[h3]Hey guys! Minerkey here again[/h3] It's been a hot minute since our last blog post, so I’ll get on with it already. We’ve got some important news, along with a literally game-changing one! For those looking for a TL;DR I’ll list them at the top here but for those more interested in all the details, scroll down to find out more. [list] [*]We’re taking a step back and examining the game as a whole in preparation for continued work Metro/subway and canal maps during the 7hr war have gotten big changes with entirely new sections and entirely new music! [*]Bink video is replaced with webm (like CSGO and Source 2) and has successfully freed up 5.7GB of space [*]Work on the soundtrack is continuing, along with some videos to showcase it! [*]PBR is being rewritten and improved, featuring bent normals for better shadowing, subsurface scattering for better skin, sheen for rendering leather and fabrics, and vector layers for dynamic snow coverage! [*]Previews of some new firearm models and a bit of an explanation about our switch from v_arms to c_arms [*]A new Combine Soldier model is in development [*]We’re also looking for team members! Primarily 3D modelers, animators and texture artists, but also AI programmers, sound designers, and web developers [/list] [hr][/hr] [h2]Writing the bible[/h2] As mentioned before, the work on HDTF has been fairly small for the past few years following its release - but within the past year the team has grown significantly and with that, there have been some growing pains. Improving HDTF is going to become difficult and vague when so many different team members have conflicting ideas on what needs to be improved and smoothed out - and so things need to be set in stone and made clear to prevent confusion. This might involve writing a GDD (Game Design Document) but as of now, we are still planning everything out. As an example we’ll be taking a look at how the game was released - its shortcomings in gameplay, story, and tech - and how we can improve on them. This is still very subject to change and there's nothing we can show for it at the moment, but it's going to be a decent amount of work and personally, I’m very excited to see how this talented team can execute a new vision. [hr][/hr] [h2]Changes to Metro[/h2] After months of work comes a significant reworking of the metro levels! While some areas may seem familiar, they have received at least a bit of love from the mappers and developers on our team. The mappers currently working on these sections are Gregg and Ромус so I’ll let them explain [quote]“I'm redoing some levels from scratch, as well as improving and addressing optimization issues. I would like to talk about the metro_1 and metro_1a levels, which I recently finished working on. On the metro_1 map (originally designed by Kalcifer in 2021, with some assistance from FaberGirl for art-passing), I focused on enhancing the gameplay and visuals. Now, players need to utilize parkour in this map. Additionally, with the help of Dabzik, I created a brand new metro map. The most challenging aspect of working on this level is identifying gameplay issues, adding details and props to the location, and optimizing performance. Optimization has been a significant problem with the levels in the game, but we are committed to resolving it over time. To give this level a unique touch, our teammate Ромус composed a lot of new music specifically for the metro levels!" - Gregg[/quote] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/65868b25a6c603121ab26df96cdb96276cb7acd4.png[/img] Ромус is a level designer and composer on the team who joined a few months ago and has been working alongside Gregg. He's also working on a mod of his own titled City 52 so go check that out if you’re interested! [quote]“I made changes to the entrance room by adding new details and removing some light, creating a darker atmosphere and encouraging the player to use night vision more often. I also increased the level of damage to interiors and added things like holes to reveal the sky and a falling car. Regarding the issues, I encountered significant problems with map leaks, optimization, and, most importantly, the zombie AI. Initially, their behavior was problematic and had a negative impact on gameplay, but I overcame that as the map came together." - Ромус[/quote] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/db0879d625e935f4d99e87f38f4da33b69fe84f0.png[/img] [b]Something worth noting is that metro levels are playable in the owf_staging_prep branch on Steam, which we use to prepare updates to the main game, but these levels are not completely finished yet! Also, here's a little sneak peek of the work on canals[/b] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/2ccf495c1ad5850755f8d748cf8253b0fa467d09.png[/img] [hr][/hr] [h2]Soundtrack[/h2] Among other things, our composer Romus has been hard at work on the new soundtrack for Hunt Down the Freeman, as the original main composer Paul Humphrey isn’t able to be contacted. The plan is also to split parts of the music up into separate components, so we can utilize FMOD to dynamically ramp up the music during combat! Gregg has also been animating new menu backgrounds themed around each act, one of which is visible as the background for some videos showing off the new soundtrack: https://youtu.be/EJQK20u7woo https://youtu.be/Zp1o_Xw-ey0 https://youtu.be/9KQO_U0L6FE https://youtu.be/Zq8T9PBbGjI [hr][/hr] [h2]Goodbye Bink, hello webm![/h2] For the majority of Source 1’s existence, video has been handled by the RAD game tools/Bink video - a standard that has been in use for many years. But as of late newer video formats have come up that provide better quality at a smaller file size - most recently being the .webm video format. CSGO uses webm for its video playback nowadays and Source 2 scrapped Bink/RAD entirely in favor of it, so we’ve made a similar move thanks to a talented programmer on our team, Nooodles! And because of webm playback being added, we’ve managed to cut approximately 5.8GB off the game’s filesize in video files alone, without visible reductions to their quality! [hr][/hr] [h2]The chronicles of PBR[/h2] The story of PBR and shaders is a long and winding road, a gift that keeps on giving if you will - and while PBR in-game is currently looking very… bright, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any progress to show off! Physically Based Rendering has been significantly refactored and is now functional on models, brush geometry, and displacements [list] [*]Microshadows have been added as an optional feature for material artists to improve shadowing on bumpy surfaces [*]Sheen has been implemented to display cloth and leather materials in a more realistic way [*]Bent normals also joins the shader, to better simulate shadowing and ambient occlusion - which should help reduce any glowing corners on models [*]Parallax-Corrected Cubemaps for improved reflections is back! [*]Subsurface Scattering is also back and more functional - ready to dramatically improve the quality of skins and plastics [*]But arguably one of the coolest is vector layers! With this feature, we can accumulate snow, dirt, sand or blood on top of models and simulate how much or how little it affects the sides of it, which we hope to use in Alaska once our updated PBR is ready [/list] Other things on the to-do list for our shader programmer WhiteRedDragons include alpha dithering for transparencies and PBR glass - but in future, we would also like to dabble with post-process shader effects such as Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion, Depth Of Field, or lens flares [hr][/hr] [h2]New gun models and c_arms![/h2] As an update to the weapon models situation, there has been work on upping the quality and accuracy of weapon visuals in the game - and while we can make new textures for pre-existing weapons as an Australian I’ve never even held a gun in my life, so I can’t do much in terms of modeling accurate firearms. But fortunately, there's someone on the team who does: Aperture Aerospace is our resident gun enjoyer and has been providing a litany of weapons to choose from, and we’ve made some choices! We’d like to present our updated M9, Remington 870, M16, MP5, AR2, and AKMS models! The plan is to keep overhauling weapons in-future until we have a fully remade arsenal animated by yours truly and our main animator Bogdanchik! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/5d6e705614fe5d6a641808c0cd451cc2b93ec01f.png[/img][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/215489ceceb5ab28950a5c7eb1d03382a5d34d03.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/6a1c363f8cf3426708314b9242fedbdf6c392e01.png[/img] [h2]Discussing c_arms[/h2] Up until games like TF2, Valve used a system commonly referred to as v_arms, which combined the player's arms and weapon into a single model (e.g. v_shotgun, v_smg). Not only was this limiting but also took up unnecessary amounts of space as each gun would have its own arms, making for a lot of duplicated assets. But more annoyingly, it also made things more complicated, as any change to one weapon’s arms would require the same change to be made to all the others - which in the case of HDTF would be at least 20 different arm models. Like Valve has done, we've switched over to a new system called c_arms, where there is only one set of arms and the two are combined in real-time. This leaves the arms and weapons decoupled. The issue we've faced at the moment with making this switch is that there were multiple first-person animators working on HDTF and they used different rigs. As such, switching over to c_arms has broken the arms - so until we have remade the animations for the player's arsenal, you likely won't see this change. [hr][/hr] [h2]New Combine?[/h2] As some people on the Discord server might know, I (Minerkey/Sol) have been taking an advanced diploma in 3D game art - and as part of one of my final assignments, I was tasked with creating a game character. As such, I sought to kill two birds with one stone and create a new Combine Soldier model for HDTF! There is still much work to be done before it will appear in-game, as all it’s animations will either need to be re-targeted to its new rig, or re-animated from scratch. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/463aed028e8af2fe575b17043e76b8622d10cded.png[/img] With the way this model has been created, its helmet and armor are also somewhat customizable, as I had wanted to create a base soldier which can be visually modified to suit different roles (shotgunners, medics, etc) [hr][/hr] [h2]We’re looking for team members![/h2] As you can see, we’re doing a lot of work on this game to make it fun to play and a far superior experience to the original 2018 version that was unleashed onto Steam way back when But we can’t do it alone! Our team is lacking in some areas and we’re looking to fill those gaps with like-minded people interested in helping us fix the game. Such roles we’re looking for include: [i]Note that this list is shown from highest to lowest priority. [/i] [list] [*][b]3D modelers[/b] will be helping to create models and props, could be brand new ones or it could be recreating already-existing models to bring them up to a higher standard while ensuring they run well in-game. [*][b]3D animators[/b] will be helping to animate and bring our world to life. While we are mainly looking for animators who focus on animating characters/NPCs or creatures - we're also open to the idea of bringing on additional viewmodel/first-person animators [*][b]Texture artists[/b] will be creating textures for the models, along with textures and materials to use in our maps. This could include making new snow textures, concrete, tiles, sand or combine surfaces (note if you’re a 3D modeler and a texture artist that works well!) [*][b]Particle/VFX artists[/b] will be responsible for creating new particle effects or overhauling pre-existing ones. This could involve new smoke or explosions, new gunshot or rain effects, etc to improve visual fidelity or player feedback! [*][b]Web developers[/b] will be helping create a website with the team and managing it - this will include our pages documenting features for modders and other team members to reference back to [*][b]AI programmers[/b] will be helping to improve our enemy and NPC AI or add new behaviors and quality-of-life additions. Half-Life 2’s Combine soldiers aren’t exactly known for having the greatest of AI, and as part of improving the game, we would like to greatly improve the experience of fighting enemies or hanging around NPCs. [*]And finally [b]sound designers[/b]. As a sound designer, your role will involve replacing or improving the sound effects of HDTF. This could include creating new sound effects for new content, replacing stock sounds with better ones, or beefing up weapon and explosion sounds. [/list] 3D modelers and texture artists are especially important right now as our art team is small and the workload ahead of us is considerably larger - so having more members onboard to create assets would be a big weight off our shoulders. Things like AI design are also crucial to creating a good experience and improving the game. [url=https://forms.gle/xQ72mT1SKp7w85Kq8][b]The application form for those looking to apply can be found here![/b][/url] If you have the skills to help out, don’t hesitate! And if you know anyone who might be interested in working on the project it’d be much appreciated if you could send them our way! [hr][/hr] To wrap up, we’d like to thank you all for the support you’ve shown over the time the OWF build has been in the works! It's been great hanging out with the community that's been building up and among other things it helps keep us motivated to finish it! [list] [*]You can interact with the team and our community via our [url=https://discord.com/invite/hdtf]Discord server[/url] [*]See our occasional updates, but mostly memes, on the [url=https://twitter.com/Royal_Rudius]official Twitter[/url] [*]track our to-do list in real time on our [url=https://trello.com/b/Fgt9UUPE/operation-whiskey-freedom]Trello board[/url] [*]Along with checking out our new [url=https://www.youtube.com/@HDTFdev]Youtube channel[/url] [*]Or donate to our recently republished [url=https://www.patreon.com/HDTF/]Patreon if you’d like to help support the team![/url] [*]And finally, the game is now on sale at a 75% off discount! You can do with that information what you will [/list] [h3]Operation Whisky Freedom[/h3]