Black Mesa Interview
Levels have been fully overhauled - not only in terms of textures and polygons, but also with regards to how modern PCs can easily cope with larger areas and more detail.
YouGamers: Did you aim to re-design and develop everything from scratch? Which are the most important improvements (from graphics to AI) we'll see in the final version of the mod? Rose: I believe that was the founding intention. However, due to the immense scale of the game, we're focusing on creating many new assets (textures, models, etc) as well as improving the game code, while salvaging what we can from Half-Life 2's base. There will be massive improvements in graphical quality, as evident from our released media, in addition to improvements in animation and AI which you'll see in all their full glory when the project is released.
YouGamers: I'm sure this project is a pretty tough one, so kudos for what you're doing. What was (or is) the hardest challenge you and the team had to face during the development of BM? Rose: One of the largest difficulties (maybe annoyances is a better word) were the numerous hacking and DOS attempts we have experienced throughout our development timeline. We've moved hosts and forums countless times, have lost some wonderful assets along the way, and have toiled for hours to implement new development forums and repositories in a secure location as to avoid such incidences again.
 "They're waiting for you, Gordon... in the test chamber." YouGamers: Is there something specific you're really proud of? Something that will let us staring at the monitor, jaw dropped, wondering "how the hell did they do that"? Rose: I'd be taking all the fun out of playing if I answered all the questions like this now, wouldn't I :)? I'm not going to say anything specific, but I can assure you that you'll have your fair share of jaw dropping moments.
YouGamers: So, here's the question: how did you *actually* do that? I'm very curious: can you describe the process of the creation of a level, of a weapon, of a character, to be sure that they match the original HL? Which tasks do you have to accomplish, exactly? Rose: It varies depending on the type of asset and the original context. For example, re-creating weapon assets such as the MP5/M4 or Glock were fairly simple; we just created them to a next-gen standard in terms of polygon count and texture resolution and made them look like the actual thing. The human characters underwent a similar treatment; we looked at photographs of people and typecast them into different roles for our characters, while creating a couple of variations of base meshes for generic characters. Levels undergo a somewhat different treatment. Because of the improved scale that Source offers, we are able to make areas of the facility more to a real-world scale, because we have more room and more power to work with. This is evident in areas like Surface Tension, which could, in terms of scale measurement, be on par with a real-world facility of a similar nature. Levels have the most leeway in terms of relating to their original counterparts, though, and that's one department where what you see in Half-Life won't necessarily always match up with Black Mesa. These changes are all being done with logic and visual quality as their backing, though, so it'll still look damned good.
YouGamers: Obviously HL: Source is not what we expected to be. How will the original gameplay be different (and/or improved) from HL:S? I guess realistic physics will play an important role... Rose: The physics system gives us some more options for fun puzzles and sequences. Since we're improving the AI, expect the grunts to be smarter, and to put up more of a fight (no more dropping grenades and standing on them.) Other than that, the gameplay won't differ too much from Half-Life; we're trying not to alienate the core audience by changing up the gameplay elements too much.
Begone foul straight lines and stark emptiness! Welcome to curves and crates (again).
YouGamers: What about the enemies? Will they behave as in the original HL? Did you improve the AI and if so, how? Rose: To elaborate on the AI; the path and hint system that Source utilizes is very advanced. It allows idle NPCs, such as science team members or security guards, to perform a wide variety of tasks instead of one preset animation/scripted sequence, and it allows the enemy NPCs to think about their environment and to understand what's around them, so they can use it to their advantage in combat.
Related Stuff Games: Half-Life 2
Tags |
 
 
See if your PC can handle the latest games:
 
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
