[OpenMaw]

Holy shit, that's looking fantastic.

It's a good idea to mix it up aswell. Having a landmark or two that are familiar is nice, but taking it off in new directions is even better. We, unfortunately, cannot include within this project anything specifically from any of the other games. (no textures or level lay outs specifically). It just increases the likelihood that we'll get shutdown all the sooner.


Really liking the look and feel thus far. Am I mistaken, or is that tunnel area inspired by one of the "Duke Reloaded" concept art pieces? Really looking what you're doing with those stock textures, too. Really making the most of it.


Great job, Bloodshot. Seriously.

Taking your suggestions to heart as best I can.

Spoiler

That animation, and these two stills are from within Half-Life Model viewer. This is a compiled model, folks.

Long way to go, obviously, but my God... It's happening.

If there's anyone out there who'd be interested in helping to do clean up, maintenance, and generally improve upon what i've done so far, shoot me a P.M. My skills are marginal in just about everything. (I can do mapping, and I will be picking that up very soon as there's a lot of ground to cover there as well.)


Holy shit i'm tired...

[Micky C]

There's nothing legally stopping you from using level layouts from other games. Btw making all the levels/textures and things from scratch sounds like a lot of work, are you sure you're up for it?

[NUKEMDAVE]

Duke's jawline, chin, and cheekbones need some tweaking to make his face match up more to the Time to Kill cover, but it's still a good start! I think his upper legs might be just a bit too skinny, too.

[The Commander]

If I wasn't so busy with my source game I'd help, but I can try help out with general inquirys if you have any regarding source stuff.

[MusicallyInspired]

Looking awesome!

I also don't mind helping with some music if you need it. You have your friend helping though so that's probably not necessary. At the very least I can lend my axe if you need guitars.

[Hool]

This looks pretty awesome. Can I ask, what modelling program are you using? I've been mixing between Milkshape 3D and GMax since they both export md3 and mdl friendly file formats for Quake.

[Bloodshot]

 Commando Nukem, on 27 January 2014 - 02:20 AM, said:

Really liking the look and feel thus far. Am I mistaken, or is that tunnel area inspired by one of the "Duke Reloaded" concept art pieces? Really looking what you're doing with those stock textures, too. Really making the most of it.

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen that concept art before you brought it up, but I might get some inspiration from those now as well.

Here's a bit more

[OpenMaw]

 Micky C, on 27 January 2014 - 03:43 AM, said:

There's nothing legally stopping you from using level layouts from other games. Btw making all the levels/textures and things from scratch sounds like a lot of work, are you sure you're up for it?

Textures won't be too hard, honestly. It's just a matter of finding good source material. I think I can also thrift some of the textures used in various mods with urban/desert/science themes. (Hostile Intent, Counter-Strikes/Condition Zero.). I think using the various photo resource websites around the web and some good photoshopping skills will bring us plenty of textures.

Level design is a matter of endurance, really. In my head I have in mind roughly six to eight multiplayer maps, and approximately... 24 maps for the single player portion divided between four distinct locations. I'm contemplating making each 'section' of the game, or at least the first 'section' somewhat hubbed, based on completing objectives to open the way to the exit. (One idea i'm playing with is taken from Duke Nukem Eternity, Duke rescuing babes from danger and escorting them back to EDF check points. Because the EDF are mandated to contain the situation inside of the city, and Duke is the only one with balls big enough to venture into the chaos.)

 NUKEMDAVE, on 27 January 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Duke's jawline, chin, and cheekbones need some tweaking to make his face match up more to the Time to Kill cover, but it's still a good start! I think his upper legs might be just a bit too skinny, too.

I'm tweaking it every time I look at it. I really do hope someone with some texture skills will step up to give Duke a proper make over based on the Time to Kill/Zero Hour art works, though. My talents in this regard are a bit sketchy.

 The Commander, on 27 January 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:

If I wasn't so busy with my source game I'd help, but I can try help out with general inquirys if you have any regarding source stuff.

I appreciate the sentiment, and totally understand. Thank you, for that, as well.

 MusicallyInspired, on 27 January 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

Looking awesome!

I also don't mind helping with some music if you need it. You have you're friend helping though so that's probably not necessary. At the very least I can lend my axe if you need guitars.

Thanks!

Obviously we're not quite at the stage where the music is going to be anything but nice to listen to as it won't have anything to go with just yet, but if you're interested in maybe lending a hand for some boss battle music or trying your hand at a level track or two we can totally talk about that via PM and what's going to be going into those kind of things.

 WheatleyNukem, on 27 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

This looks pretty awesome. Can I ask, what modelling program are you using? I've been mixing between Milkshape 3D and GMax since they both export md3 and mdl friendly file formats for Quake.

Milkshape 3D, 3D Studio Max, and Misfit Model 3D are the tools I use. Milkshape 3D for what i'm doing as far as Duke is concerned. For animation this is duious, and i'm slowly trying to learn 3DS Max 9 to increase quality.

 Bloodshot, on 27 January 2014 - 12:04 PM, said:

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen that concept art before you brought it up, but I might get some inspiration from those now as well.

Here's a bit more

This is really shaping up nicely. Love the clever use of the nuke logo, and the adjustments to the map that are utilising the truth 3D nature of the engine.

Might look nice to extend that tunnel just a bit, make it look like it's caved in and throw some fire effects in there. (env_sprite with one of the stock half-life sprites and a light). You seem to really have your mapping in hand, but if you need any help there are some example maps/tutorials located here:

ftp://ftp.gamers.org...elength/levels/

Also, at some point once the map is nearing completion, we gotta try and see what a 3D sky box will do to increase the scope and feeling. (the utskytest shows that off, think of all the crap you can do with that. moving clouds, burning buildings with dynamic lights in them. So much awesome.





One thing for everyone to keep in mind about this project, even though those involved at this stage are working via the WON version of Half-Life, eventually it will move over to Steam. Certain features pretty much demand that we do. (at this point, as awesome as Bloodshot's map is, there's no way to actually play it online except through the Steam versions.)
Luckily the Steam version of Half-Life is damn cheap, so if you don't own it, but feel like playing this mod, it'll only put you out a few bucks.



Right now: I'm working on a custom dev_textures wad file. Some of you might scratch your head at the purpose of such a thing. Well, the difficulty with running a mod project of this size is that once the map crunch starts, we may run out of textures to use, and i'd rather keep essentially as a clean canvas until proper textures can be designed/acquired. Another reason, is if anyone wishes to try and map for the project, all they need to do is download the hammer editor, I can supply them with a dev texture wad, basic instructions, and they can design a map, without requiring me to send them the entire mod folder.

[Bloodshot]

I was wondering about the 3D skybox thing, I really love a good 3d skybox. Thanks for the link - while I've done very little for Half-Life and dabbled in other stuff like CryEngine, the Quake engine is my "home" when it comes to mapping, I've had a lot of experience in that so it feels good to be working with a derivative of it again. Those examples will definitely help with the differences.

EDIT:



Finally extended the street and made the curve. aligning the textures was annoying, but I'd say it was worth it

Also maybe when it comes to the 3d skybox I could use a light corona sprite with a low alpha value to simulate the city "lighting up the horizon"

[OpenMaw]

All very smooth and consistent. The curve in the road is a big step up visually from the original map.
It'll be interesting to see if anyone tries to take potshots from up on the roof down at players below.



Started work on a development map entitled "dn_zoo" which I will expand on as things are added and need a place to be tested. For now we have two dev textures and I got Duke in the game.








Though I screwed him up somehow. He was fine after the compile, but I had to reopen him in HLMV to apply a couple flags, and when I checked him out again his smoothing groups seem to have undone themselves. Huh.


Edit: fixed em! Haha.

[Bloodshot]

So what about mirrors? I know GLQuake actually had support for them but I only ever recall seeing like, one HL mod that had mirrors.

I feel like they'd be fairly important

[OpenMaw]

 Bloodshot, on 27 January 2014 - 04:05 PM, said:

So what about mirrors? I know GLQuake actually had support for them but I only ever recall seeing like, one HL mod that had mirrors.

I feel like they'd be fairly important

I agree, and they are possible within Half-Life.


http://www.moddb.com...shots3#imagebox

Spirit of Half-Life 1.5 starts to support them, and Spirit of Half-Life 1.8 has fully functional (and breakable) mirrors. Good news, the source code is available for that. ....It shouldn't be too hard to port. Bad news, i'm not particularly good at coding. So i'm going to have to really learn. The problem with either one of those builds is stability. (The 3D skies are broken, and in 1.8 they've added a whole slew of other features which have caused major stability issues. Not to mention i'm not even sure if multiplayer is functional with some of the changes in place. Something I absolutely want to maintain.)

So, i'm really hoping maybe one of the guys around here with some coding experience might be willing to help. Most of what is needed is already technically coded, it's just a matter of pulling from the different sources and putting them together. (IE extracting the jetpack code from NS and making it work within SOHL as an item. Though, one change there would be to add in a fuel system, so that it can run out of gas and go away. Pulling the realistic camera movement and mirrors out of SoHL 1.8... etc.)

There's also a Russian website which has a bunch of tutorials on how to implement some of these features back into a clean code base... But because they're in Russian, Google translator tends to babel fish them to Hell.


It'll happen, one way or another. I'm gonna start on the beginning code alterations this evening.


Work in progress HUD (The differences are subtle. New number font, new armor, health, and flashlight icons. Next i'll be redoing the color. Not sure yet what to do, maybe more yellow, or orange? ...and functioning Nightvision Goggles:






Looking at the way I wish to implement health and stuff into Duke HL, i'm realizing rapidly that I do not want to do what DNF did, nor do I want to exactly go the Duke3D route. (Frankly coding a whole inventory system also sounds tedious.) So what i've decided is that "health" will be a variety of items in the environment. You'll find Duke Burgers, Pizzas, Fried Chicken, Beer, Soda, Candy Bars, Nudie Mags, Gun Mags, Duke's Autobiography, Water Fountains. Even a little love from the ladies if your ego is low enough will bring you back. (No, not sex, I was thinking since I wanted to put in some babes that i'd replace the scientists, they have their little healing syringes, I thought the girls give Duke a blown kiss or words of encouragement for a small ego boost.).

[Bloodshot]

Some nice ideas, stuff like the scientists > babes seems to fit really well.

I'm guessing barneys > friendly EDF troops right?

Also it's too bad the 3D skybox feature can't have the env_sky (the camera) "shift" very slightly in the direction the player moves in. That is the best thing about HL2's 3D skyboxes - good ones look like they are no different from the rest of the level.

Are the skyboxes supposed to allow entities to show up in them? I did a quick test in my map but the particles and sprites I put in the skybox refused to show up. Maybe it has to be connected physically to the map, like in the provided bsp?

Also beware of allowing nightvision in multiplayer if you are using OP4's code - it's basically a giant dynamic light with a green view filter but gearbox never made it invisible to other players, so if it's in MP every time somebody uses it they'll be like a beacon.

[Jimmy]

Whoah, where did that Time to Kill art come from? It's kinda low quality and dodgy/corrupt/something in parts, but it's cool to see.

[OpenMaw]

 Bloodshot, on 27 January 2014 - 11:02 PM, said:

Some nice ideas, stuff like the scientists > babes seems to fit really well.

I'm guessing barneys > friendly EDF troops right?

Also it's too bad the 3D skybox feature can't have the env_sky (the camera) "shift" very slightly in the direction the player moves in. That is the best thing about HL2's 3D skyboxes - good ones look like they are no different from the rest of the level.

Are the skyboxes supposed to allow entities to show up in them? I did a quick test in my map but the particles and sprites I put in the skybox refused to show up. Maybe it has to be connected physically to the map, like in the provided bsp?

Also beware of allowing nightvision in multiplayer if you are using OP4's code - it's basically a giant dynamic light with a green view filter but gearbox never made it invisible to other players, so if it's in MP every time somebody uses it they'll be like a beacon.

Huhhh, it worked fine for me when I tested it. Damn. That's okay for now. I'm looking at another version of SOHL, version 1.9, which I was not aware of even existing. It's a quote-un-quote "custom BUILD" that apparently it fixes everything wrong with previous versions and implements a number of bug fixes. Problem is, it also changed around some of the way the code was structured... So that weird me out a little bit. It's got some beautiful particle effects included though. Some nice weather related stuff. Also there's a couple of entities and such relating to trains which might be very interesting if you also want to pick up doing a "Metro Mayhem" map.

Honestly at this point i'm really preferring to maybe just get knowledgeable with the coding and be able to borrow bits and pieces on a CLEAN build of the 2.3 SDK. Simply because any of these other projects add in things which I have no knowledge of, and I want to avoid bugs and crashes as much as possible.

Yeah. After I played with the code that I ported from that Russian tutorial I realized that it is very similar to the OPFOR night vision. I have not confirmed if it casts a light on the server side yet or not. (I'm almost certain it does.) I can't remember if the Counter-Strike night vision had the same problem or not.

 ELFDICK, on 27 January 2014 - 11:34 PM, said:

Whoah, where did that Time to Kill art come from? It's kinda low quality and dodgy/corrupt/something in parts, but it's cool to see.

Here's a bigger version of it. I was cutting together different high res versions of the picture to try and get a cleaned up version of the whole thing in it's entirety, but it's difficult, given my nub photoslop skills.

[Cage]

Looking again at the Duke model.

He's still not ripped/chiseled enough His face looks a little flat, he should have a stronger jawline/chin. And the pant legs are a little out of the character IMO, I think they start getting wide too early. Personally, I'd tuck them into the boots or make them something more like this:



General shape, since of course, all the detail/wrinkling/etc can be done on texture.

[NUKEMDAVE]

Here's a poster I found and enhanced:



Original:

http://pixel2pixel.f...ime_to_kill.jpg

[OpenMaw]

 Cage, on 28 January 2014 - 01:23 AM, said:

Looking again at the Duke model.

He's still not ripped/chiseled enough His face looks a little flat, he should have a stronger jawline/chin. And the pant legs are a little out of the character IMO, I think they start getting wide too early. Personally, I'd tuck them into the boots or make them something more like this:



General shape, since of course, all the detail/wrinkling/etc can be done on texture.

Yeah, i'm gonna have to take a step back and do a bit of remodeling. I already pretty much intend to start from scratch on the texture. Out of necessity. (I may start with some content taken from other sources, but i'd like to end with all the content being essentially original.)


Right now. I've got my old box setup to do some networking tests to see if the night vision does in fact cast light in multiplayer. (WON HL still supports LAN play.)

I'm also scowering every corner of the internet for introductions and break downs on the HL SDK code base so as to better understand it. ( I was staring at crash courses in C and C++ for a couple hours and not retaining any of it. Oi.)

[Bloodshot]

Ok, so the skybox does have to be attached/in the level for particles/sprites to render in it.

Gonna have to find a way to hide it now

EDIT:

This is just a quick test for the skybox



Right now it's visible in the map but I have an idea to try when I get back home to fix it

[Hool]

This is looking promising so far. Any plans for weapons? I think Dukes signature 50.cal pistol should replace the 357 Magnum and have a weaker Duke 3D-esq pistol replacing the Glock 17.

[OpenMaw]

 Bloodshot, on 28 January 2014 - 05:12 AM, said:

EDIT:

This is just a quick test for the skybox



Right now it's visible in the map but I have an idea to try when I get back home to fix it

Oh man, that looks awesome!

Would you mind sending me your current build of the map in PM? I want to test it with various versions of Spirit and see if it actually still works.

 WheatleyNukem, on 28 January 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

This is looking promising so far. Any plans for weapons? I think Dukes signature 50.cal pistol should replace the 357 Magnum and have a weaker Duke 3D-esq pistol replacing the Glock 17.

I have pretty solid plans for the main stay weapons. The fringe/exotic ones i'm still mulling over in my head.

I was thinking initially of having two pistols. The EDF standard issue, and the other being duke's personal weapon. After thinking about it though, i'd rather not have a bunch of extra guns messing with balance and taking up space. The arsenal is going to be lean and mean, predominately inspired by the DNF 01 and 98 trailers, but also taking notes from the Duke3D concept art, and Duke Nukem 64.

The handgun will be a new weapon entirely, with cs-style trigger pull. (weapon_deagle being the entity name.) It will very much be inspired by the 2001 Deagle design. Same for shotty and Assault Rifle. Those two will stay fairly close to the original Half-Life in terms of code. On the shotgun I'm gonna swap the primary and secondary attacks, so that the primary fire is really beefy, just reduce some of the pellets it puts out so that it's not over powered. On the rifle i'm gonna drop the magazine cap from 50 to 30, increase the rate of fire, and increase the accuracy (The Half-life MP5 always felt very scattery to me. Not a fan.), i'll also see about adding a "ThirdAttack" feature and implementing a VGUI scope.



Here's my current run down on the weapons list - in full -. Some of these are subject to change/already teetering on the edge of being removed/replaced.

Current Arsenal:

Brawlin' - Combining Duke's mighty foot with a pair of jabs. (Knuckle cracking for idle animation. Oh yeah, baby! )
Portable Healthkit - Based on Duke3D design. Inspired by Team Fortress Classic (source code available in HL:WE). The ability to heal yourself. Will change so that one fire press will restore your health to full, and drain an equal amount of energy out of the kit.

Golden Eagle - Duke's signature Desert Eagle, 9 round magazine. Semi auto trigger. (Twirl/check for idle animations.)
Shotgun - Based on the 2001 shotgun from various images/trailer. Sports a 5 round magazine tube. (Employ Half-life's alt fire for the shotgun as primary for massive blow back/power.)
Assault Rifle - Based on the 2001 design. Flag strapped to scope/carry handle. 30 round magazine(two mags taped together guerrilla style, ala Terminator 1.) , grenade launcher, and a third fire option for the scope. (Take scope from crossbow. ?Rifle goes semi automatic in this mode?)

RPG - Based on the 2001 design. Silver and chrome. Max carry: 20. Magazine size 5. Takes a five round drum through the top hatch.
Devastator MK2 - Design mixing elements from Duke 3D/DNF. Code has to be redone from scratch. (Funny idea: Alt fire gives you chaos/drunk missiles.)
Pipe Bombs - Based on the Duke3D/64 design. Will use Half-life Satchels for basis, steal HL grenade code to make the pipebomb's fly through the air. (Need to add in Duke theme riff when button pressed. Deet-deet deet.)
Tripe Mines - Based on the Duke3D/64 design. change teal laser beam to red, adjust the beam draw position upwards. New sound asset for beam activation and mine placement.

Freezethrower - Based on the Duke3D design. Use Crossbow for starting functionality, use code from two separate tutorials to get bouncing and freezing effect in place. (Glow shell. Will players shatter like glass?)
Sonic Resonator - Based on Duke3D concept art. Vibrates monsters/players until they gib. (Ludicrous gibs!) (Need's a "resonating wave" effect that pushes out from the gun. (Quake 2 rail gun projectile for code inspiration?)
Plasma Cannon - Based on the Duke64 design. Gluon Gun as basis, need to design new particle effect (HL Weapons Edition code may have answers.) Fires individual shots, or hold-charge to fire a big blast. that disentegrates enemies.)

(For the final chunk of the game, there may be alien weapons of some kind, as it takes place entirely in their neighborhood.)

Chopping Block/Fringe:

Laser Chainsaw - Based on Duke3D concept art. Light saber meets chainsaw. Unlimited fuel cell. Based on chainsaw code found in HL:WE edition. Makes player emit a red light glow when holding weapon. (Plus the humming energy rrmrmrmrm sound.)

Ripper Chaingun - (May be redundant with the assault rifle in place.)

Alien Pistol (Babylon 5 PPG?)
Alien Rifle (Terminator 2 plasma rifle style?)

Shrink Ray - Based on the 2001 design (with the brain). Difficulties abound with this. Will require someone with coding experience i'm afraid. For once, resizing monsters could be faked by swapping the monster to a different entity entirely (EX: Monster_EDF to Monster_EDF_shrunk.) And use a sprite effect to cover the harsness of that transition. For multiplayer there are many questions concerning implementation unfortunately. (Changing of the character's size dynamically is...Difficult, to say the least.)

Flamethrower/Napalm launcher - Inspired by a forum post by Charlie Wiederhold, and the Unreal Tournament flak cannon. (Primary fire is flame throwing, secondary attack launches concussive explosive napalm.

[Hool]

This all sounds pretty promising. Just make sure to have that amazing, over-the-top Shotgun pump from the E3 2001 trailer. That looked like it could blow doors right of their hinges!

Can't wait for more info. This is also getting me back to getting Jack Hammer done (I've been slowing down progress due to other commitments and work).

[OpenMaw]

Shotgun will always be one of my weapon's of choice, so it's going to rock a lot of power. Pistol is good for medium and close range, shotgun is devastating for close range, AR is good for medium and long range. Weapon balance is very important to me.

I may throw in another bullet based weapon, the minigun. similar to the TFC chaingun. This would also be implemented into an enemy (An EDF support gunner.)




A short video talking about the current situation/hud. Demonstration the night vision briefly. My own stupidity. A few new sounds are in place. The pistol, shotgun, and rifle sound effects are in place. The Rifle sound is based on the M16 sound from Predator.

[Richard Shead]

Nice vblog! Please keep us updated!!

[Mr. Tibbs]

This looks frickin' cool! I love the video blog, Commando Nukem. Keep up the awesome work!

[Bloodshot]

That pistol (not the deagle) Duke is holding in the TTK art looks like they literally replaced the slide of a pistol with an M203 grenade launcher

[OpenMaw]

 Bloodshot, on 28 January 2014 - 07:23 PM, said:

That pistol (not the deagle) Duke is holding in the TTK art looks like they literally replaced the slide of a pistol with an M203 grenade launcher

Yup. That's a real military weapon, too. Though it usually has a stock on it.

[Micky C]

Glad to see the video is unlisted so you're keeping visibility to a minimum. Although once you think you have enough team members and momentum to carry this forward into a finished product, would you consider creating a private forum for extra safety from prying eyes? Although I'm aware it can be useful to get regular feedback in public threads like this.

[OpenMaw]

Well, i'm really torn about that. Any fans who want to take a look and see what's going on with the project should be able to. I don't want to be like 3D Realms about it. On the other hand, I don't want a C&D halfway through production. So, that's a conflict for me.

SEMI BIG THING.

First mostly completed asset is now ready to go into the game. The explosive tank/canister. Keep in mind we're not trying to replicate Duke3D exactly, some things will have artistic license and liberty. Overall i'm proud of this little prop.

[Bloodshot]

Here's a small update for you guys, RPG and the rocket ammo pickup model WIPs





RPG is 502 faces, almost done with UVmapping - Rocket pickup model isn't final