The animation is running pretty smoothly, actually.
You just have to wait for the browser to load all layers of the animated .gif into its cache.
I think it needs to be way shakier. Like, the camera is being held by hand and the logo itself is really really small. Actually, updating the effect to be phyically correct with some lens distortion and chromatic abberation would make this a:LKASJDFJKASLHKFJKHADlkjFJD
To be honest, I don’t understand what you guys are on about. The up-to-date Source backgrounds are much, much cooler than the silly animation Half-Life had there. Sure it was nice at the time (1998), but with modern standards, it really doesn’t hold up compared to a real in-game world as menu background.
The whole point of Black Mesa is to recreate Half-Life 1 so it’s on par with modern game standards. I would be disappointed if they hadn’t used nice animated background scenes and went with a static image instead.
What is the reason you’ve decided to make the outlines glow for? It certainly doesn’t look better and only helps the big text stand out which just defeats the purpose of the whole effect - the original idea was to make a heavily blurred and really faint shallow DOF effect that doesn’t obscure the original layer and moves proportionally to the original. Look at this:
https://vimeo.com/10185036
Look at the obscure light streaks when chrome bit comes in. Same effect was used for HL logo.
The whole thing was supposed to be a mere specular highlight on an imaginary lens.
Spacing should be wider too. You’re not supposed to see more than half of the blurred DOF bit in whole at any point.
Just duplicate the original animation layer / fast blur (or luma key+directional blur)/ cut the opacity in half/ oversize / put it in screen mode/ Let it roll.
Opinions.
Original HL menu > HL2
Modern game standards = interactive movie.
BM is a hardcore old-time shooter without bhop and silly combine ai.
I think I know a way to implent this stuff man, but I’ll need a high res version of this, prefferably 1024x1024 or higher.
Well It would make for a nice BM deathmatch menu screen or a loading screen…
Half life 2 deathmatch uses an image under it’s menu…
The good thing about this is, that it is a good and nostalgic and would serve its purpose within the GUI either in Deathmatch or as a loadscreen. But I agree I prefer the chapter camera views for single player but It’s a good idea and a start
I prefer the Source backgrounds, but I’d still be interested to see this for the novelty of it.
It should be possible to convert it into an animated material and make a map with the camera in front of it?
Half Life 2 Deathmatch displays a still image under it’s menu… Remember this?
So will it read a Gif image of your animation? No it won’t
Disabling Background Maps
If you would like to just use the vmt texture as a background (without loading a map), simply create the file \cfg\valve.rc and add the following:
// load the base configuration
//exec default.cfg
// Setup custom controller
exec joystick.cfg
// run a user script file if present
exec autoexec.cfg
//
// stuff command line statements
//
stuffcmds
If you’d like to add map loading again, just add the command startupmenu to a new line within the valve.rc file.
If you want your backgrounds to display randomly (like TF2) make sure you have sv_unlockedchapters 99 in either your default config or preferably in your valve.rc file.
You need to make an animated vtf / vmt file by the sounds of it…
check here
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Menu_Background_Map#Menu_Background_Material
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VTF_Shell_Extensions
Also just a note make the highlight fade to white a bit slower perhaps
ARE YOU READING MY MIND?
I haven’t read the whole thread, but there’s a command for hl2.exe that you add in steam that makes the game load a bitmap instead of animated menus. I used to add it back in the days when I had my old pc for faster game launch. From hlfallout.net:
How about adding the radiation grainy fuzzyness noise effect to that?
also check here
Vibez, you can make it so there is no need for typing in some command in steam.
Just have to edit the right stuff in the files, it’s pretty easy actually.
Here is an example of an animated menu in source from Dota 2
https://www.moddb.com/mods/high-definition-pack/addons/dod-source-animated-hd-menu
This should get you on the right track… Disect this see what they did and apply your own stuff
and this…
It wouldn’t go with the way we want it.
It’s animated fog but it moves in one direction constantly, while the won menu moves left and right with stops.
step 1. make a video
step 2 easy way to make animated backgrounds is convert your movie into tga’s then compile them 512 by 512 which is the power of 2 and lastly put your vmf and vtf in your proper directory
step 3 put the commands in the config which I posted link for how to do this.
I suggest when you make the video you apply all the effects you want in the video before converting it to a texture
So something like this?
Ronster, I think you misunderstood me; I did check the VMT files and it’s using a texturescroll command with a seperate texture which makes it go in only one direction, the WON menu needs to do much more than just scrolling to the side.
Let me put it simple; no, you can’t use an animated texture as a background, it’ll be rendered completely black when you open the game. The only way to do this would be to animate the texture, put it in hammer and carefully place a camera infront of it.
By the way BloodShot, awesome work man. It would be really nice if you could animate that and give me the gif to experiment with it as a background. Just please, make it smoother if it’s possible, I got the previous ones good enough but the way they moved looked retarded.
No I did not misunderstand you… Covert the animation into a movie file then to TGa file and then VMT / VTF then put the commands in the config under the settings I described… This is how you do it apparently… Use VTF Edit…
I don’t know a lot about this but it is easier to do it this way and you will get a better result and make the animation as cool as you want.
Here is an example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezkjAZ7WfWw
The newer version menu I think looks better
I know you did not ask… But I put this music track together for it… It’s somthing anyway… link below
https://www.mediafire.com/?oodu7k2v8h1uzcb
It’s a mix of Threatening Short and the HL Menu loop (Decay version)
Very much yeah, with a few tiny corrections:
-Try a fatter font (perhaps apply faux bold) and squish it a tad on horizontal scale - somewhere between 80-85% (see the forum banner). Or better yet, add 10-15% on a vertical scale - big text top should almost touch the small text top. Perhaps you could stretch the big text a tad more than the small one.
-After this, adjust spacing (add 15-25%) - so that one would see just 4-5 letters of a big text at a time as a reference, if squished typeface didn’t take care of that.
-My bad, halving the opacity leaves it too washed - try bringing it back up a quarter or so, so that it’s less grey and more white at the core.
Or perhaps duplicating and putting the copy in add mode at 40% will help?
-Put it all higher - just a little bit.
Very good job guys, if only devs would approve this.