Peer Review is a reboot of Half-Life's third and final expansion, Half-Life: Decay. Return to the Black Mesa Research Facility and relive the chaos from the perspectives of Dr. Gina Cross and Dr. Colette Green.
Crossfire - Art Study
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Description
Art Study test map by Chris "Crypt" Bryant.
Not representative of final level. Early work in progress. All content subject to change.
Why all of remabes (BMS, OBM&GD;, and some others) are so insistant on not trying to preserve original lighting schemes? Changing cold lighting for warm, adding lots of red and yellow, and it's such a universal trend, and I'd just like to know the thought process behind it.
There's plenty of thought behind it!
1. It's a reimagining, how we envision the missions look. This isn't us being like BMS/OBM, this is us taking a (very bland) source and shaping it to match our vision.
2. Because the original lighting is pure white with red lights and orange pipes. That's not "cold." It had grey walls, and is nearly devoid of any atmosphere or mood at all.
3. It's incredibly hard to believe, as real lights almost ALL have a color tone to them, usually orange or green in industrial areas. Sodium vapor lamps, yo!
4. Believe it or not, I was being p conservative here. Go pop open a random OBM/GD screen and watch the average color per screenshot be like 5 times more brown, heh. We never get these kinds of complaints on the super blue pool or the very purple Code Green. I think lots of people just see warm instead of sterile white the original had and ironically just see red.
5. The original had red lights.
It's not a "trend," it's artist taking an environment that had no atmosphere, and giving it a mood. But I went ahead and made it match the original. This is much more faithful to the original and I trust it is to your liking: I.imgur.com
Except your last example isn't at all 'faithful to the original'... more colours, different light intensity... but at least yes it looks less like copying Black Mesa.
"it was nearly devoid of atmosphere and mood" not quite, it had its own chill atmosphere of a sterile, uncaring place, composed of cement and metal. It's ok to kind of "enhance" it with adding more of cold, sharp lighting. What you're doing is replacing it with very different lighting that happens to loyally follow BMS's example because it's the "main" remake. THAT is my impression.
"this is us taking a (very bland) source and shaping it to match our vision"
Believe it or not but I would've been very ok with preserving more of the original. Why that should matter to you? Well, it's part of your overall feedback, so you can take it as such. Or not take it.
I'm unsure if you are using the same definition of "cold" that Chris is using. White lighting with zero fog is, at most, a neutral color balance, by most definitions of color temperature. And that is, of course, ignoring the fact that the original Crossfire featured plenty of red and yellow lights. Moreso than traditionally "cold" colors, at any rate.
Regardless of whether you are indeed talking about white or gray as a cold color temperature though, your objections have been noted, and you may be pleased to know that these opinions have been discussed internally with the team. However, I think it's pretty clear that this is a difference in artistic opinion that will not be resolved.
You are free to dislike our art style as much as you like, of course. But I have a feeling that most if not all of the environment designers on the team would disagree with your opinion. It just so happens that almost no one on the team is interested in precisely preserving the original, especially in the areas where we are of the opinion that the original was lacking. In this case, Crossfire's art style is one of those elements where we happen to have that opinion.
If a high degree of adherence to the source material is what you're interested in seeing, then to be quite upfront with you, unfortunately I think it is likely that you will be extremely disappointed in Peer Review when it releases, since that is pretty explicitly a non-priority with this project. Which is fine, of course. We are all entitled to our own opinion, and you are as well. As it's pretty clear that you are very capable of creating content within the Source engine, I would be happy to welcome you to create your own version of the Decay maps within our co-op framework that is more to your own liking, when we release.
Your opinion absolutely matters to us! We're always taking in and considering critique, and will continue to tweak the lighting and general art style. Just if we have a fundamental disagreement, which in this case is "Deviating from the source is bad, and also warm is bad," that's pretty hard to reconcile. We don't make changes like this without reason, or to "follow BMS."
Imgur.com
This is how Crossfire is primarily lit. You'll notice it's exceedingly warm across the board. The particular area in the screenshot is one of maybe 2 or 3 exceptions in the entire original map, and is white, which in literal terms is only "cold" by comparison. I reassure the entirety of the mission will NOT be warmly lit, however the original mostly is.
We're repeatedly told "Stop making the lights yellow and red, it's not faithful to the original and you're just copying BMS," but that's how the original was lit. We're following HL, not BMS. People just can't help but think about BMS because like you said, it's considered the "main" or baseline recreation.
extremely impressive keep up the work guy's
What about Decay Source?
I love the detail in this, also the change of lighting from the original is super nice. Makes it all look much more put together
Look at this quality...We scored!
masterpiece all i can say :)