So, What The Hell Has Been Going On? (for the past few years(?))
Posted 3 weeks ago2024-11-28 21:36:14 UTC
Preface
Now, I'm not exactly comfortable with infodumping personal stuff onto people. We all got our problems, and offloading mine has always felt like an impolite thing to do. However, I would occasionally see other people do it, so maybe it's not so bad after all? Hey, maybe that's even a healthy thing to do? I don't know, and I've never really had a chance to ask anyone.To further try and justify the following mess of codepoints: for quite a long time I've been finding myself talking to a mirror, or a wall, about a curiously recurring set of topics. It would always kind of occur on its own, take a lot of time, and give no sense of resolution whatsoever. At some point, it became clear that feedback was needed.
I kinda departed from this place not that long ago, but soon I ended up coming back over and over, and I'm still not sure what the reason is. I don't know if I'm still welcome here at all, but whenever I thought about screaming into the void in text form like that, the journals section always seemed like the best kind of void that came to mind.
I apologize for being a long-time annoyance.
Before I Go On
There's quite a lot of what I want to talk about. I've never really done this before, so depending on the reception and how this turns out, I'll be posting in parts - or not, if you tell me to cease the activity (I'll understand 
). I was thinking of doing it in one piece, but felt like I need a warm-up first, and was too anxious to dump too much in a single go.
I've got another idea for a journal, which is about sharing neat and cool things I've found, like YT channels, bands, games, etc., and (hopefully) talking about them and beyond in the comments. We'll see.
). I was thinking of doing it in one piece, but felt like I need a warm-up first, and was too anxious to dump too much in a single go.I've got another idea for a journal, which is about sharing neat and cool things I've found, like YT channels, bands, games, etc., and (hopefully) talking about them and beyond in the comments. We'll see.
Boring Job Talk
I seem to be doing fine. Probably better off than many, which makes me feel all the more guilty while writing. I'm currently employed in a software outsourcing company, which I've gone through an internship in, in parallel to completing my last 1.5 years of university. Soon after graduation, they agreed to sign a distribution document, which meant that I'm guaranteed and forced to be employed there for at least the next 2 years.It's a pretty weird place to be employed at, however. Shortly before the final exams hit (and waaaaay before I was officially employed or even getting any kind of payment at all), they'd put me on a project as a proxy developer - that meant I'm doing the actual programming while someone makes appearances on calls and meetings. It was quite a mess, but eventually I got used to it and even got some industry experience getting messy legacy backend code to work.
As autumn military drafts were getting close, I got a pair of notices that required me to show up at my assigned voenkomat, to determine my suitability for army service. Spoiler: I was deemed unsuitable and rescheduled to show up 3 years later. However, as soon as I received the notices, I notified my management and they decided to move me off the project.
The normal scenario of getting a project here involves going through an interview with a client and lying a lot. Ever since losing my shadow project, I've been consistently (and unintentionally) failing these, so all my obligations really involve just visiting the office twice a week, appeasing their homebrew working hours tracker, and telling their status check bot that I'm still alive.
Now, with the boring stuff out of the way...
Personal Projects: Mappack
The progress on the mappack can be described in two words: slow and steady. Well, that was three words, but anyway: I'm working on it, on and off.I've thought a lot about its overall structure, and decided that it's set somewhere during Surface Tension, probably right after the section with the helicopter and the minefield. Except Gordon doesn't immediately end up at the cliffside soon after descending into that tunnel. Instead, possibly after crawling for a little while longer through a small tunnel network and letting some time pass, he ends up near what appears to be a Weather Monitoring Station (the one with the dome, if you remember).
After finding out that the thing's just a cover for what appears to be a long way down into the guts of Black Mesa, Gordon descends into the hazy Maintenance Tunnels (the shots of which I've been shamelessly spamming the WIP thread with (sorry!)). There, the player gets introduced to an actual character - yeah! - a scientist, which, without spoiling too much, will accompany Gordon indirectly throughout most of the mappack.
The next chapter is the Optics Department. That one will be all about colorful crystals, gigantic laser machines, and all sorts of cool lighting effects. You'll even get to burn a giant hole in the Mesa itself (after the obligatory Half-Life-esque powering-up process!)
The final one is Administration Offices - yup, the place where Dr. Breen is! ...Or, well, was supposed to be. You won't actually see him (no way I can find a VA for that one :v), but you'll have to grab a certain something from there.
One idea I keep thinking of is related to that one scientist character. I'm thinking of trying to record the lines for him myself - although there's, like, an astronomical number of things that can go wrong - or I'll just ask someone. Don't know who yet, though. The more fun thing, however, is you'll be able to shoot him dead and the game won't end. Quite the opposite - the rest of the mappack will subtly adjust to it. After all, Half-Life really has always been an RPG
.The toolchain for the mappack is something I've never really thought I'd end up using, and is actually fun to experiment with. It's your classic favorite VHLT v34 for doing the heavy lifting, but on top of that, there's MESS by Captain P and Half-Life Featureful SDK by FreeSlave.
I've used MESS before, and made two grave mistakes back then: make all my mapping revolve around it (bad idea!), and - albeit somewhat unrelated - implement very detailed entity setups during the grayboxing stage (very bad idea too!). Now, however, I only use it on very specific occasions: duplicating small lights across very long surfaces, saving very sophisticated setups to reuse them and easily tweak them if need be, etc etc. It's a very big help this way.
Featureful is to thank for enabling the usage of fog in Maintenance Tunnels. But it also adds "upgraded" versions of multi_manager, which I've grown quite fond of using. It also gave me the idea to incorporate some of the Op4 enemies into the mappack, like the Black Ops.
I'm going to have to touch up what I have of the tunnels, and also the weather monitoring station. After that, I'll finally be able to move onto the optics department, and trust me, it's gonna be epic! I'll make sure to share some shots as well
.
Wrapping Up
Not too much, but enough for tonight, I think. I had kind of cut myself off from the people here for a while, for better or worse, but I'll talk about it more in the future. Right now, I kinda just wanna establish contact, that's all. A new beginning, in a way. See u later!5 Comments
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That job sounds really dull, but I suppose it's better than nothing.
The mappack sounds pretty cool. I've yet to use MESS myself... hell, I haven't really made a GoldSRC map in ages outside of my tutorial videos.
I woulda written a longer reply, but I am so terribly low on time these days. I'm glad you decided to write this though, it's good to see what you're up to. Remember when I streamed STALKER SoC for like New Year 2022? I completely forgot about it until a few days ago and I'm absolutely HOOKED. I wish I got back to it earlier.
The job's more like a no-job at all. I don't mind, though. It's, at this point, an excuse to travel to the city from time to time and not rot in the village as much - keeps me on my toes. I actually use the time in the office to work on a second project, to hone my React and general webdev skills, just in case they try to put me somewhere again. And I've sneaked a copy of Ironwail onto the work laptop (it's a gaming one actually o_o) and play Quake 1 mods when no one's lookin. And riding the bus/train with music blasting in the earbuds is kind of a pleasure of its own.
I do remember! STALKER is getting lots of love these days, in the wake of the second game's release, which is greatly heartwarming. I could hang out and chat about the games all day, really. Can't play HoC though, PC being too weak. And don't worry, I'm glad about the reply. I'm glad about any sort of contact, really. It's nice to be hearing back from you after a while.
Okay, doing fine makes you feel all the more guilty, means you do feel guilty about something. I don't know what it is, but from what I know about you, you have nothing to be guilty about. I have had rough times, but I never wanted happier people to feel guilty. I barely felt envy for them, instead, I was happy for them. You can never be doing too fine or be too healthy, be as happy as you can be. That is what I wish for others when I am at my worst. After all, we are all one on this tiny planet, and if I can't walk it, I sure as hell want someone else to be able to.
In all seriousness though, I've been a member of TWHL for a looong time, and I don't think I've found a more inclusive and welcoming community since. There's a reason I've stuck around all this time. I'd hate for anyone to feel unwelcome, though there have been maybe a handful of incidents I can think of where people have been banned. They are always given fair and clear warning when it's time to tone things down.
On the work front, I have been hating my job for the last few years and almost quit in August. However I do think there is value in airing your grievances and having done so myself I've been given guidance and now find myself actually enjoying the job again. I also believe that there is value in travelling to work, even only occasionally. Social interaction, a work focused environment and even the act of commuting can really help to break up the monotonous routine of working from home.
Lastly I was not aware that you were working on a singleplayer map pack... I'm very aware of your stellar multiplayer maps, but with singleplayer being my preference when it comes to Half-Life, let me just say, "Hell yeah!" I'll be keeping an eye out for updates on that for sure!
Please do stick around and vent as much as you need to.
Commuting is the best part honestly. It's something to look forward to whenever the day starts and then comes to an end. Luckily, the public transport infrastructure is fairly developed here, so there are options. There are few things that compare to riding past a field or a small grove in the early morning with something like Rainbow's Tarot Woman playing in the background, or observing the glitter of that same field, but snowy, while Children Of Bodom's flurry of sounds is carrying you forth, along with the minibus you're in.
I honestly have zero experience designing a singleplayer level. Zero experience with grayboxing as well, which I feel is going to be essential to get the combat and encounters right. Valve would throw entire chapters away (like with the Hyperborea cruiser) if they didn't feel like it was fun or "working", and spent time heavily iterating on stuff before applying the golden plating. It's very alien to me to work like that, and the map I'm currently stuck on is mostly a showpiece, serving as a chapter intro. I know I need to move on, but it can be very easy to get complacent like that. But we'll see.