Can I recreate an old game in the Source Created 7 years ago2017-03-30 15:36:53 UTC by bojidar4oto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D19COHCnczg

Hi guys.
Been a long time since I last posted here, glad you're still up and going

So to the question. In the link above you can see several out of 18 missions in the game I want to recreate. However, there are several problems:

1. Large, open surface maps - literally as big as 50 km in radius, even though most of it is empty space.

2. Surface to Space transition, which changes the surface map to the orbit one, but the mission is still the same, the script is not interrupted and you can have a character on the surface and a character in space and switch between them freely.

3. Squads - I think AI in HL2 could be organized in squads, but they're really primitive and only for the script. Here you can give commands to your squadmates and even switch between them.

4. Complex vehicles - for example the USC Dropship has 3 turrets, 2 side doors and the rear hatch, and is pilotable by the player and the AI (via scripted "#CMD" lines). Its engines can also be oriented horizontally and vertically. In the latter state they can increase, hold or decrease altitude fully automatically. Engines are also destructible and become less efficient when damaged.

5. Non-standard camera - can switch between first and third person camera. Also, both cameras are attached to the character model.

So my question is is it possible? Can those things (and others too) be somehow scripted?

Originally I attempted to use Unreal Engine 4, but even an empty editor ran at less than 10 FPS, so... XD

I mean, to an extent all of that can be achieved in the Source engine, but the scale of work involved is beyond massive.

1. This is probably the most problematic point. BSP just ain't designed for huge open maps. Cheat it with fog and level transitions ala the coast in HL2.

2. This is possible to a certain extent in Source. Switchable characters will need coded, but the engine will support that. Because of the scale issue, a level transition between the orbit and surface maps would probably be necessary. I've seen surprisingly good surface-to-space transitions done entirely in Hammer, but the planet's scale is an illusion.

3. Again, possible with expert coding. There's no reason the engine can't support this.

4. Absolutely possible with coding. Nothing here that Source couldn't support.

5. Absolutely possible with coding.

Nothing here is absolutely beyond the realms of possibility with the Source engine, but it's a ridiculously huge undertaking and would require serious, serious coding.

So all of it can be achieved through coding... But what's the point if I can't make the maps... Ah, well. Looks like I need a better PC. I mean, on missions taking place entirely on the surface I can use the fog trick, but not on the third and fourth missions in the video for instance.

That´s one big thing!!,coding is a nightmare, but if you know C++ well it´ll be easy.

But, if you want a "clone" of the game, there´s the fact that you must do all models, textures, sounds, sprites, etc. so that they are accurate, or almost exact, as shown in the original game. , some material could be ripped from the original game (I don´t know what engine it uses or if it uses .pak files or .wad files), but most probably you will be forced to create all from scratch.

That´ll be for sure a BIG thing. Unless you are a team of five or six people, then it could be possible

The game uses the Mercury engine. There is no other game based on it as far as I know. Models use the .obj format, sounds are .ogg and reuseable. Terrain mesh was also some commonly known format if I remember correctly.

You see, the game had a ton of bugs upon release, due to CDV messing with the code. Plus bad mission scripting (illogical decisions, bad planning, forcing some stuff to happen just because...) and your teammates, as well as enemies, are beyond dumb.

So I want to redo the game in a newer engine with far better graphics, fixing all of those problems and possibly remaking most missions from a blank list. But that would take a huge amount of time even if there were more people than just me.

What the..?, it´s a "One Man Team"?. First of all: you got balls of steel. Second: you´re quite right. It will take a lot of effort and time to be developed. Third: you´re lucky. If all those resources are available, you can use free programs like Blender and Milkshape for the models, I think Glodwave works with .ogg files and for the maps I think Quark map editor works with most of the available engines of the market, at least It works with all id software engines along with valve´s ones (if Mercury is based on them, you´re double lucky!!).

Source is one of the the worst options you can go with since big open worlds are a big nono, it can be cheated to a certain degree (as Archie suggested with fog for example), but if you look at all the HL2 open maps they have a clear entry and exit point, usually a zigzag pattern path so that you would not see the end of the level before the transition happens.

It may be possible to do it in a grid like structure with loading the required map if a player moves one grid up/down etc... I've been toying around with this idea for a long time, but never got around to testing it. However even if it works there's still the problem of the view distance and ability to see the end of each level. Fog can only go so far.

I don't think Source supports or could even support preloading levels, since maps are BSP trees its pretty complex to manipulate them w/o causing issues for the renderer.

I wouldn't recommend going with Source or any other Quake type engine for this reason.

Ue4 is nice. Free too. Plus blueprints are pretty amazing.

Yeah, but as I mentioned, I run an empty editor with under 10 FPS

For now I'm abandoning it since Source is a complete no-go as rufee suggested. If it were possible to somehow make an open-world map, I'd give it a try. But it's not - I have some experience from like 4 years ago and since there are newer iterations of the engine I secretly hoped it began supporting them. But nope.

abbadon, you're not the first to put steel in my balls (luckily only verbally, if you know what I mean ). I even have minor plans for BREED 2, being something like WoW, but a first-person, squad based shooter. Kinda like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. if you played any of the games, but with the addition of Space and vehicles. And let's not forget the armed babes from some of the posters in the USC Darwin

Dream big, then make plans and work towards them.

P.S.: Anyone played Eternal Silence? It's a space mod for HL2 and it has a flawless transition between open space and the inside of big ships, that even have subsystems. And big open maps. Maybe I should look into it.

You should be able to make a 50km sized map in Source, just work on a different scale, there might be enough floating point precision for not too complex stuff

Like in hl1 mod esf the maps are a lot bigger because players are like half the size of a hl player size

And... How do I set the scale of entities, such as the player? I mean, the terrain is easy enough to make, especially if on a smaller scale, even though that might make some smaller details impossible, right? They aren't that small on a 1:1 scale, but could end up being too small on a, let's say, 0.25:1 scale.

I am also curious about that too. How to set view for a 0,25 sized player?, overall when is crouched...

If Source is doing the same way as Gold Source, you might find some defines that start by "VEC_HULL_" and "VEC_VIEW_", just look at the player's spawn functions to see how they are used and change them as you like.

about details, not really. The smallest grid in hammer is only a limitation of hammer, you can go to thousands of a unit, the precision slowly worsens as you go further from the center though but it might be enough

i think that why its called floating point? because the point only floats like this:

12.345678
123456.78

so as you can see with higher values, less values are left for decimals

This is correct.
I think the main issue with changing scale (In any engine, not just source) is mainly that the physics are scaled to a certain unit size. This may or may not be possible to compensate for.

Source's physics are on a basic level, compared to others. Shouldn't really be an issue. I'm gonna give it a shot during the Easter vacation with a very basic map just to test the scale and we'll see.

Where can I get the latest SDK from? (Probably Steam)

Sdk 2013 i think. Check the tools section in steam

The "Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer/Multiplayer" only contains the tools to work under Source 2013 (Hammer, HLMV...), the source code itself is available here

Thank you