After a long wait, I’ve finally released the latest version!
Latest Version: 0.82 Beta. Download here.[/SIZE]
As always, please report any game-breaking bugs (such as missing textures, bugged areaportals, etc, etc) to me immediately so I can prepare a hotfix if necessary.
DO NOT USE OLD SAVEGAMES TO TEST MY MAPS. IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS.
BACK UP YOUR OLD FILES.
Changelog here:
==082b==
Assorted/General
-Changed the lighting from origin based to vertex based. This adds significantly to the filesize but makes props look much nicer, at no performance cost. Please let me know of any weird lighting anomalies.
-Attempted to make the mapset more combat oriented, by adding a few new enemy encounters against the player. This means less watching, more playing!
-Attempted to address optimization concerns.
-Gave all the assorted dead marines on the map bodygroups so that it no longer seems like they went into battle with no gear at all.
C2A5G
-Added some weapon spawns which only appear when the player has loaded the map through “map bm_c2a5G”. Makes it so that players no longer have to use cheats/impulse 101 to play the maps.
-Fixed a very small gap behind the door at the start of the map where you could see the skybox
-Moved around the Vorts at the start of the map so that they now pose a bit more of a challenge to the player.
-Fixed a recurring crash happening during the first parking lot fight. It was caused by a property of the jump pad which is now fixed.
-Replaced the marines in the parking lot with their nightvision goggled variants. They’re only used once ever in default Black Mesa, it made sense to have them again in a dark parking lot.
-Made major adjustments to the parking lot. Changed the entrance to have a nicer looking door which doesn’t clip through the wall. Completely re-did the first floor destruction to make it more professional and also better optimized. Added a road running around inside of the parking lot. Small details - floor numbers and parking bays/pedestrian crossings. Added several doors around. Added vending machines to allow a bit of variation in lighting colour. It feels much more “alive” now.
-Added a small encounter with some aliens on the top floor to make the car park a bit less boring.
-Revised the street fight outside the parking lot so that it’s 70/30 in favour of the aliens. Did this by making one of the marines rush the aliens rather than them all hanging back in cover.
-Resolved a regular crash which happened here.
-Added some more small details to the vent. The player now makes a loud thump when they drop down onto the Snark eggs, which is what the soldiers remark on hearing.
-Fixed a dumb bug with a car’s glass not moving with the car on the lifts in the garage.
-Several large optimization fixes involving occluders. Performance in most areas of the map, particularly the TOW courtyard should be significantly better.
-Improved the Harrier take-off so its nose on longer faces upwards prior to lift off.
-Put the turret for the TOW scene on its side on top of a box so it doesn’t accidentally get destroyed/activated by the player.
-Added a little radio transmission on a receiver by the TOW. “Semper fi my ass”. Lets the player know the marines are already CONSIDERING pulling out, and provides an explanation for why they run away on the next encounter.
-Removed an MP5 grenade from the back of the M35.
-Played around with the scripting for the LAV fight a lot. The Marines now rush out faster and the tank only moves a small distance now so it gets into full action quicker. Balances the fight better, but aliens still win. Balance here is still very much a work in progress, it’s a little too alien biased still.
-Changed the placeholder landing gears on the Harriers in the hangar for better looking gear.
-Removed a few of the orange lights by the end level door. Made it less blindingly obvious and ugly.
-Fixed a weird bug where the flying aerial vehicles disappeared before reaching the ends of their paths.
-Changed some of the generic crates near the end of the level for some supply crates. One battery in the crate now.
-Small detail fixes to the helipad area.
C2A5H
-Messed around with some of the early map soundscaping. The MP5’s firing rhythm in the background should be far more random now. Should also sound more distant.
-Rebalanced the street fight heavily. 80/20 chance of Alien victory now.
-Changed the AI/Player relations so that fighters on the street are actually “allied” with the player while they’re fighting one another. They’re set to turn against the player the moment he starts attacking them, however, or the moment all of the aliens are dead.
-Reduced the smoke present on the street during the battle by a fair amount, but it’s still there! Players should be able to see the encounter much clearer now.
-Changed the guard house for one which resembles the one in C2A5D, for consistency purposes.
-Lowered the gun rack in the Guard House to human level.
-Added a headcrab to the first (non destroyed) bathroom for a bit of a surprise moment.
-Added some explosive barrels on the roof by cover which the Sniper can shoot if you’re hiding for too long.
-Fixed some of the water particles effect clipping in the water tank.
-Made the fire from the satchel in the pipe less “smokey” and more “firey”.
-Made it so the Marine who throws the satchel at you now comes back to see if you’re dead when he opens the door.
-Moved some signs in the furnace room to look less out of place.
-Moved the valve you’re meant to attach to the top floor rather than the bottom. Less easy now.
-Added a few more ambient sounds to the furnace room.
-Removed the explosive barrels from the furnace room.
-Expanded the janitor’s closet a bit so it’s less cramped and looks a helluva lot better.
-Damaged the janitor’s closet by the gasworks heavily so it looks like a gas pipe actually exploded now.
-Fixed the enemy pathing and placement in the gasworks slightly. The enemies which are there by default should be way less dumb now. (SHOULD be!)
-Fixed a pipe which had no texture on its end.
-Replaced the black 90 degree pipe for the second jump in the jumping puzzle with a thicker, more obvious one. Should make life easier.
-Added a second alien encounter in the gasworks, set to appear near the end of the jumping puzzle. Another fight for the player.
-Added a sentry turret to the laser trap area. Good luck.
-Removed two of the “traffic lights” from Barney’s office, to improve the appearance.
-Changed it so that the end of the level no longer takes you through the small doors in the guard house, but the big doors. Makes it clearer to the player.
-Changed the end of the level to add some stairs and some small supplies. As you head towards the transition to C2A5I, the door autocloses and jams shut (shown by sparks appearing by the control panel). Not the best fix in the world, but it is NECESSARY for serious optimization reasons with C2A5I.
C2A5I
-Fixed up the Garg’s entrance a bit. He now throws debris from the door everywhere, and the door breaks mid animation rather than before his animation.
-Fixed a bug where you could walk through the blast doors at the end of the Garg chase.
-Added a scripted sequence where the Garg can force his way into Forget About Freeman, if you don’t kill him beforehand. He CAN now follow you all the way, so be ready!
-Fixed the Garg’s pathing slightly so he doesn’t just walk in circles when patrolling the water’s edge.
-Fixed a bug with the mortar screen where the top of it was black because I was too liberal with nodraw.
-Fixed an occluder which blocked the view of objects you were supposed to be able to see. The BM team didn’t actually design the occluder like that, it was an engine bug (though it was present in their version too!). The occluder shared the same plane with a trigger brush which extended quite high up into the sky, and the engine was merging them together into one plane, making the occluder much higher than it was supposed to be. Fixed this by moving the trigger brush back one unit.
-Added an occluder to the central tower which should help performance ever so slightly.
-Changed the water LOD range so that it’s not ALWAYS rendering expensive water (the BM dev team had deliberately set it up so it ALWAYS renders expensive water, I’m not sure why). I adjusted the water LOD range on this map from 3000-4000 (BM default) to 512-768. There’s no visible/perceptible difference in water quality as there’s never any water visible after 768 units, but it should improve performance a bit.
-Made it so that shit gets real when you start to enter the tunnel to Forget About Freeman. Airstrikes start to happen outside. Early days, not very developed just yet. It’s a start. THIS TOOK A VERY, VERY LONG TIME TO implement.
C3A1A (SURPRISE!)
-Made it so that the Garg doesn’t bug out if he gets carried through to Forget About Freeman.
-Fixed an areaportal bug near a hidden room by the cog puzzle, where the room wasn’t rendering properly.
Kinda a weird question since final is rarely final, but do you feel like you have to improve it even more significantly or (just slightly?) before it’s ready for release v1.0?
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