Official Shift Discussion Thread (Half-Life 2)

korge · Post by **korge** » 17 Dec 2006, 20:21

All this has already been discussed with my coder and me. We will start with one basic car and one body package and get that working. From there we will spend a lot of time fixing the game and such.

That car list is projected and if you even read the list, alot of those are doubles so modifying the same car and chagning some details isnt hard. Plus I am hoping to have a very large 3D team.

Drift also wont be implemented till later.

Finally, I never said I want this mod done by early 07. If anything, it will be completly done as in playable by late 08 or early 09 if were lucky.

Is there some kind of problem, blah2?

Stereo · Post by **Stereo** » 17 Dec 2006, 20:42

korge wrote:playable by late 08 or early 09 if were lucky.

I know that you have a smaller team than EA, but a car from HP2 is still really good. 3 days each, 365 days in a year. 120 cars in one year. Mapping, coding, textures, music. They can be done at the same time, couldn't they? (i.e: korge is working on the models while blah2 is mapping.)

I say it can take 2 years at the most. But who am I to judge... I haven't made a game before. 2009 is a long way away from now...

Good luck with the mod anyways. Even with no concept drawings it's great. (Although you have only been working on it for a week.) Car list may be really hard to model... It's huge.

To the people who wanna play this: GET HALF-LIFE 2... You NEED it to play this mod.

blah2 · Post by **blah2** » 17 Dec 2006, 20:45

korge wrote:All this has already been discussed with my coder and me. We will start with one basic car and one body package and get that working. From there we will spend a lot of time fixing the game and such.

That car list is projected and if you even read the list, alot of those are doubles so modifying the same car and chagning some details isnt hard. Plus I am hoping to have a very large 3D team.

Drift also wont be implemented till later.

Finally, I never said I want this mod done by early 07. If anything, it will be completly done as in playable by late 08 or early 09 if were lucky.

Is there some kind of problem, blah2?

.
I'm in then. Definately.

Add me on MSN th3pun1sh3r<at>hotmail<dot>com

BrontoX · Post by **BrontoX** » 17 Dec 2006, 21:04

LOL a fight.
Also 2-3 years is much so you MUST release a Demo in Early to Mid 2007 or there will be some guys asking what's going on with the game if you don't

Digi · Post by **Digi** » 17 Dec 2006, 21:19

Hi guys, i'm the guy thats helping korge here, I just wanted to adress a few things.

korge I guess I am here to dissapoint you.

That map is TOO FREAKIN HUGE. I won't say it's impossible. But you can do it in 2 ways:

The engine doesn't support such a big map. So if your map is divided by four (4 cities no?) you can put teh maps one on another. They will be linked by tunnels with portal textures for trigger, so when you enter a tunnel you get to the next city (which is on top) in teh same tunnel same position. BUT HERE COMES THE BAD PART: It will cause LAG, LOTS of it (better to say UBER LAG). portals reduce lag a bit, but increase compiling time to abut 4 days (too big map). Also as i know , the Source engine can hold approximatively one NFS U2 map that is chopped in half and put one over another.

or the second way: make 10 maps, then you can change them every time you get trough a map changer trigger (which is not laggy but loading time sucks, so if one racer gets to map 2 , every other one has to)

Sorry but I was a mapper and i know from experience. Now please reduce that map.

Edit: Also I don't think the 1st way will work. I give it a 35%

The way i'm pretty sure were gonna do it, is break maps up into different .bsp files. This may cause issues with a multiplayer environment, but then we can run a persistence system. Through Mysql, so it integrates with our site/forums. But anyways, what will happen is you will hit a trigger similer to HL2's, and it will load the next map. But the trick is, the models and everything, textures etc will already be loaded. Thus saving loading/switching area. So there will be a load time, but a short one nun the less.

By overlapping the cities, it'll be one big huge PITA long load times, lag etc. Mostly load times, we can do whats known as "culling" which means, whatever you don't see doesn't get rendered. But a big reason why HL2's so slow, and requires much memory is because of Valve's coding ethics, and gazillion files. They have CSS, HL1, TF2, and HL Episode 1 code all in the sdk. And countless useless files being compiled, that don't need to be.

The car list, Korge is right, alot of the car's on that list are duplicates, and look similer. So it'll be easier to make. I do not have an ETA for the car list, but it wont all be done soon. But we will start with a few cars, and when we get a stable beta release, w'ell probably release it for the public. I'm hopeing atleast 10 cars for the Beta Release.

All the features and such will be able to be turned down for slower computers, and i will do my best to optimize HL2's engine.

Thanks for all yoru support guys, i gtg help family with some stuff. If you have any questions, you can contact Korge, or myself.

MSN: Digitize_Your_mind@hotmail.com

krazyammo · Post by **krazyammo** » 17 Dec 2006, 21:58

wow i just read all that and it hurts the brain

blah2 · Post by **blah2** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:05

I thought of Body kit placing as a mapping problem (parent it to another model making it no collide) and the engine modification problem also a mapping thing (change physics and specs of the car, that is compiled in a script. Unfortunately I can only map, not really script the map like that, though the bodykit thing should be easy to do

Digi · Post by **Digi** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:07

Blah2: No worries, i can code it. its all in the SDK, just needs manipulation.

blah2 · Post by **blah2** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:17

Awesome. I'll get into mapping with approx. 2 days before Christmas. Also add me to msn if you please. We gotta talk about the envinronment.

Picc84 · Post by **Picc84** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:20

Hey, if i buy the Half Life 2 cd for pc, does that include this engine? cause i am going to be working on a game, maybe later on, we can upgrade to 3-d?

korge · Post by **korge** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:24

Picc84 wrote:Hey, if i buy the Half Life 2 cd for pc, does that include this engine? cause i am going to be working on a game, maybe later on, we can upgrade to 3-d?

You cant import anything from GameMaker to HL2. Doesnt work that way

Anyways, HL2 will be installed via steam, allowing for use of the sDK.

Blah. I need to discuss how I want the environment to look for certain districts. Digi will handle the technical aspects. Do you think you could make something like stripmalls and grocery store parking lots?

BrontoX · Post by **BrontoX** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:38

Do you know when you will release a little demo?

(Realease a little one, than a bigger one and then the final demo which will ristrict you to 1 part of the city but you can play for as long as you like. I may not know how to make games but i know a little marketing)

Fishwhiz · Post by **Fishwhiz** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:43

wow! this sounds awesome! do you have any screenshots yet?

korge · Post by **korge** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:47

Fishwhiz wrote:wow! this sounds awesome! do you have any screenshots yet?

The mod has only been out for a week. Expect real ingame media sometime after Christmas.

BrontoX wrote:Do you know when you will release a little demo?

(Realease a little one, than a bigger one and then the final demo which will ristrict you to 1 part of the city but you can play for as long as you like. I may not know how to make games but i know a little marketing)

We will only release a Beta demo which may limit you to half of 1 district and as Digi said, only 10 premodded cars to choose from and you can only play for part of the day into the night before it quits automatically. Neverending demo would almost be like a full game almost, so no.

It is still too early too tell.

BrontoX · Post by **BrontoX** » 17 Dec 2006, 22:50

I meant make it a bit like the MW demo

Blazing Gallardo · Post by **Blazing Gallardo** » 17 Dec 2006, 23:30

this is a mod? a mod for hl2?

korge · Post by **korge** » 17 Dec 2006, 23:42

Blazing Gallardo wrote:this is a mod? a mod for hl2?

Yes. Yes it will be.

korge wrote: Note - This will be a free modification running on the Half-Life 2 game/Source Engine provided by Valve.

darknight788 · Post by **darknight788** » 18 Dec 2006, 00:56

just take your time and do everything right including testing .................. unlike ea

Blazing Gallardo · Post by **Blazing Gallardo** » 18 Dec 2006, 04:56

NOOOOOO!!!!!!! MY PC CANT HANDLE THE GRAPHIX OF HL2

what graphix card should i get to make it work?

Post by **TheStig** » 18 Dec 2006, 05:53

ell you got plenty of time to work on that, we are far from finished.

Digi · Post by **Digi** » 18 Dec 2006, 06:05

Blazing: I prefer Nvidia, over all

If you have a PCI-Express SLot
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125025

If Not:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150163[/list]

darknight788 · Post by **darknight788** » 18 Dec 2006, 07:02

if you can play carbon you should definitely be able to play half life 2 it only requires dx 7

Post by **TheStig** » 18 Dec 2006, 07:05

I edited the carlist, and added a up to date import list.
This is still a WIP and not the final list. but a second impression.
And in the list are also cars that are availeble in the US (or where) but they are suggestions to the domestic list.

So what do you think.
The Australian part is still being worked on.

darknight788 · Post by **darknight788** » 18 Dec 2006, 07:10

you mentioned honda integra. isnt it the acura integra ? atleast it is where i live

xHaZxMaTx · Post by **xHaZxMaTx** » 18 Dec 2006, 09:11

The Honda Integra is our Acura RSX, IIRC.