Greetings everyone! After 3 months of being quiet. (Not completely silent though.) I am back with official news on the progress! First and foremost, instead of giving you all the very deep and technical details of the mod, I invite you to please check out the Tutorials section of the Underhell ModDB page.
That said, to the news!
CHANGELOG
Since May 23, 2012, Charly and I have been keeping a shared Changelog file that helps us know what the other has been doing. It is very useful, and now we can officially say, that the Changelog is longer than the to do list! Which feels really good to say out loud and publicly. Here is an extract of the changelog, with some explanations.
=============== May 31, 2012, 20 : 37 =============== - Charly
*Updated binaries: Added a uh_climbspeed ,which controls the climbing speed of npc's.
=============== July 19, 2012, 16 : 10 =============== - Charly
*The "Break" input will now activate flares/glowsticks. An additionall call to "Break" will delete them.
*The Flare now makes an AI_Sound for its duration.
*Added "LowerWeapon" and "RaiseWeapon" inputs to the player
=============== July 24, 2012, 03 : 36 =============== - Charly
*Added a Shield keyvalue to set in hammer (Default 0) :
0 - Never Any Shield
1 - Randomize shield (both riot and ballistic)
2 - Force Riot Shield (Glass shield)
3 - Randomize Riot Shield (Has a random chance of putting JUST the glass shield)
4 - Force Ballistic Shield
5 - Randomize Ballistic Shield ( Has a random chance of putting JUST the ballistic shield)
=============== July 23, 2012, 23 : 55 =============== - Charly
*Added prisonguard sentences in the code. Now soldiers with, and without a GasMask will have different sounds.
=============== July 26, 2012, 11 : 18 =============== - Charly
*Player model is now rendered in mirrors and monitors.
*Fixed player aiming pitch and movement yaw when rendering in monitors and mirrors.
*Added prototype for flaslight reflection. Flashlight casted into the mirror now creates a "reflected" flashlight to emulate flashlight reflection.
=============== August 5, 2012, 01 : 59 =============== - Charly
*Made all sounds pause when the game itself is paused. This way if the player pauses during a cutscene, the music will pause as well and not get "Out Of Sync".
=============== August 6, 2012, 01 : 59 =============== - Charly
*Added Prototype STAMINA and ENDURANCE Hud system.
=============== August 9, 2012, 18 : 12 =============== - Charly
*Added bleeding system to the HUD.
I only copied a FEW extracts of the Changelog, to avoid giving too much information or spoilers.
From this perspective it looks like Charly is the only one who has been doing work doesn't it?
Well it turns out that most of my entries are either uninteresting gruntwork, or very BIG spoilers.
The full changelog will be released to the public when the game is released, but I would recommend reading it only once you have played through the game, as it contains many details that might spoil the experience.
About the "Main Features" of the game, they have been designed for years now, before Prologue was even released. Since I did not have a skilled programmer before, I even suggested a few SMOD features to the AUTHOR, which he nicely implemented back in the day. But I just couldn't keep asking stuff to the SMOD author so, I had to make the mod with what I could and Prologue was the result. But then, Charly came on board and built this whole code from scratch. (Well, from Orange Box engine).
Underhell always had a deep and complex set of planned features, and the entire game was designed around those features, so I have to admit that without Charly's help, Underhell just wouldn't be what it is supposed to be.
TUTORIALS & MANUALS
As some of you have noticed, I have been periodically adding Tutorials on ModDB.
It contains very thorough description and updates of various systems of the game, as well as a few tutorials that will prove useful for those of you who will want to create your own content using Underhell as a base mod.
It may sound rather pretentious to say this, but the way that Carlos "Charly" Sotelo and myself have been fixing up and tweaking the engine, is extremely deep and complex, and will give a final result that is very different from what most people know and expect from a Source Engine modification.
I will continue to post tutorials, gradually revealing new features and how they work within the game, so that when Level Designers or other Modders get their hands on it, they can also understand how it works from a Developer's perspective and use it to make their own creations.
In a not so distant future, I will also be posting a "Manual" in the tutorials section, that will be destined to Players. As I said, Underhell isn't exactly your typical Source Mod anymore, it contains many new features, and some of them are unique to the Survival genre.
So keep your eyes peeled for incoming tutorials, it might save your life in the field!
UPDATED CAST
Underhell's cast of voice actors has grown since last time!
What? You were expecting hidden messages?
Alan: Brandon Tran
ARC Speakers: Danielle Mcrae
Benjamin: Joseph Bracken
Brandon: Brandon McKagan
Bryan: Tom Stoffel
Carl: Brandon Tran
Corporal: David Kingery
Daniel: Brandon Tran
Donovan: Stig Finsen Sydtangen
Eric: Ian Wiese
Frank: General Trivium
Hector: Nathan Mubasher
Hermit: Tom Stoffel
Inmates: Brandon Tran/Stig Finsen Sydtangen/Ian Wiese
Ito: Nathan Mubasher
Junior: Tom Stoffel
Malcolm: Phillip Marlowe
Marcus: Riku Lempiäinen
Matthew: Tassilo Egloffstein
Micheal: Joseph Bracken
News Reporter: Danielle Mcrae
Nurse: Danielle Mcrae
Reema: Danielle Mcrae
Roger : Micheal Tsarouhas
Soldiers: Brandon Tran/Stig Finsen Sydtangen/Ian Wiese/Nathan Mubasher/Mxthe
Soldier Behaviors: Michael Tsarouhas
Survivors/Hostages/Cops/Swat : Brandon Tran/Stig Finsen Sydtangen/Danielle Mcrae/Mxthe
Takeo: Micheal Tsarouhas
Terrance Mason: Joseph Bracken
Thomas Hawkfield: Joseph Bracken
Todd: David Kingery
Tyronne: Nathan Mubasher
Warden: Nathan Mubasher
William: Brandon Tran
GAMEPLAY VIDEO
Well this is a first isn't it? So far every Underhell video (with the exception of The House) has been Theatrical Trailers to showcase the Cinematic aspect of the mod.But this is the first Gameplay Video to be released.The hud has been removed because it is currently being created.
(Note: The "Dynamic music" from the beginning to the ending montage is 100% ingame)
I suggest you read the "Enemy AI Improvements & Sneaky Gameplay" tutorial to understand better how what you just saw works. Or if you prefer to not know how the magic happens, you can avoid the tutorial section altogether.
COMMUNITY
In other great news we are very proud and happy to announce that the mod has reached 2000 watchers! It is a milestone for us, and we cannot wait to release this game out to the public and see everybody's reaction to the gameplay, as well as the story and all the new features.
I personally can't wait to watch all the Youtube Videos.
I really want to thank everyone that has been posting nice comments throughout the years, and want to thank you for your patience for my "Valve Time" schedule.
I also invite you to bookmark the following link : Livestream.com
I occasionally do a few "Spoiler Free" livestreams while testing or showcasing the mod to close friends.
I try to always keep those Livestreams spoiler free so, keep a close eye on this channel, because aside from the times where I announce it, I also run some "Unnanounced" livestreams from time to time.
I would also like to invite you to the Underhell's Group Steam Chat.
Steam Community has added these THOUSANDS of chat rooms per group, and of all the groups I am in, I almost never see anyone in any chatroom, so I think it's a good thing to invite people in and chat live.
Please, keep your questions pertinent, and do not ask for any spoilers or release dates.
Also make sure to join the Steam Community Group if you haven't already.
Sometimes announcement are posted there, that you might miss otherwise.
And finally, for a few months now, some fans of Underhell have been contributing HEAVILY to a really deep and amazing Wiki Page :
Some of the content there are "Assumptions" or "Deductions" which means that not 100% of it is correct. Nonetheless, there is plenty of information about pretty much everything that was released up to date, including trailers, screenshots or just random tweets. Amazing work these guys have done, and they deserve more attention. I have personally contributed a few exclusive pictures to the wiki, but all the content in there is written and created by the fans.
RELEASE?
I kinda hate this part of the update, and I will keep hating it until I finally give a release date.
I will say though that I intend to release the mod THIS YEAR. But that's about as far as I can go with the "Release Schedule", I really don't want to say something and not be able to keep my word. I can only say that we are working very hard on this, and I am pretty certain (and hope) that you will not be disappointed.
This looks absolutely incredible.
Thank You
Oh and will you add a partical effect for when a blood sploch on the celling drips? Thanks Champs!
That was AWESOME!
Take your time Mxthe, I can wait for release(thanks to Half-Life 3 for that experience xD)
Do you plan on getting in contact with steam and put this on it.
I would gladly throw down some money for this.
Dude, I think we don't need a release date.
The only thing we want is that this will be released as an awesome mod. And as long as you can manage this(and once again you showed us you can!(******* impressive!!)) we're happy!
So thank you very much for the update! I'm looking forward for this like all the time!
Yes, I was expecting hidden messages!
-didn't expect a release date, so i'm not disappointed
-there's a steam group?! *join*
-Can't wait!
If I was able to I'd give you a 100,000,000 oscar awards just for the Sneak Gameplay video and a ∞ amount of oscar awards for the game.