I bring you... the Xen Levels in Black Mesa

General Development Source 1
#101

I just didn’t want to replace the original map, since I didn’t want to screw anything up. If you rename the map, be sure that you rename all the relevant files, and make sure you save a backup of the original map and its files!

I have no idea who’s working on the project right now other than me. I’m focusing on Gonarch and his (her?) Lair. If anyone wants to help, they should do Interloper and Nihilanth.

Also, if anyone’s working on it, PM me please… so I have an idea of who’s actually doing stuff. :stuck_out_tongue:

#102

I see. Renaming the map screws up the cubemaps (fancy pink reflections), since they are stored inside the bsp and are named after the map. One would have to rebuild the cubemaps after renaming.

I’ll start working on some Interloper map. c or d maybe.

#103

I’ll start a roster… or something.

Wow this is really disorganized. I’m definitely no cman2k… hah. :stuck_out_tongue:

#104

That was actually pretty hilarious seeing the houndeyes just float back when shooting 'em with the shotgun. Good work. Did you increase the distance between the platforms?

#105

There is zero custom geometry. The only things I modified were entities, the water textures, lighting, sprites, and sounds.

#106

I’m about half-way through c4a1c. Still need to work on the sounds and vorts. The BM vorts are missing the animations used in the scripted sequences in that level. It’s where the vorts do not attack you.
I’m glad I started on one of the smaller and less complex levels :wink:

We will also need a way for players to copy the right resources from HLS to their BM folder. They could either copy the whole folders (materials, models, sounds) or we provide them a script that does the necessary copying. with uninstaller, preferably. But just “copy everything that has xen in it’s name” leads to problems :smiley:

#107

I could probably write a small script to do that. Shouldn’t be too difficult.

EDIT: Actually, they’d need GCFScape to do that, so I dunno.

EDIT 2: Might actually have found something that makes it possible. Hold on a sec.

EDIT 3: Yeah scratch that. Not gonna work.

#108

Whoa, the first gap looked a lot larger than I remember. When I made the jump I felt as if I’d cheated in some way, heh heh.

You could probably name all the vorts and make them friendly towards the player using an ai_relationship entity for the time being.

#109

Finished a first version of x_c4a1c: x_c4a1c BSP+VMF v1
Had to redesign most of the vort interaction due to changed animation times.
The original animations are not available in the BM vorts, had to find replacements.
Lots of things also seemed broken in HL Source (sounds, scriptedseq’s, controller spawns), so I had to rebuild them from HL.
Let me know if something does not work as intended.

#110

Mbit, I just played your map, and I liked it.
However, the light fixtures’ textures were broken – just a purple-black checkerboard. I think I followed all the correct instructions (dky.tehkingd.u’s map worked fine for me). Did I make a mistake? Is there a simple fix?

Also, dky.tehkingd.u, when I destroyed the vine-mesh-fence things on your map, they normally didn’t give any breaking particle effect/gib (which was fine), but one gave some standard BM rubble (the one on the outside rim of the asteroid) – think blocks of concrete. Is that an issue on your side or mine?

#111

The rubble breaks into concrete in half-life: source too. It’s a material/prop data issue. Don’t worry about it. :slight_smile:

#112

Thanks for playin.
If by ‘light fixtures’ you mean these exact textures…

…you should make sure you have these materials accessible in the BM folder, with their respective .vtf files:

  • materials/xeno/c4a1a_spike1b.vmt (the blue light)
  • materials/xeno/tech_lite1.vmt (the yellow-ish light)

If you just copied over the materials folder from HL Source, these materials should be there, like all the other Xen materials. Strange.

I just realized I forgot to implement the low gravity in this map.
I’ll fix that as soon as I have more time again. Probably around the 20th.

#113

I do have both of those files there; but the textures you marked in red are not the problem. Rather, the “lit-up smoke” is not displaying properly. Here, I’ve linked a few screenshots.

1280×720 106 KB

1280×720 179 KB

#114

Oh, you meant the beams!
These are all materials/sprites/xbeam3.vmt and materials/sprites/xbeam3.vtf

Did you copy only the materials/xeno folder? Then you’d be missing quite some more files, especially sounds.

#115

I dont think you understand how badly I want to decompile this and add BM textures and displacements.

#116

If you want to, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you! I just made a point to keep the old HL textures to get a laugh at how crappy they were in comparison to the Black Mesa weapons and NPCs. :slight_smile:

#117

Hi I have a problem with creating this map. I used bspsource to decompile xen map from half life source to black mesa bsp format just like other users did, but now I don’t know what to do next. I heard that I have to use hammer editor but when I tried to open this vmf file it didn’t work because this program doesn’t read vmf files. What should I do ? :frowning:

#118

Hammer uses VMF files. That’s what it’s for. Your problem is probably that you used the wrong BSPSource settings when decompiling the map, so it got corrupted or something. You’ll need to decompile under the “Counter-Strike: Source” setting, because that’s the closest thing we have to Half-Life: Source in terms of map format.

Once you have that, you should be able to open the VMF in Hammer using the Black Mesa configuration.

#119

I have actually contacted the BSPSource dev to include correct BSP version detection for black mesa maps. Until he releases a new version, I think it’s okay to decompile them with “half-Life 2” game setting.
You will also need to setup a game configuration for BMS. Theres was a thread on that here, somewhere.

However, before you dive into editing these finished maps, it is really advisable to practice a bit on simpler maps you create from scratch and work through some tutorials, technical articles on the VDC, stuff like that. It really helps to understand the various systems.

#120

Well it’s not really even a Black Mesa map. We’re talking about decompiling HL: Source maps, no? Those should be decompiled under CS: S or earlier settings.

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.