Black Mesa Source V5 - "They're still working on Xen?" - Games

Did the garg's fire replace the npc with a charred corpse on death in the mod version or is that something new?

[QUOTE=Whatsinaname;47754253]Are you guys looking into the map music restarting when you load a save? Or bullsquids hitting the player through walls?[/QUOTE] I believe we have fixed this bug and it will be resolved in the [B]next[/B] patch. [QUOTE=Bloodshot12;47754469]Did the garg's fire replace the npc with a charred corpse on death in the mod version or is that something new?[/QUOTE] I think that was in the mod too!

[t]http://oi62.tinypic.com/2wo916v.jpg[/t] Justice has finally been served.

[QUOTE=Kyle v2;47755749][t]http://oi62.tinypic.com/2wo916v.jpg[/t] Justice has finally been served.[/QUOTE] ha that's great, was it just added now? I tested it and am seeing the same thing.

[QUOTE=Kyle v2;47755749][t]http://oi62.tinypic.com/2wo916v.jpg[/t] Justice has finally been served.[/QUOTE]Wow, neat! And speak of the devil, I just happened to have unearthed my old hard drive which has all of my original source files for this texture: [t]http://i.imgur.com/jhAoS3q.jpg[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/ouf7UWH.png[/t] It's been a long time since I last saw the texture in this form. In fact, I don't think this original high resolution full version has ever been seen before by the public. Truly, what an odyssey this has been!

TextFamguy, does forget about freeman and lambda complex chapter unlock properly? I played through the entire game before but I realized my main menu background maps still only load the dam from surface tension. And when I click new game I see that the last 2 chapters are still locked despite having played through them legitimately. Also subtransit doesn't have updated loading screens and shows the old tram

[QUOTE=Kyle v2;47755749][t]http://oi62.tinypic.com/2wo916v.jpg[/t] [/QUOTE] [QUOTE]I'm expecting an important message![/QUOTE]

Pretty sure when they were talking about relationships to the combine, they were just referring to thematic additions. Specifically, I believe they said they were going to focus on symbiosis between the Xen creatures, trying to make the environment feel alive. It's supposed to be sort of in line with how the combine integrate the strengths of different races, but only in general thematic ways, not actually including any references overtly. Maybe I didn't interpret it 100% correctly, but that seems to be what they were getting it.

[QUOTE=LoLWaT?;47754314]Okay this is exactly what I was referring to all those weeks back when I brought up the squad system HL uses. It's such a small thing that you would never even notice just running and gunning around like normal, but it's often those small details that really add to the overall feel and balance. I'm not sure the Half-Life 2 games ever had the same thing or used a system like that to the same capacity at least, which is weird to think about. Somebody said simplicity meant more flexibility when it came to Half-Life's AI and you'd think it'd be the other way around. So why does Half-Life 2's AI suck with like zero finesse?[/QUOTE] Because ultimately complex AI like that adds nothing to the game. It's harsh but true, but most AI behaviours which aren't tied to a gameplay system are completely ignored (and many which are, are subtle enough that nobody realises). HL1 had a bunch of time wasted an complex AI behaviours which added absolutely nothing to the game. They were [I]interesting[/I], sure, but are they [I]fun[/I] in a gameplay sense? Not really. If you even noticed that the small insect grubs in the game reacted to light and sound, and noticing is hard enough, all you would gain from that is a couple of minutes thinking "cool!". But ultimately, it wastes the developers time, and it wastes the processors CPU cycles, on something which ultimately doesn't matter. Remember Xen? I bet you were amazed by the flying bird-like creatures (or boids)! Oh, but wait, you weren't - their steering behaviour AI and other quirks that the developer probably spent about a week implementing, fine-tuning and optimizing were completely ignored because they never had any gameplay impact and were just eye-candy which would've worked just as well if they followed a fixed path. The same goes with the houndeyes and vortiguants and other AI, often. Although it can be cool for them to retreat when hurt and do other interesting behaviours, from a gameplay sense it rarely matters. When they ran away from you it just felt futile and almost like a pathing bug because the gameplay didn't line up - they couldn't heal when behind cover or set up ambushes which could have a real gameplay impact. They just ran away. I'm sure you'll probably disagree and think it adds a lot to the game, but does it? Was Half Life 2 any less fun for not having the features? If you removed the superfluous AI features from HL1 and weren't looking for them, would you notice it? Not really - if anything the game could become more fun, because complex AI usually doesn't line up with the gameplay patterns which people find interesting and know how to counter. The gunships you fought in HL2 weren't fun because of an advanced AI which figured out how to time shots and perform complex dodging manuevres, it was fun because it operated on a simple pattern which the player could decipher and counter. The same goes with the human AI types - their simplicity often contributed to their fun. Instead of having marines with huge complex and often buggy decision trees, they had many simple AI types whose behaviours overlapped in an interesting way. It's more interesting to fight against a couple of simple and predictable AI types (such as the shotgunners which rushed you, the standard soldiers which moved around and could throw grenades, and so on), than it is to fight against something so complex and unpredictable that it feels like a game of random chance. Simple types combined in complex but understandable ways, whereas a complex type alone cannot be predicted well ahead of time. I feel that the removal of complex AI behaviours was an intentional move by Valve, not an oversight. Consider the hydra - it was an AI with complex procedural animation which would combat the player. It was removed because it wasn't fun. Having complex AI isn't a bad thing, but the gameplay needs to appropriate itself to that. If you have complex AI, then you'd need another way for the player to understand them. Games like FEAR had the AI constantly shouting what they were doing, for example. Would such things work in Half Life? I'm not really sure. The interesting fights come as a result of simple enemy attacks combining, and complex behaviours have been held far away from the gameplay because they'd hurt it. Any complex behaviours really were a waste of developer time because they contributed so little.

You might be underestimating the "player" and your reasons on why it wouldn't work only seems to relate to how the stereotype gamer enjoys a video game. I don't see how making A.I complex with believable traits can be seen as a bad thing. Fun doesn't trump atmosphere decisions, it goes hand in hand.

Anybody know how to access the particle editor for Black Mesa? I kinda want to try my hand at learning source particles since I've done particle editing for several other games before, and I want to make a particle mod to add fancy impact effects but following tuts for other source games and launching the game with -tools does nothing.

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;47758344]Anybody know how to access the particle editor for Black Mesa? I kinda want to try my hand at learning source particles and making a particle mod to add fancy impact effects but following tuts for other games and launching the game with -tools does nothing.[/QUOTE] Try -tools -nop4 We've been getting reports of our particle editor not working properly, we're looking into it as it seems to work fine on our internal builds.

Nope, still the same, just launches like normal

[QUOTE=Warborq;47758223]You might be underestimating the "player" and your reasons on why it wouldn't work only seems to relate to how the stereotype gamer enjoys a video game. I don't see how making A.I complex with believable traits can be seen as a bad thing. Fun doesn't trump atmosphere decisions, it goes hand in hand.[/QUOTE] To anyone reading this, please read the entire post before giving boxes. It's a long post, but I'm not talking out of my ass - I've had experience in making games and AI stuff, and so on. I am not underestimating the player. People are clever, but that's not the point. Super good AI has been possible for years now, but the truth is AI has never been the issue. The issue is making a believable character has never been in their intelligence, it's been in their animations, voice acting, and other areas. Was FEAR's AI good because of the AI programmers? Well, partially, of course - it used new interesting ideas - but in reality the thing that make it stand out was how the AI was constantly broadcasting it's decisions so they seemed lifelike. Broadcasting these decisions wasn't a good AI move, because it meant that they couldn't surprise flank or whatever, but it was a good gameplay decision, because nobody finds it fun to be arbitrarily shot in the back by an unseen enemy. What about Far Cry 3/4's AI? I found that game a lot more fun than FC2, but is that because of better AI? No! It's dumber AI, in reality. In FC2, stealth was possible but brutal. In FC3 and 4, the characters intentionally have limited senses and short attention spans, and they again broadcast what they are doing. They shout out when a body has been discovered and act surprised, so the player knows what's up. These are [I]human[/I] responses, but not always the most [I]intelligent[/I] response. Same thing goes with MGS and Thief and many other games. The AI have unique animations for when they are scared, become startled and shout when they react to something important, and they in general are very vocal about what they do even though ultimately it defeats the "intelligence" part of artificial intelligence. Here's the thing which is consistent. They let the player know of their intentions. They do not need to predict the enemy as the enemy tells them what they are doing. This is of course a valid solution to the issue of complex AI. In Half Life, another approach is taken. Instead of complex individual AIs, there are many simple AI types which are combined in combat situations. A vortiguant isn't so fun to fight by itself, but combine them with a couple of headcrabs? Now the simple behaviours merge into a complex (but predictable!) one. You need to time your movements to dodge the headcrabs, move behind walls to avoid the vortiguant shots, and prioritise which ones to shoot first. It's not a better or worse approach, it's just a different one. The point is, the game teaches the player though introducing these enemies independently and only combining them later. You learn how vortiguant and headcrabs act alone first, and later they are combined, giving a natural progression of difficulty. If you were to instantly introduce an enemy which had many complex behaviours which aren't predictable, then it's not fun. You aren't countering an enemy by utilizing past mechanics in new ways, instead you are forced to retry the same scene repeatedly until you learn their huge and complex decision making so you can counter it. I understand that from a gamers point of view, AI should be as advanced as possible... but from a game designers point of view, that's not always true. AI should be advanced when it benefits the gameplay - here's an example project I coded a while ago: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4FJs3_JgnQ[/url] In that video (and it's not finished, there are still quite a few flaws), the soldiers each have fairly complex AI and pathing behaviours because it's ultimately part of the game design. The goal is to let the player focus on high-level planning and combat, without caring about the micromanagement of each individual soldier. Thus each soldier has the necessary AI to navigate their environment and avoid collisions with others. A human doing this for thousands of soldiers would be impossible, so in this instance complex AI behaviours are used because the player doesn't care or need to predict what the individual soldier decides to do. They'd only need to predict what enemy platoon decide to do, and their actions would be fairly limited. If I added the same systems to a Half-Life game to let headcrabs swarm, surround, and time their attacks more effectively, it's most likely that it would hurt the game. It would add complexity where none is needed, and spike difficulty. It wouldn't make the game feel more alive, but would just make gameplay frustrating. Instead of being able to, as the player, realize that headcrabs jump immediately when within a certain range and being able to play around that, instead the headcrabs would time their jumps so that the player couldn't predict or avoid them. The end result is that the more intelligent AI could require a complete re-balance pass of many sections of the game, and wouldn't really add much anybody but the AI programmers having fun would care about.

I can't see to get the hlmv working properly, it only shows me HL2 assets.

Anybody have any kind of tutorials on editing impact fx particles? I must be editing the wrong stuff because when i pack them nothing shows up different.

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;47759318]Anybody have any kind of tutorials on editing impact fx particles? I must be editing the wrong stuff because when i pack them nothing shows up different.[/QUOTE] Are you editing the right file? Black mesa uses a file called "impacts_fx"

For some reason the Hgrunt on the turret in On A Rail doesn't fire the turret and feels very glitchy to me. He plays the animations and everything, but he's like two meters behind the turret and he fires normal MP5 bullets out of his head. Can someone else confirm this happens in their game too? I don't have any workshop mods installed, and I don't have a custom skill.cfg or anything.

So... is there a "proper" way to cross the dam in Surface Tension? You know, without getting shot by the apache a whole lot? Because the way I see it, my only options are jumping into the water right away and getting shot a whole lot, or running across the dam and getting shot a whole lot. Also, the fights with the soldiers are AWESOME on hard mode. The new AI makes the firefights so much more dynamic and interesting, and the increased difficulty makes everything so much more intense.

[QUOTE=Whatsinaname;47761448]So... is there a "proper" way to cross the dam in Surface Tension? You know, without getting shot by the apache a whole lot? Because the way I see it, my only options are jumping into the water right away and getting shot a whole lot, or running across the dam and getting shot a whole lot. Also, the fights with the soldiers are AWESOME on hard mode. The new AI makes the firefights so much more dynamic and interesting, and the increased difficulty makes everything so much more intense.[/QUOTE] I don't know if they changed something from the mod version but why don't you just clear out the soldiers and shoot it down from inside that building near the gate

[QUOTE=salty peanut v2;47761466]I don't know if they changed something from the mod version but why don't you just clear out the soldiers and shoot it down from inside that building near the gate[/QUOTE] See, the problem with that plan is that it requires me to be a smart person with a sense of self preservation, rather than a suicidal idiot who is a slave to the adrenaline pumping background music. (I tried it, it worked.) Also, I hope the visuals for Surface Tension are going to be updated at some point. Most of the indoor areas look really slick, but the outdoor stuff seems to be pretty rough.

[QUOTE=Whatsinaname;47761448]So... is there a "proper" way to cross the dam in Surface Tension? You know, without getting shot by the apache a whole lot? Because the way I see it, my only options are jumping into the water right away and getting shot a whole lot, or running across the dam and getting shot a whole lot. Also, the fights with the soldiers are AWESOME on hard mode. The new AI makes the firefights so much more dynamic and interesting, and the increased difficulty makes everything so much more intense.[/QUOTE] Tau him! There's more than 100 uranium in the big warehouse. [QUOTE=Whatsinaname;47761505] Also, I hope the visuals for Surface Tension are going to be updated at some point. Most of the indoor areas look really slick, but the outdoor stuff seems to be pretty rough.[/QUOTE] We're hoping to get to this for a future update. We also have some graphical features planned which we think will greatly boost the graphical quality of outdoor areas. (They're geared for Xen, but will benefit the whole game too).

[QUOTE=LoLWaT?;47760789]This is just my opinion--because people are different--but I do notice that. It really makes the game feel empty and somehow [I]cheap[/I] when the NPCs can't fake being able to think for themselves to any degree. Or at least when there's like no chance of variation to anything. And it's easy to tell when something's scripted and when something happens just because a variety of conditions happened to be met for a certain instance. But maybe that isn't exactly fair in this case because we have both the first and second games to look at and compare. And the gunships in HL2 weren't really fun, period. They're just tedious obstacles with absolutely no replay value to them since they'll operate in the exact same way each every time with zero variation. Maybe those interesting quirks don't add to the gameplay but at least it keeps things interesting in the first place. Plus doesn't it make things a bit more convenient for the designers that place them in the environment when things are structured like that? To me it seems like it'd really take a load off for the people building the levels or doing the npc placement since they wouldn't have to take time out to build some convoluted scripted sequence or event just to make something different happen in one spot after being triggered or something. Like I don't have any professional experience with this stuff but these are just my observations. [editline]19th May 2015[/editline] I've read the other post under the one I quoted and I agree with some of that. It takes excellent and varied animation, excellent voice acting, excellent choreography, a good script, but it also takes intelligence with some depth. IMO every single one of these areas are all equally important, and that's why it's so damn complicated. [editline]19th May 2015[/editline] Actually with Half-Life it was kind of a mixed bag. I'm not sure about anything else but with the Houndeyes their squad behavior did add to the gameplay by your definition of it since damage scaled with the size of the group and they'd all react accordingly to the situation at hand.[/QUOTE] The only reason why you notice it is because of the videos pointing it out. Were it not for them, the Houndeyes would be generic early-game trash enemies that, at worst, appear to occassionaly have their AI flake out for no apparent reason and randomly create large and more powerful soundwaves to keep the player on their toes. It's not a good sign of AI development if the player never notices some cool bit of the AI normally. Halo 2 had a similar problem in development; the AI programmers made a deep emotion system to govern how the AI behaved, but test players never noticed it, so they scrapped it for more traditional AI, because, despite the deep system implemented, the AI seemed to be the same as other games on the player's end.

Are bullsquids charging you more now?

[QUOTE=Killer monkey;47747299]Anyone here know of a way to only have one team spawn? Maybe in the vein of the old coop maps for HL2DM?[/QUOTE] Do it the way Rocket Jump Maps in TF2 do it; have one team spawn in the actual level, and another team spawns in a box that says "Please switch to blabababa team" or just kill them when they spawn.

has anyone noticed the weird model clipping bug in the shotgun idle animation it's when gordon looks at the chamber and there's like a shotgun shell that's phasing into a closed ejection port

[QUOTE=Ownederd;47762374]has anyone noticed the weird model clipping bug in the shotgun idle animation it's when gordon looks at the chamber and there's like a shotgun shell that's phasing into a closed ejection port[/QUOTE] This will be fixed in the next patch.

[QUOTE=TextFAMGUY1;47762398]This will be fixed in the next patch.[/QUOTE] you're awesome. thank you

Really like the fact that you've added AO

[QUOTE=Ziron;47762099]The only reason why you notice it is because of the videos pointing it out. Were it not for them, the Houndeyes would be generic early-game trash enemies that, at worst, appear to occassionaly have their AI flake out for no apparent reason and randomly create large and more powerful soundwaves to keep the player on their toes. It's not a good sign of AI development if the player never notices some cool bit of the AI normally. Halo 2 had a similar problem in development; the AI programmers made a deep emotion system to govern how the AI behaved, but test players never noticed it, so they scrapped it for more traditional AI, because, despite the deep system implemented, the AI seemed to be the same as other games on the player's end.[/QUOTE] oh yeah we notice it. The houndeyes in BM are like an hivemind. they all run on the very same path attached together like some sort of train. No hesitation or flanking. They're literally a caterpillar steamrolling your way.