Comments

Good luck finding the job. The scene looks warm and great.

"It's all about keeping a nice new car nice and new for as long as possible."

Uhmmm.

Call 4825550100. Yeah.

Dimbark, I just edited your file to sound as a natural voice, and your voice is that of a kid. Don't try to fool us :).

On second thought, I just realised that a podcast is not so practical. Instead, a vlog("Weekly TWHL" ?) could be easier to watch and produce.

Not exactly radio tutorials. You see, when I was talking about a podcast, I wasn't really meaning ONLY radio. A video podcast can be done as well.

Let me give another example:Today we play and review a random map from the map vault! That would be just wonderful, because all the maps submited would not be just forgotten.

I really look forward into seeing a video podcast. We don't need to make it 24\7, 2-3 hours or even 1 is probably enough.

-We have to be able to share the podcast( 3-4 members that can have different programmes).
-We all have to agree on an convenient hour so most of TWHLers can watch. I suggest 19:00 Greenwich time.
-The podcast should( must) be archived, so if we miss it, we can rewatch it.

A podcast could just make this community a lot more lively, and encourage to learn how to make better maps.

I don't understand Dimbark, we haven't even discussed if this will be implemented or not, and you already made a livestream?
Please, Dimbark, don't be upset, but we need someone with a good... radio voice. Your voice is not suited for that yet. And I know you like to help, but stay calm for now.

potatis_invalid.. ehhh. I'm not saying I am doing this. If we are to do this, we should each make an audio test with a phrase here on TWHL to see who has the best voice, and preferably somebody who can also review maps. I may have a low-pitch voice, but it's hard for me to clearly and fluently speak english. And I don't have the experience, say... Huntey has at reviewing maps.

We could, though, "share the programme"(just an example: Coding HL with Jeffmod, The art of mapping with Rimrook Review of the week with Huntey etc... And the hours must be something that is good for everybody. Because when it's evening for me, it's morning for some of you and viceversa.

Podcasts, from what I know, can be easily archived right?

No, it's like.. basically having a radio streamed on the internet.
Giving reviews, making jokes, dedications from members...

Actually it could be a video podcast, and it would be really easy to make thematic tutorials, or reviews. Although a video podcast consumes more bandwidth, it'd be more informative.

I think the default nowadays is 4 GB. I had 1GB in 2007, 2 GB in 2008 and 4Gb since 2009.

Hey there again.

And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

For me month December meant a lot of snow. But the weather was only like this until a few days after the New Year. Then, suddenly the temperatures arose by even 20 degrees(from -10C to 10C-12C). Yeah, it was like a spring for a few days... Now it's beginning to be cold again.
Last year I was with the sleigh on 17 March :D.

Really cool weather there Tetsu0. Enjoy it :P.

Do not get a 30 gb SSD. You will soon, after installing windwos, want to throw it on the window. I'd rather get some money for a 64 gb one.

Ok, I had a try at it and I must say it is nice overall, but there are a few flaws. First of all, I am going to say that it begins to be hard to rate maps on TWHL.
While other maps that are quite shitty get rated 4 stars(I know an example, don't I?), rating this map 5 stars would be a bit unfair. So let's go on.

Generally starting a player's appetite with a background story is a good idea, and it partially worked in this one too. Except the fact that you are providing only the escape part in the game, while I was expecting to plant a bomb somewhere. You practically left me craving for that part. I was a bit disappointed. Of course, I do not have pretensions because it was a time limited compo and you don't have all the time in the world, so I forgive this... mistake that would otherwise have been considered laziness. I also have to point out that without reading the Readme file, the gameplay had no sense.

Gameplay
Most of the time the gameplay was pretty balanced, although in some places the number of ...military men(nazibines, am I right?) was visibly higher than in others( for example, the last combat was between me and a single soldier near the end, which was a bit disappointing- some rappelling soldiers on the wall would've been better). Although I wasn't expecting to get a headshot every first time, the aiming wasn't easy at all. Or is that just an impression of mine?
Also, a weird moment was when a woman picked up a pistol and started following me while pointing it towards me:

Hit the road Jack! or rather John...

Initially I thought this was the woman that found another route and was waiting for me at the end, but when I replayed the second time 2 women picked up pistols and pointed them at me. Women hate me :(. Also, that woman was not presented in the story, I can only reffer her as ... "the woman". What was her actual role in the story?
I also find disappointing the fact that I was expecting at least one small puzzle, but it never appeared. It was straight advancing through the 2 levels and pure combat.

Architecture\Lighting\Textures\Sound(Overall Ambience)

I can see some valve mapping style in this map. The ambience and gameplay is designed in such a way that it distracts my player eyes from the lack of details. My critic eyes immediately spotted the familiar non-detailed parts. I don't say this is really a flaw, the architecture is not pretentious but it works, although there is some kind of a garage where the walls were just too empty. Don't worry, I've seen a lot like this in the half-life series too. Not all the time you have to apply tons of details, and your mod is not affected almost at all by some lack of it.
The last scene was clearly inspired from half-life 2. There is a pretty small detail there that made the next scene have no sense. How do you expect me to believe that train is going to start when there is a fence in front of it?
I have nothing to comment about the textures, they pretty much integrate in the atmosphere of the 70'. I do have about lighting. The HDR made some places a bit over exposed, and remember the garage I was talking earlier? What's with that super bright light there?
The sound ambience was good, so nothing to comment there.

Of course there probably many more things to say if I'd take every part of the map to discuss, but I sincerely don't have time. Even considering all the problems I exposed, your mod still deserves 5 stars.
Why? Because you had a small time span in which to finish it, and you made something worth playing.
And congratulations for the 2nd place ;).

Wohoo, I can finally change my gmod maps to gmod icons !

Well, what a coincidence. Yesteday I started replaying the hl2 series. I never played Blueshift or Decay though.

Looks like a pleasant way to spend some time.

Kinda the same as skals :). The video is funny overall, but the voice destroyed it. Let me tell you something: I absolutely hate it when people use synthetic voice rather than their own. Even if you have the worst voice in the world, it's still better than any text-to-voice software :P.

Now go make an animation with a daddy and his child. Record your voice and your boy's voice and make something funny ^^.

~Congratulations skals for 1st place!

I think you should post this on planet philip.

Wait, what?

It was just fun to point out that trying to say "heh, we are safe" is wrong. But really, if a supervolcano errupts, it won't affect only the area near the volcano. It will indirectly affect a big area.

Huntey, it's all over the place. I heard it even at the local news.

Yeah, it sucks to be you too.

UK will be badly affected too. Europe means UK too.

Yes, you are.

Thanks for the info :).

Just a toy? What do you mean?

Wow, VAT goes to 20% in UK? That sucks. In our country it's 24% I think.

Nope. He could've waited a few more months. Sandy-Bridge is coming. I actually think it''s going to be released this month(5th January).
Well anyway gj for your purchase. I'm just saying you could've waited a bit more.
A note here: Sandy Bridge is going to mop the floor with the Westmere(or Nehalem, or whatever) architecture. I've read that it's possible to overclock it to almost near 5ghz on air cooling.

Wow, this mod is a definite "must play". There is little to complain about. Heh, after I finished it, my first question that came in mind was "Is this guy working for valve?". You really succeded in keeping that hl2 story atmosphere.
The voice acting was good, I can say that barney's voice doesn't sound odd at all(even though we are all used to the original, this voice was an excelent replacement).
The only thing that bothers me is that in some areas the lighting is a bit too bright.
Probably the most negative comment I'd have to say is that it's too short. I am craving for more! Though it's understandable, you are not gaming team.
The level of detail is splendid, really and it blends very well with the gameplay. Good puzzles, too.

Excellent work! 5 fully merited stars!

Now I have a question, how do you make a light prop glow like this? screenshot lost

One more thing. It's sad if you registered just to post this here so you can get more downloads. This is a wonderful mapping community ;).

And tell me, is yourmy avatar look the same to everyone?

Umm. I don't understand. Penguin boy is so restrictive when it comes to modifying this site, yet it lets you do all kinds of experiments on it.

Pasting here what kdunivan should've posted at the description:

Ai_Goal_Actbusy Tutorial

This is an example of the Half-Life 2 Act Busy system. This system brings your otherwise lifeless, dead characters,
mainly citizens, to life and gives them something to do without giving them a scripted sequence or using a .vcd scene.
There is also an excellent tutorial and an example map at the valve site. Feel free to download it as well.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Actbusy

There are a few extras in this level such as the jumbo-tron, and the water. If you do not want these things
in the level when you test then you can remove them pretty easy. The .RMF file contains VisGroups for the Jumbo-Tron and
the Breen Stage, which is broadcasting the feed. It is in a box at the bottom of the map. You can simply un-select them
from the VisGroup and they will not render in your map. If you use the .bsp then they will be there obviously. These
things are there to add a little extra flare. More people should use visgroups, including valve, when offering a tutorial.

Feel free to modify it any way you want and please feel free to give critical feedback on any known errors or
improvements that could be made. We do not claim to be "map experts".

In the example you will see that the walls and the height of the two floors create some errors when an NPC attempts to
relocate to a node that is blocked. This is intentional to give you an idea of the range and flexibility of the system.
Feel free to use the client_command inside the level or just turn on the debugger from your console. It works pretty well
as it is but there is always room for improvement.

• ai_debug_actbusy 0 - turns the debugger off
• ai_debug_actbusy 1 - constantly draws a line from each NPC to their selected act busy node
• ai_debug_actbusy 2 - whenever any NPC chooses to act busy, draw a line, and draw the NPC's hull at the node
• ai_debug_actbusy 3 - selected NPCs will display why they're not able to choose act busy nodes
• ai_debug_actbusy 4 - display all act busy logic

This Level Contains

• 105 Solids w/630 faces
• 264 Point Entities
• 16 Solid Entities
• 17 Textures

This level contains 15 citizens all named "citizen" with 92 info_node_hints. The ai_goal_actbusy is set on when the level
starts. Your ai_relationship towards the citizens are set to "neutral" so anything goes if happen to find a weapon. Again,
there is a point_clientcommand at the top of the stairs so you can toggle the debugger. Listed below are the sequences
used in this tutorial.

Act Busy Sequences Used

• ACT_BUSY_STAND
• ACT_BUSY_SIT_CHAIR
• ACT_BUSY_LEAN_BACK
• ACT_BUSY_LEAN_LEFT
• laycouch1
• sitcouchknees1
• d1_c01a_mary_kneel
• d1_t02_playground_arms_crossed
• d1_t02_playground_cit2_pockets
• d1_c03_matt_sitground
• idle_alert_01
• idle_alert_02

A complete list of these can be found on the valve site at https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/NPC_Activities_%26_Sequences or you can
simply look in your scripts folder and find the actbusy.txt.

When you are done please feel free to press the button at the bottom of the stairs. You have to have a little fun too!
It will release a couple of metrocops from behind a door. Notice the reactions when all the chaos starts. Once the two
metrocops are dead the actbusy system returns to normal. It may take a minute or two. You can try to force it with a
trigger if you need it to return quicker.

Visit the valve site for more information about this system at https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Actbusy .

Known Issues

As stated before, there are a few obviously goal errors at times when the citizen cannot line up correctly on the hint_node.
There is a transition error that pops up from time to time but doesn't seem to affect things too badly so I wouldn't worry.
Also there is an unknown schedule weapon change error with either the metrocops or the citizens. Not quite sure but if
anybody can shed some light on this it would be great.

A 1-frame makes the difference ?
Hmm, thanks for telling me about the font. I've searched for it on the internet but it's commercial, even though the first result in google is a free download link :)).

May I ask you what's the font used at the beginning?

Nice acquisition huntey

Fuck, Strider's internal processor just crashed at 00:00:01. We hope somebody can resolve this probleme and reset the date.

You are late.

lol

By that I mean that my keboard is kind of shitty too. I mean it isn't so special, without special features or something. But I like it.

I never do that. Well, only if I watch a film or something. But I don't really like cables :D.

Can you give me an idea by how much will the sound quality improve?

"Integrated sound is never good"
Is your statement based on your experience or you just say this because, well... it's probably a saying that everybody learned from the internet? Because a few years ago, an integrated sound card might've sucked, but it's not really the same thing nowadays(again, I say this from what I read on the internet).

I don't think there is a huge difference in audio quality. Or I can be wrong. Is it true that a sound card can free up some CPU usage?

Unfortunately it's integrated on the Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 rev 3.3 motherboard.
I haven't had the money for a creative sound card, you know...

Are there big differences between an integrated one and a cheap (let's say, about 35$-40$(which isn't necessarily cheap for my money, erhm...)) Creative sound card?

Thank you :).

I think YouTube is getting generous.

60 videos. But I do have the account for 3 years now...
If 60 videos is a milestone, then it's odd. It should be 50 imo.

I tried it 2 years ago. Meh, good time waster I guess :P.

I played your map and... I see you put some effort in those scripts. You even worked on your apologies!
It's a shame you didn't complete it. I found it fun to watch. The beginning actually felt funny.
There was no special architecture involved, nothing really fancy, but the atmosphere is quite well built. The small village could be more... full of life,you know. Some NPCs around there..
What a big ship! The ship was the bad part, I guess... lack of details around there :).

I hope you can actually continue this, even if it's not submitted to the TWHL contest anymore.
If you do want to continue this, don't forget to place some mist around the ship to enhance a bit the atmosphere

Great project!