Final Horror (a HL2 mini sp-mod);

[SPY-maps]

thanks guys for the suggestions.

leon

[m.anderson]

doing dark levels in source is hard. There's only one real skybox texture for it, and it always ends up looking too bright. Between vertex lighting and the limited lighting tools in hammer, its very hard to do darkness justice. If you insist on making the level very dark, which I would still insist you do, there's a very skilled way you're going to have to do it - and that's silhouette. The best example I could give you is the original Tim Burton Batman movie. Most films shoot darkness horribly, like the "Bourne" series of films - with no regard to readability of the image. If you want to see things in darkness, the way you achieve it is with a differing value behind them, so their outline pops out. You need to make sure the silhouettes of the important objects are "popping." In this way you can have a dark, very moody level that is still readable and not hard to see. Experiment with fog, smoke, halos, and other atmospheric elements to create contrast of image. The bottom line is you need to use some form of contrast to make your 2d image read to the player's eyes through use of value (black vs. white), texture (detailed vs. plain), or motion (still vs. moving).

[jgoodroad]

whatever you do, DO NOT over use combine...you did the last two mods and I annoyed the hell out of me (and I am sure other people too) and sorry but I had to say this once you said you were going to have "firefights". You can have better, more challenging/engaging fights with 5 combine then with 20...

now on to the horror...are you going for scary jump-off-your-seat-and-sh*t-yourself or creepy FEAR-guy-walks-around-a-corner-and-then-HE'S-GONE! gameplay? (awsome))

[SPY-maps]

i love the hammer editor and HL2 engine and what it can do, but my biggest complain about it is that it doesn't have the use of dynamic lightning. with that you can do so much more, specialy with scary scenes etc.
so, i agree that its hard to get lightning right in hammer mapping.

i have looked around from the time HL2 was released, to see what people made with a theme of 'horror' maps. some we're good, most weren't.
i have in mind both scenes;are you going for scary jump-off-your-seat-and-sh*t-yourself or creepy FEAR-guy-walks-around-a-corner-and-then-HE'S-GONE!

but, like i said before don't i have much time left to finish this new small mod, i need to release it before or on 31 dec. what makes that i just have 2 + weeks left.

i will see that i make soon some new screens and or even a small movie to show some more stuff.

leon

[jgoodroad]

I was talking about wich you would use more often...

[SPY-maps]

i'm not sure yet, its a bit of both. its more experimenting as such, so, even to me its not clear.
still, i have to hurry, have about 1+ week left to finish this thingy,

leon