Final Horror (a HL2 mini sp-mod);

[SPY-maps]

Final Horror is a small mod with only 4 sp-maps as far as i now can oversee, it will be released just before the end of the year (31 dec. 2009),

it will have around 4 sp-maps, with a few puzzels, severel firefights and as main focus it has horror.
this because although i have made over 35 large sp-maps with Hl2 i still never used the engine/editor to make some nice horror/spooky effects, (better said, i hope i can make them scary, lol)

for now i only can show you 3 screens, but pretty soon i will be able to show some movie fotage;







leon

(for my last big HL2 sp-mod see strider mountain or coastline to atmosphere

leon

[evochinima]

want horror? Remove the light_enviroment entirely and replace the combine with zombs.

[nub]

That would be a shitty map then.

This looks ok, but when you speak of horror, how are you creating it? Is it just Zombies in a night time environment, or is it more psychological with creepy sequences and such?

[evochinima]

That would be a shitty map then.

No it would be awesome

[SPY-maps]

well, no light envirement and just zombies would indeed not make a scary map.
and beside that it would be to dark the zombies also are not anough anymore (ifg they ever we're that is) to make it scary.

i am indeed thinking of psychological creepy sequences and such, i hope i can make some scenes that are a bit scary.
beside this i would like to use custom content of zombies and other scary npc's.

i am looking for weeks allready on the internet, and there are some nice npc models around, but they only work on the GMOD, i can't find scary models (npc's)that can be replaced with for instance combines, fast_zombies etc. so they do work normaly, have all the animations i mean.

should someone have a link to some nice npc's then please let me know, but, not those who only work on Gmod, they do need to work normaly in HL2.

leon

[SotaPoika]

Zombies can be scary, but HL2 zombies are not scary anymore, they were in 2004.

[evochinima]

I was just messing around, i know the hl2 zombs are shit nowadays.

However, why do you have a open-street shootout vs a combine when your aiming for a spooky, psychologically scary map?

[Habboi]

Word of advice from someone who has attempted horror in Half Life 5 times and is also writing a dissertation on sound effects in horror.

Get rid of the HUD, don't use any Valve default props or materials (make your own) and don't use zombies. The key is to understand how horror works which is why I suggest you look up articles on Gamasutra, buy some books on how horror is portrayed in film and learn to improve your hammer skills as the lighting is average and seeing HL2 textures just ruins maps now.

Oh and sound is KEY! If I hear one HL2 sound then it literally ruins the horror for me. It might have worked back in the old days but maps need custom stuff to be good in my opinion.

Hope that helps. I've had thoughts today of working on a 6th attempt and I was going to use SDK Guru's 3rd person example to make it unique, kinda like the new Silent Hill coming out (Yes it's out in NA).

[Furling]

Yeah as others mentioned the map does look kind of too bright to be scary. Play around with that, perhaps try adding some "dark spots" that are badly lit and hard to see, so enemies can jump out of them and surprise the player. And along with the enemies have crows or something like that occasionally fly out of them sort of spooking the player and perhaps causing him to have a slight relief. Such an effect can change how they react the next time they get in a similar situation, therefore making it all a bit more random and unpredictable

As Habboi said sound is also definitely something to work with, I can't really imagine a good scary map without a quiet, scary music in the background. Also, having sudden loud noises with no apparent reason, like garbage cans falling or a door being forcefully closed, can make a decent effect of player being watched and someone (or something) else being out there, especially if you lower the bg volume right before it.

That's just something I would consider if I'd want make a scary map

As for what you showed, well, you probably already noticed, but in the 1st image that sidewalk texture being misaligned does kind of catch my eye. Just a minor bug, but hey, it's all about the little things
If I were you I would also consider adding a 3D skybox with some mountains, as the map kind of looks cut off after the buildings.

There, I hope you'll find something useful in my post and good luck with this

[Stubby]

In order to make dark scary you need Light spots to make the dark look scary in comparison, use really bright light_spots

[SPY-maps]

first of all i want to thank you all for your serieus and constructive critisism !!
i have had other comments here on interlopers too, that weren't.

that said i also would like to add that i would have liked to comment earlier but i was sick and therefore not able to do so.

now back to the topic;

-i have been thinking too about lowering the light envirement value so it would look all much darker, but i allready have got many times with earlier sp-mod projects of mine, that people commented that it was way to dark. and this was said about maps that we're much much brighter as this first map shown above. so i am a bit carefull about making maps dark, to often people think there to dark to quick. still, because this is a (or tries to be) a scary/horror mod it is nessesay to keep it dark. so i will lower the light value.

-about all suggestions that were made about sounds, and other options to make scary moments, i compleatly agree with these and am allready making use of them, as good as i know how to do so.

-i fully agree with that these days maps/mods do need as much custom content as possible. original HL2 stuff (textures, sounds, models, etc) do spoil the fun of playing a map/mod, because we all have seen it allready many times before. therefore i do use as much custom content as i can find on the internet.
about the scary sounds/music, for that i use the sound files of the game Bloodrayne2, (a 3th ps horror/vampire). it has great scary sounds that will make it so much more scary, i know that some people think this is not right to do, using stuff from other games. but i can't make music/sounds myself, and why do it the hard way when there is so many good game content around. i know, some people don't agree with me on this point. everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and this is mine. that it is not aloud by law, who cares ! yes, who cares i said, i don't. this is only a small mini mod that probebly will not be downloaded/played by more then 3 to 6000 people, so, who cares. should this be a huge project then maybe it would be different, but in this case...

-it would probebly be best for the quality when i put months and months in this new project, but like i said before is this just a small project that has to be released before 31 dec. and i want it to have 3 to 4 maps, therefore i am not able to do as much work on it as i would like to do about the textures and models. so it will have original HL2 content, even when this makes that it isn't as good as it would be when it would be a total convertion.

as soon as possible i will show some more new screens, and maybe even a small movie.
thanks again for all nice and constructive comments, hope we can go on like this here.

and should you be interested in other sp-mappacks and sp-mods of mine, then please check my site of the site of our last big HL2 sp-mod called strider mountain.

leon

(should someone have scary models, textures, etc, that he would like to see used then please do contact me !!! )

[Phott]

I can't really see a 3d skybox, and you seal off the "ends" of the map in a weird way, just lots of rocks. In my opinion it looks bad.

Also, you make a big mistake by not caring if you break any laws by doing your mod, especially if you state it like this here where I know some people are against this...

[evochinima]

What if someone would have a concert in front of 3-6000 people and play someone else's, copyrighted, songs?

Im not a big fan of your method. I understand you, but it gives a very lazy impression.

[Major Banter]

Just so you know, darkness never means scary, it means annoyed.

And do not pirate stuff, you'll get an extremely negative response from Interlopers; either don't do as I said, or don't mention it. Simple enough. And don't try to defend yourself, just take note like a professional, ok?

[Furling]

Just so you know, darkness never means scary, it means annoyed.

Yeah, darkness itself isn't really scary, but I think not knowing what will happen is kinda tense and scary and darkness (combined with other elements) can be very effective in providing that

-i have been thinking too about lowering the light envirement value so it would look all much darker, but i allready have got many times with earlier sp-mod projects of mine, that people commented that it was way to dark. and this was said about maps that we're much much brighter as this first map shown above. so i am a bit carefull about making maps dark, to often people think there to dark to quick. still, because this is a (or tries to be) a scary/horror mod it is nessesay to keep it dark. so i will lower the light value.

Lower the environmental lights to make it darker, but use streetlights/cars etc to light up the main path the player must take. That should create the atmosphere of darkness while leaving the main playing path well lit.

I would suggest you take a look at L4D1 blog. They explained many of their gameplay techniques there, including how to guide the players trough the level with the use of lights (basically, when in darkness people tend to move towards the light, so once in a while placing some brighter lights where you want players to go can be very effective)

And yeah, using copyrighted content is not good.. At the very least try looking for free content. There are free sound repositories out there, surely some of them must have some scary stuff you can use...