some damn fine Amazing work that you folks portrayed here.
About the 10th Pic, that's not a model, it's a prefab.
Again, thank you for the feedback!
Beautiful suggestion. The mapper division will improve the map
Thank you
Was gonna suggest feedback but It seems that has already been covered above! Half the maps look like they could use touch-ups to compare with some of the better detailed chapters but even as it stands they ain't too shabby! They seem on par with 98' Valve mapping but I'd say if other maps do not follow suit with that aesthetic they need to pick up the pace so to speak!
As for the enemies, It'll be rad to see those snipers in action! They certainly won't be as tanky as the Black Op's from OP4 ;)
Regarding the Grenade Launcher, It certainly feels at home in Team Fortress Classic but not necessarily Half-Life. That magazine in particular looks like a standard STANAG magazine when it should be far bulkier considering it's firing 40mm Grenades!
There's some behind-the-scenes things regarding the GL:
- It was originally going to be an M79 but due to various animations issues as well as the model being too high-poly, we decided against it and opted to port the one from Base Defense, with the creators permission.
- If you're a Quake fan, the new GL will feel familiar.
Stay tuned for that!
Great news, very commendable progress. I have some suggestions though:
- Make the "coolant" barrels slimmer and taller, they are even bigger than people!
- Give the panthereye a unique purpose. It's basically a faster zombie with the headcrab's pounce. Maybe a sneaking ability like it was originally planned?
- Make the charger actually charge the player instead of shooting projectiles. No one can definitely tell what the creature was meant to do except Valve, but to me, the name "Charger" combined with the fact that it has a faceplate makes me think it would have most likely closed those "ears" and rammed the player head first.
- Completely new weapons could definitely work but the grenade launcher looks off to me. Maybe the exaggerated design of it rubs me the wrong way, I'm not sure. It doesn't feel like it would fit the game. A grenade launcher would but this design looks a bit weird.
Atleast for the Grenade Launcher, disregard the "cartoony" look that can be seen on the render. It's due to me using the v_models instead of the w_model (it looks normal in that one but the textures are lower res.)
Here's how it's supposed to look when held by the player: I.imgur.com
So it's the TFC grenade launcher?
Wiki.teamfortress.com
Yes
This looks really awesome. I think you are reimagining the whole Half-Life game to make it look more interesting than it originally was, and that's amazing. I have only 1 question as im fan of the HD models so i must ask, will you develope an HD pack for such beautiful mod?
Thanks!
Regarding the HD Pack, we're not planning to make it. A 3rd party HD Pack might be a thing however and if I recall correctly CamKablam was working on it at some point.
Very nice job!!!
For me the charger don't look like flying enemy and don't thing he has supost to fire enithing. For me look like is something that will run foward to you very fast and will try to Hit you much as he can. And also have very big shield, like armadilo.
Better and better!
This looks amazing.
You guys are absolutely nuts, very hyped to stream any kind of demo or chapter once it comes out!
"can take batteries" Okay I know the Xen aliens are KINDA smart but I don't think they're THIS smart in order to take a battery and charge it
(Talking about the HEV zombies)
This is truly fantastic work. Cannot wait to play this!