I quite like Hecatomb’s idea as well. Would help even more to bring the chapter full-circle.
.RK, do you think that making the ceiling lights brighter in these areas (here and here) could fix the lighting issue?
I’ve always wanted to kill that damn zombie too, why did he have to find the supr sekret excaep tunnel and get away in the first place :’(
Yeah, personally I hate that you can’t get up into that vent. I spent way too long trying to crouch-jump off the desk and an office chair on my first playthrough of Black Mesa. Other vents that low and close to desks are accessible earlier in the game, so it leads you to believe you can do so here. Took me a minute to realize it’s not my fault for failing at jumping. 
Oh I’m sure it will help, but again I’m going to wait to get the source files before I attempt fiddling with it. The less time I spend fixing something that’s not broken, the better.
You should be able to find the zombie already dead and discover that it went on to save your life by laying down its own, and you didn’t even know it. Poor zombie. 
RK without stating the obvious have you put env_cubemaps in all your map sections and when running the game open console and put build cubemaps?
If that is not the answer then are you compiling it with VRAD on?
anyway I liked what you did so well done.
If there was no cubemaps, there wouldn’t be any reflections.
If VRAD was off, there wouldn’t be any lighting.
Pretty much this. It would be a very incomplete map if I neglected to put on some of the most noticeable touches!
Anyways, just a quick update:
The semester from hell ends in a couple of weeks, which means I’ll have all the time I want to dedicate to mapping. I’m really looking forward to it.
As for the maps themselves, I’m going to put in another area. Here’s just a WIP screenshot of it:
This is where the interrogation scene used to be, and the interrogation scene has been moved slightly so that it is now on the other side of the blast door (look for the big pink block in the picture and then curse hammer for draw distances).
It’s going to function a lot like the cafeteria area; optional and off the path, not a lot to do there, but you get rewards for exploring. I think that’s the best way to approach the room.
There’s still aspects about the room that I’m still trying to get down - namely where to put the stairs (I started to put them on the left and you can barely see them in the picture), but that will come in due time.
Just a couple of thoughts after watching your video I think you should put the Fan Blade Death trap in the shaft so you have to use the ladder.
And I also think you need to have an alarm sounding off constantly to create more tension while crawling through the vents and areas. It basically means instead of evacuating you are heading further in.
Some Vox lines intertwined would also help put this over I think the PS2 version had some alarms and vox for the vent sequence specifically
Anyway keep up the good work when you get the time of course.
Maybe you could put 2 soldiers also guarding the blast door, and I think that a good reward for the exploration aside from health or armor could be some shotgun shells, hell maybe a shotgun itself.
Na-ah, the shotgun should remain in the security room at the end.
I think the shotgun reward could work, both the pistol and the revolver are first earned as rewards (not counting the pistol from the first security guard that might die along with). The pistol and grenades are earned by helping the scientist in UC and the revolver by saving the guard from the zombie at OC. The shotgun would work the same way in this case a reward for exploration. In fact, if there were two soldiers guarding the blast door, one could be a shotgun soldier, it would make the shotgun soldier introduction more noticeable, and it would make it more enjoyable to obtain the shotgun from him.
Also RK, for the scene with the turret, maybe you could include the holes of gunshots from ST, were the blood of the dead scientist is, to give the idea that Gordon was lucky not to get shot by the turret in the vent as the turret just runs out of bullets by killing the bullsquid.
The Shotgun is the reward for making it to the end of the level this is perfect as it is, nothing needs to change with this.
Indeed. You get the shotgun anyways at the end of the chapter, so there’s no real point putting it in the side area that comes just before it.
Yeah, I had this same idea (though with slight variation as I was going to imply being shot by something other than the turret). I even attempted to add this into the beta.
You’re probably wondering why you couldn’t see it when you last played, right? I did too for the longest time.
But recently I realized that as I am using the exact same particles as the ones used in ST (specifically, that being the ones used in the vent sequence just before the garg chase), there are certain pitfalls since they behave the exact same way too. In short, the gunshot particles disappear before you even get a chance to reach them. Go ahead and play in that area, and you’ll see exactly how this works.
So that’s yet another thing I want to do is actually fix that somehow. I’ll probably try to just make my own particle. I mean, it will certainly be much better than just firing the particles infinitely, I think.
Double posting as a bump.
So obviously waiting for the steam release hasn’t quite panned out because… the steam release hasn’t happened yet. I’m kinda still banking on that honestly, just because it will fix quite a few issues.
You can imagine I haven’t really been working on the maps either. And I suppose that’s… okayish. The beta worked well enough.
However, I finally did take the last couple days to sit down with the C map and finish the new area. It looks pretty cool so far. I’m hoping to make another release soon.
There’s only one thing right now that really stands in my way. Does anyone know where to find c2a5h_particle_light in the game files? I can’t seem to locate it anywhere, and it’s the one thing I need to fix the bullet holes not showing up in the vents.
I know that this is going to be a wild guess, but do you think it could be found in the c2a5x_shared.pcf file?
Yup! I got it working, finally!
And… it looks ugly as sin. It’s especially bad when you’re actually passing through it.
And it obstructs view like nothing else. So, scrapping the idea! Phew, glad that’s out of the way.
I’m going to explore an alternative that I think should convey the same message.
I’m really surprised my guess was actually the right one!
Anyway, have a great happy new year, .RK!
[COLOR=‘Red’]RELEASE CANDIDATE IS…[/SIZE]
Wait for it…
[COLOR=‘Red’]LIVE[/SIZE]
You can find it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7lortflu9g82z4r/VentMod.zip
Please let me know IMMEDIATELY if there are any kind of texture errors. Or whatnot.
So it’s finally out, after a whole truckload of shenanigans (and me admittedly goofing off), the release candidate is here. It should be pretty representative of what the final version will look like.
Please go over the Readme. It details important installation instructions. Also take note the list of known bugs. Do not comment on these unless you have suggestions on how to fix them. Other than that, comments and criticisms are highly welcome!
I’m going to get straight to work on getting this up on ModDB. I’ll likely post again once that’s all done and over with.
Enjoy!