Best Half-life 2 graphical mod? (not Fakefactory's CM)

Technology and Gaming
#21

But buggy as hell.

#22

Really? I’ve used 10.90 I think was the version, I remember being able to swap out the characters, but the main thing that annoyed me was the weapon model changes which I don’t remember being able to swap out… but no you’re right, the graphical and environmental changes are fantastic.

#23

yeah but don’t the environment mods change the atmosphere drastically in a bad way too? I saw screenshots with random downed 747’s etc…

#24

From what I remember, the good certainly out weighed the bad. It’s certainly worth a look, if you haven’t already.

#25

I found a pretty good SMG reskin here:
https://www.gamebanana.com/hl2/skins/38758

#26

Looks like it only has default animations though. I like seeing the different reloads people can program…

#27

CM10LE was perfect for me. Replaces the lighting, world textures and none of the sounds, animations or models.

Last time I played vanilla HL2 on Steam(last week), it was totally horrible. Apart from the gameplay bugs, 2/3 of the maps were stuck in fullbright. Also, in CM10LE they added foliage+displacements (like in dear esther) to ugly bare flat areas that were supposed to be grass.

#28

While there are a few bugs here & there, I didn’t have a problem with any of the maps being in fullbright.

I hate most of the custom reload animations that I see. For some reason people seem to find the need to obscure as much of the screen with the animation as they possibly can. I don’t know if it’s for ‘realism’ because you’d probably need to look at a weapon you’re not familiar with while reloading it or if it’s just the animator going ‘I made this, so you’d better fucking look at it’.

#29

Yeah sorry my bad, I think the weapon changing is only a feature in the new CM11.

Edit:

Yeah I used CM10LE, then 10.90 and now 11. 11 allows you to have only the environment/particle/engine/lighting/etc. upgrades without the new models, music or weapons.

Although playing through again has made me realize that both HL and HL2 are very quiet a lot of the time. I’m tempted to give the different soundtrack a try, even if it did seem to just be samples from Batman Begins, Pirates of the Carribean, etc.

#30
#31

Personally I wish there was a mod that greatly improved the texture resolutions. All of the textures in Source look like they were smeared in Vaseline, it needs a facelift and it’s one of my biggest gripes about Source, graphically.

And if there is so such a mod for HL2, whoa.

#32

^ Ehm… Dude… idk how to tell you this but… the engine has nothing to do with the texture resolution… And yes, Cinematic mods has plenty of high rez textures for HL2. The environment ones look good, but the character ones just make people look oily.

Well, I’m sure someone with experience would tell em… Or hell, maybe they just know. I mean look at this thread. Some of them may have heard of trigger discipline through arguments about it on forums and other shit.

Bah, don’t matter. Never matter.

#33

The closest you’re going to get to that is the Cinematic Mod.

It does a lot for the game, environmentally.

#34

Brought it up to Orange Box standards.

Yes, yes it is.

#35

I’m actually now using Cinematic mod 11. After finding out I could in fact keep the default models/sounds as well as the original weapons without Iron sights. The mod is pretty fucking good with default gameplay. 30 gigs un-packed though… it’s huge.

#36

I guess that brings up an interesting question for the devs, though:

Which graphical update mod would be best for a “seamless” transition from playing BM into HL2?

#37

Glad to have helped :wink: !

Edit :@ shmagus

BM is pretty gritty from what I’ve seen, so it fits with CM11.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.