Showing posts with label adam foster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adam foster. Show all posts

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Someplace Else source files (for Black Mesa Source) + "Majestical" env texture set


A year and a half ago, I was working on a Source re-mastering of Adam Foster's classic "Someplace Else" to plug into Black Mesa Source. The appeal of modding a mod to remake a mod was intoxicating. Unfortunately I haven't really touched Hammer since then though, so I think I'm now forced to admit that I probably won't get around to finishing it.

I am open-sourcing the map file and textures I made for it in hopes that maybe someone more motivated can pick it up. If you're interested in finishing what I started, here are some design notes:

Friday, December 21, 2012

Just around the corner, always out of reach...

UPDATE, 19 June 2014: I have given up on this project, and I'm open-sourcing the project files.

The ballad of the bloodthirsty poet. Still a lot left to do...



Current to-do list:
- redo door textures
- redo hologram textures
- fix the buttons so the level is completable again
- add gubbins and doodads, geo detail pass
- tweak lighting (esp. plants in gravity chamber, boost crystal .rad)
- redo skybox, add space jellyfish (?)
- carve channels into the main chamber floor
- data effect pass: entire complex comes to life
- garg?

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Specially Level with Me, at Rock Paper Shotgun (updated)


Part 2 is up now. We talk about Portal 2 puzzle design, inspirations behind the underground chapters, and certainly nothing about HL3.

I talk more in this part than the other part because I'm trying to figure out why Adam Foster's work is so good -- is it because his floorplans are so 3D and holistic? Is it his bold use of symmetry in places? Someplace Else has a structure you don't see in-game: the alien complex has a spine, ribcage, and even some kind of pelvis with vestigial legs. I thought Half-Life 1's r_speeds were keeping him from linking all the areas and making this structure more apparent, but after the interview, I think it's more that he likes keeping some secrets to himself.

And to "justAModsLover": I totally forgot about the Someplace Else port, and I'm going to make that my winter project.


Part 1 of my interview with Adam Foster, fancy modding celebrity genius / Portal 2 level designer / one of Valve's ARG masterminds, is now up. (And, okay, I ask him about HL3 in part 2...)

I hope people notice my image curation cleverness re: putting a screenshot of his older HL1 mod Parallax with a giant funicular cargo lift next to a more recent screenshot from Nightwatch with a giant funicular cargo lift. Gotta love the hazard stripe trims. In both levels, these were pretty big epic setpieces and more or less define how the rest of the level is structured. The best part is that they all contradict the original funicular setpiece from HL1, the slow headcraby-descent in the middle of Unforeseen Consequences -- there are no monsters suddenly spawning in either of Foster's versions (if I remember correctly in Parallax?) so you just enjoy the ride and scenery, though you're probably on edge the entire time.

If you're an Adam Foster fan, I do encourage you to check-out Parallax. It's so old and a bit buggy, but the structure still feels pretty modern.

Friday, October 5, 2012

MINERVA Month!

As queen of all mod-dom, I do declare October to be MINERVA Month -- this year, celebrating the 5th anniversary of Adam Foster's MINERVA: Metastasis! Loyal acolytes are hereby advised to investigate new documents leaked to the public: https://hylobatidae.org/minerva/blogsheep.php?action=articleinfo&id=115

Also, look out for some MINERVA-related things, due out for later this month, if the stars align...

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Excavating Adam Foster

UPDATE, 19 June 2014: I've given up on this and I've open-sourced the project files.

I'm approaching my Someplace Else port to Source very differently from how I approached my early work on the Anomalous Materials chapter of Black Mesa Source. There, I felt I had significant license to add rooms and change architecture styles.

Because Someplace Else is so combat-heavy, it feels strange to do that. Anything beyond higher resolution textures, new shaders, and more surface geometry requires justification, which means studying what Foster did and extrapolating what he would've done with more resources and higher memory limits.

In the history of level design archaeology, I think the most convincing piece of writing has been Channie on the laundry room in Favela from Modern Warfare 2.

I don't think I'll be able to achieve such certainty about something, but it'll be fun to think about.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

What I'm Working On Right Now

So after coming back from Europe last month, I thought about why I haven't been good at finishing things these past few months, and I've decided to try making something different in a different way, and to see how well that goes. That means no first person, no reliance on written narrative, no vast architectural worlds, and no "art + writing first" approach, which is what I've been doing (with varying degrees of success) for the better part of this year.

Convo is a squad tactics game about linguistics and binge drinking, and I'm working on systems / interface first... I've never paid so much attention to UI before. I have a few ideas as to how to structure the narrative and such, but I'm avoiding anything resembling implementation right now. Roughly, I'd say it's based on the notion that a game narrative's job is to emphasize and/or problematize a game's simulation gap.

Someplace Else: Source is a Source remastering of Adam Foster's Someplace Else, in anticipation of Black Mesa Source's impending release and the 5th anniversary of Minerva: Metastasis' release. If you're interested in partnering for Minerva Day in some form (fan art? photography? sculpture? design criticism? fan fiction? etc.) then please get in touch.

I'm also in the middle of writing a three-part series of essays for Rock Paper Shotgun. It'll probably appear in about 2-3 weeks, and the whole thing will get published across a single week -- so lucky you, not much waiting involved.

Stay frosty.

Monday, November 7, 2011

It makes you wonder...

... what it would be like to date Adam Foster. First he'd show you his potato connected to an Arduino. Then he'd whisk you off to some decaying factories and take hundreds of photos of doors.

You'll waver at times, but then you'll take a nice long sip from your Cherry Fanta and think, "as long as we don't miss that 8 o'clock showing of Paranormal Activity 3, he can photograph as many cracked concrete slabs as he wants."

No, I'm the only one who wonders that? Okay. Never mind. Ignore me.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

I don't know of many mods with their own Christmas-themed fan art...

... but MINERVA's one of them.


OPEN Fire by ~swirekster on deviantART

Much like Santa, Foster's loyal acolytes await his eventual return, let his name be praised!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Mod Auteurs: Adam Foster (Cargo Cult)



Adam "Cargo Cult" Foster. The man behind MINERVA: Metastasis. If modders were celebrities, he'd be the most famous. Men want to be him and women... uh, and men want to be him! His work is smart, literary, and quite playable. He was courted by Valve to go work for them. He has intelligent things to say about everything.

First, the man made some Doom 2 WADs or something. I think? Whatever. It's not important. (Just kidding; everything he does is important. I just don't know anything about them.)

Then in the years 19XX-2001, he started working on Parallax for Half-Life 1, of which we have 2 beta maps floating around the internet somewhere. Even though it's only 2 BSPs, you can already see Adam's emerging style: giant sprawling maps with sizable outdoor areas, interconnected, neatly constructed...