City 17 (mod)/Archive October,2006
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Oct 3,2006 - Team
We are finally happy to say that the first three maps of City 17 are now finally in HDR. It took a while but we've just added effects and some of a few new things to HDR. Also we are working on a Advanced HDR page for the wiki but level design goes very well so far.
The forest area of City 17 is now being created and also concepted however we are probably going out on location for that to get some reference pictures. Also since the player is a rebel we thought about bringing back the buggy since in HL2 its carried by a Combine Dropship and whisked away to somewhere else. Well it turns out that somewhere was the Trainstation so there will be some buggy riding in City 17. We are though, working on this idea so you tell us what seems more "funner"for the player.
HDR screens of the existing Levels in City 17:
We put the screens on the main page of City 17 after all it does make more sense there.Oct 4,2006 - Neil
Today I will be working on props, just regular ones for the player to fling around. Most of the props in Half Life 2 require the Gravity Gun to pick up and since the player cant use that weapon we need more stuff to grab and throw like knives and such. Also since the grav gun can throw things at a high velocity they can damage foes. Like gabbing a tire and launching it at a combine. It would kill him but since the player doesn't have the grav gun he cant do that so we will be making things that are sharp, able to throw at a high speed like a shovel or a shard of glass and maybe even other existing props from Half Life 2.Oct 9,2006 - Cory
Through the modding process I've learned quite a bit. Running and directing a team as well as mapping for the HL2 world it self. The Great thing about making a MOD for HL2 is there are so many options. Too many to count even. But as the self-replication and continuous work continues on City 17 things go even better! I'm sad to report though that i might be updating this log a bit less and maybe only down to two or three times a week but thats due to the stage we are currently within at City 17. We have a bit more things greatly added up together so we'll be a bit more busy on the MOD. I would also like to say we are preparing it to release a short demo. haha it took a while with all that HDR settings and such that were added to the maps and also tons of coding for the new props that require HDR reflection and shine as well as good lighting portals. This is a long process but it really depends on the size and complexity of the model.
so far I'm also making a gameplay video to showcase a bit of the stuff we will have in City 17.
Also we are heading into the ep 2 area. We stalled on that because we wanted to create a good map for the train ride plus the level would have to be long so it required a lot of drafting and planning to get it where it will look great in the game. We also moved up the buggie maps to after the train crash in the ep 2 area of the MOD. However the buggie thing is still a bit of a fact to workout due to the fact that the player will have no Gravity Gun to flip it back over if it lands or flips upside-down. Also thats something that takes a while to figure out cause i fear we won't be able to add the buggie in the game.
So far City 17 is doing great and so is G E A R.Oct 14,2006 - Kevin
Hello all, I appreciate the warm welcome and look forward to seeing this game progress. Although the ongoing SFv2.0 development takes most of my time I'm glad that there's always something to work on when I get the time free. I must say that you guys have done a fantastic job so far and I hope that my addition to the team doesn't come as much as an obtrusion that I feel it may have been. I'm really hoping that we can keep the quality of this mod high and perhaps eventually find a way to spread the news and get some excitement garnered for this idea which has such potential. Today I shared my first real contribution with Cory and he's already gotten started on the plan. I went over some of my cruddy drawings (example here: http://www.sigstorage.net/uploads/c17_aftertrainstation.jpg|thumb|left|250px ) and we talked about the level after the train station. Didn't get very far in the scheme of things but definitely gave Cory enough to keep him busy for a while. I'm currently working on the GEAR logo due to the personal distaste I had for the current one, hopefully the team will like the results I've got and will entrust me to go ahead and prepare the logo for the mod itself. I tend to contribute random spurts of 2d art wherever I can and people hopefully will find some of my work in the launcher screen of C17 much like what happened for various sections of Sourceforts 1.9.2. Well I'll leave with one of my samples of the GEAR logo so goodnight and audios for now. Warning, MEGA huge image: http://www.sigstorage.net/uploads/gearlgoocopy.png|thumb|left|200pxOct 14,2006 - Cory
We have moved on to the ep 2 area finally and now have some pretty good designs from Kevin which is great this makes all for a really great Mine underground type of level. Train crash then player gets stuck in here and has to go through the Mine shaft which will be about 30 minutes or more of gameplay. The main idea currently is to use most of the sketches for a opening level into the vast EP 2 Forest area. This works really great and its gonna be fun to make.Oct 18,2006 - Cory
Well i hate errors thats for sure! We had the demo all ready to go and whatnot but now i have to fix two maps. the train station and also the parking garage. The parking garage i can fix but there is some strange error with the train station map. It says no Vis information all though my entire skybox is properly sealed. I made a new skybox and it did the same thing. After a while i notice that the compile log says it could not red the prt.file. So I'm gonna copy the map to a whole new VMF. and see if that works. I figured that the file could be corrupt and thats a huge problem but i will see what I can do.Oct 21,2006 - Cory
I don't want to seem lazy but i haven't got around to the train station yet. Ive been working on the parking garage. Also i think we might get an interview with a certain something in a while. Turns out somebody wants to interview the team and see what th MOD is all about.
Also we've been think about some of the EP 2 area and a bit of the EP 3 area as well but who knows what EP3 is going to be so we will wait for that one but till then i hope i can get around to the train station map and see whats really wrong with it.Oct 22,2006 - Neil
FINALLY!!! All the models are now done and look great in HDR. I'm however still working on them so i may not be able to post screens just yet but i want it to look better. There are a few kinks in the code but thats okay and isn't to hard to fix and also we are currently making a new Sky texture for the EP2 area. EP 2 has come to a halt for a while though tell everything is in order and plus we are going to wait for EP 2 to be released and maybe they might update the sdk. Who knows?
Oct 22,2006 - Cory
Yup thats right we will have to wait for ep2 content to be released however we have made some custom models and stuff like that but yet there are a lot of things that are still needed like the mini-strider or the Hunter as its called. But the great thing is we will be able to perfect the City maps much more and everything in that area. As for the sky we will be making a version that has the "Citadel Sky" visible from a distance. This is the sky texture that is in EP1 above the citadel. Also we we have started working on a custom model that will be a new citadel. In part it will be a animated model. Whether the model slowly destroys it self to show the citadel falling apart and having its various shards fall to the city. In order to make the sky it will be blended with normal looking sky to the one above Ep1. Hence the player being far away from the city now at this point.Oct 25,2006 - Cory
Well we are getting pretty close to releasing the demo at least in a week or so. Now i would like to note that this i cant promise as to the fact Hammer has so many errors but it will be out. I'm looking at a time frame of one to two weeks so lets hope one but well see. Plus i had noticed while playing "Blue Shift 2 demo 1" that they had a problem with HDR so i will try to see if his happens as well in our demo but i will test it and see if it goes okay but the demo will definitely not be released with HDR problems. As i stated before we care about the quality of a game and besides you'd have to not really give a care if you release a demo like Blue Shift 2 but thats how teams and MODS are nowadays. No more creativity nor anything like the word called "Hardwork" Big props to Minerva though.
Anyway i will be getting all the maps ready today and pack them together plus make n installer to place all these things in the right folder.
Oct 30,2006 - Team
Today we have officially planned for the demo and maybe plan to release it around three days after Halloween. That date will be November the third (11/3/2006). Anyway tomorrow will be Halloween WOOO!! hahaha but we are still gonna be hard at work to finish things up besides most of the Halloween events don't really start until night or so or rather when its sunset. Until tomorrow we will have more news on whats going on at the MOD and whatnot.Oct 31,2006 - Team
Well Happy Halloween everybody and hope you guys get lots o' candy hahah but the whole team wishes everybody a good day and to be safe on the streets. '-cough-crazy drivers cough-'.Anyway e are now currently working on some ep1 and stuff and getting ready to ship the demo soon on hosting sites and such.
Also there will be more screens of some f the ep2 area as we have worked on that a bit but they are still w.i.p shots and will be altered in the final game but thats about it today so tell tomorrow.
