Using black mesa or half life 2? Created 6 years ago2018-11-11 01:54:40 UTC by Cabo Fiambre

Hey there, so i'm learning modding for source because i think it's more user friendly than goldsrc, makes mapping easier and also because of the realism that gives. I was thinking of using black mesa as a base to make my mod mostly because takes place there but i don't know if this is convenient, the other option is start from zero using half life 2 as a base, modify/add some things and put some textures. Wich option is the best?

If you're planning on doing any programming then Half-Life 2 is realistically the only option (I think Allied Modders might provide a Black Mesa SDK but it's more for plugins I believe), otherwise I assume both provide Hammer and relevant compile tools.

While I never mapped for source myself I talked with numerous mappers that do conduct mapping for source. They claim it's better to use source than Black Mesa especially if you're in a learning phase. Black Mesa allows for much more realistic environments than source does and many mappers surrender there due to the amount of work it takes to create something of a even larger magnitude. At least if you want to make your environments look great.

If you got long term plans perhaps even considering a future job career in 3D level designing then you should possibly start with Black Mesa right away and ultimately switch to modern engines such as Unreal 4, Frostbite, Unity engine.

Both Black Mesa and Half-Life 2 run on the Source engine.

Which one you should choose depends entirely on what your goals for your project are. Black Mesa's version of Source is heavily updated from Half-Life 2, but the development tools (Hammer, Model viewer, Faceposer etc.) are largely unchanged. If you're just making an extension to the Half-Life universe taking place in Black Mesa using the same weapons and enemies, I'd say Black Mesa is an excellent game to base your mod for.

If you want to make a full total conversion mod with new weapons, NPCs and functionalities, you're probably better off starting from scratch with Half-Life 2, or rather Source SDK 2013. However, from your description, this sounds a little higher level than what you're looking for, so I'd say use Black Mesa.