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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by Mint_Sauce on Fri Sep 8th at 12:08pm 2006

<html><head><link rel="stylesheet" href="themes/standard.css" type="text/css"></head><body topmargin=2 leftmargin=2>Myself and another mapper have been working on a HL2 SP mod for a while now. We are at the finishing stages so I knocked up a quick video of my areas. My website <a href="http://www.henleyb.com/" target="_blank">www.henleyb.com</a> has a few screenshots if you're on 56k <IMG CLASS="smiley" ALT=":P" SRC="images/smiles/icon_razz.gif"> <br> <br> Second link on here for the video: <br> <A HREF="http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~henleyb/rock24_promo.avi" TARGET="_blank">http://rock24.ownsyou.eu/</A> (38mb)



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by Naklajat on Fri Sep 8th at 12:59pm 2006

Rock24 is seriously looking very slick. I can't wait to play this, the anticipation is on par with that I had for HL2:Ep1, if not higher. I also downloaded ph_machine and ph_machine_02, quite nifty. Definitely not what you usually see from "learning the tools"-type maps. From what I've seen you show a real propensity for level design, or at least a love of tinkering, keep it up, it's not a common quality, and so it's coveted by developers big and small <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif">

Any estimates other than "soon"?


=o



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by reaper47 on Fri Sep 8th at 5:48pm 2006

It would be nice to have 3 screens or so in your map profile here. It's a barrier if people have to visit a second website to see any. It would be a shame if anyone missed them because of that. I watched the screens and they look beautiful. This really is close to E1 quality!

And something else: Your map is currently listed as a HL1 map here, please edit the settings in the map profile. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by Mint_Sauce on Sun Sep 17th at 1:12pm 2006

Thanks for the positive replies guys! It's taken a loooong time to make Rock 24 and it's our first attempt at a proper mod. When we started out on Rock 24 we really didn't know much about Hammer at all. Hopefully when this is finished we can take everything we have learnt and start fresh, making something really really good. I already have a few ideas for a short SP map.

I redid the video as well so it's higher quality and better edited with no blank bit on the end either, check it out.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~henleyb/rock24_promo.avi

When we say soon, we don't get much time to work on Rock 24. At the moment I only have time to spend about 6-7 hours a week on it. When we started out we were spending about 5 hours on the week nights and about 20 hours on the weekends. There's not much left to do but not having time means it's taking a while.

Believe me, I want to get this out and stop worrying about finishing it so it will be done. Today I've got to write down the script for some voice actors, should be fun.





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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by Agent Smith on Wed Sep 20th at 1:56am 2006

Looking very cool, I love the scripted sequence where the combine car crashes into the pillar and slowly falls over. Looks like some really solid gameplay and level design, can't wait to play it.

You should write up some tutorials on scripting sequences for single-player. I know its the area I'm most dreading with my own singleplayer project :P.


Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by SmokersCough on Fri Oct 6th at 9:12pm 2006

Hi Guys,

I thought you might be interested to see what the other mapper of Rock 24 is doing, (seeing as Mint_Sauce has been stealing the limelight). Not sure if this trailer has been shown but hopefully you haven't seen it. Comments will be appreciated.

www.zen61223.zen.co.uk

www.zen61223.zen.co.ukrock24WIP.wmv Some facposer, unfinsihed.

Click on the image to the left on the site, it links to another trailer, some more examples of the map.





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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Fri Oct 6th at 10:50pm 2006

SmokersCough: Cool, new media. Looking very cool, I just had two thoughts while viewing that second link (the faceposer video).

1) The opening message's lacking a certain comma or other punctuation. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> "Aboard the fishing vessel the S.S. Rebellion" - it should read, for example, "Aboard the fishing vessel, the S.S. Rebellion". Very minor things but these are the precise things that totally suck me out of games, articles, wherever I see them.

2) Faceposer work looks good, above average for a third-party mod, but if you wanted to put some more work into it to take it up a notch, I'd suggest working on some of the gestures. A lot of them seem really forced, especially toward the end ("We've already been spotted by scanners" sees the rebel waving his hand across the screen, why?). There's a lot of pointing in particular. I'd suggest trying to make these a bit more natural, smoother and more integrated to the conversation - act this out in front of a mirror and take mental notes about where you'd move your hands and in which way. Again, this already looks good, I'm just picking it apart...

(ir)regardless, this looks very cool all-in-all. Can't wait to play it. Any updates on a release date? <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">


-- midkay



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by SmokersCough on Sat Oct 7th at 12:52am 2006

Hi,

Thanks for the comments, I see what you mean about faceposer, i can porbably make the animations smoohter i'll look into it tomorrow. Also the citizens have very few gesture animations (they are all Gman animations) the other animations are for actual sequences then don't work every well with the talk sequences.

But i agree i'll try and make them run together smoothly. I attempted most of the pointing when he is actually saying "you" and gesturing towards the stern and bow. As for the missing comma, that's easily fixed thanks for pointing it out.

Release date, if we work hard enough this weekend, the release date may be sooner than we think. We need to get our voice actor to record the rest of his lines then we are on the final stretch. Not too long now guys <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">





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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Sat Oct 7th at 5:07am 2006

Cool. Yeah, the pointing animation looks fine, and I like the one at the end where he gestures by pointing with his thumb, it looks great.. it just seems like you use some of these too much, if you reduced the number of gestures and varied them up a bit it'd look great. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

Nice to hear progress, can't wait for more. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">


-- midkay



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by SmokersCough on Sat Oct 7th at 1:14pm 2006

Hi Midkay,

I made the amendments you mentioned last night, i think it's looking a lot smoother now. Thanks for the ideas. I'll release a small video soon <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">





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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Sun Oct 8th at 8:59pm 2006

Yay, cool. That was quick, nice job. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> *waits to see it patiently*


-- midkay



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by The_6th_monkey on Tue Oct 10th at 11:47am 2006

Seems like there has been a delay.
Hope it gets released soon <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">


If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~Vincent Van Gogh



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by oskutin on Tue Oct 17th at 2:00pm 2006

imageWhere are screen shots?


R?l? se kohta paisteataan...



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by SmokersCough on Fri Oct 27th at 10:17am 2006

Hi Guys, yes i know i was lame and didn't post the video of the faceposer stuff. But guess what, all the faceposer stuff is now in game and looking sweet (Hopefully you guys agree). We are now looking at a release for next friday, if nothing goes wrong. I would show you the new faceposer stuff but i'm thinking it might be worth waiting for the release <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by reaper47 on Sun Oct 29th at 10:48am 2006

can't wait! <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">


Why snark works.



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Mon Jan 22nd at 1:56pm 2007

Rock 24 starts out with Gordon Freeman (who you play) on a fishing vessel, manned by rebels, headed towards an unstable, ready-to-collapse Combine prison facility called &quot;Rock 24&quot;. You and the rebels are attempting to rescue a rebel scientist named Richard G. Newell. Very early on, after an encounter with several gunships, you are knocked off the vessel and wake up in a prison cell deep within Rock 24. From here on out you must work together with Richard Newell to help each other reach the surface and escape. <br> <br>Rock 24, despite being a prison, is loaded with original environments; you'll rarely think &quot;Hey, I saw that in Nova Prospekt&quot; or &quot;This looks a lot City 17&quot;. In Rock 24, you'll travel through varying prison environments (cells, control centers, hubs), an elevator shaft system, rock environments and tunnels, and some outdoor areas. Nearly each of Rock 24's six chapters has its own unique feel and style, which is undoubtedly a great thing. Rock 24 has several puzzles for you to solve as well, though one or two have rather cliche setups (such as &quot;run back there and flip that switch for me so that by the time you get back, something will have happened to your return path and you'll have to find an alternate route around&quot;). However, there are only a couple puzzles like this, so they don't feel very annoying or unrealistic at all. <br> <br>Visually, Rock 24 is great-looking, especially considering the amount of ground you'll cover. There is a lot of attention to detail, including a lot of very nice high-resolution lightmapping and dynamic flickering/toggling lights. Environmental effects abound as well - from lasers to sparks to smoke, everything looks great (kudos to the creators for making great-looking smoke instead of blobby &quot;this is supposed to be smoke, just pretend it is&quot; particles). One thing to note is the presence of several cool physics visual sequences, including a pipe swinging down to break through a thick concrete wall, crumbling rocks falling down around you, and a Combine APC crashing into a pillar (taking a chunk out of it and busting down fences in the process). One thing to note is a frame rate drop in only one or two large areas - nothing worth marking the mod down for. The only other little visual complaint I can come up with is that a tad bit of the animation on characters is a little over-the-top (characters will sometimes make gestures when they probably wouldn't if they were real people) - again, nothing big at all. <br> <br>And finally, gameplay. Rock 24's gameplay is a lot of fun, with around an average amount of action, but still plenty of it interspersed throughout each level. Despite this, Rock 24 still comes off as being primarily a puzzle/objective-style set of levels than action-oriented ones (your primary goal is to reach the surface, and Combine assault you along the way intermittently - you're always moving up and forward). This is a very welcome break from mods that provide a ton of action and a silly story as an afterthought. A couple notable bits of action include a large-scale battle inside Rock 24's huge, fortified main entrance area, and in particular the ending battle with - literally - nearly a hundred soldiers. <br> <br>To sum up, Rock 24 is a very professionally-done set of six chapters. The flow is great, gameplay is very good and rarely repetitive, puzzles are generally fun, and Rock 24 looks great to boot - and all of this from a team of two people. Rock 24 is the best &quot;new storyline&quot; HL2 SP mod I've ever played, and for giving the player something new, fun and original - and despite any very small flaws it may have - it deserves a 10/10. We need more mods like this.<br /><br /><b>Verdict</b><br /><br />The best all-new-storyline HL2SP mod I've ever played - great gameplay, visuals, flow and design. Something for everyone.



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by reaper47 on Mon Jan 22nd at 1:56pm 2007

Although Rock 24 takes place in a high-security combine prison and once again forces our all-time favorite hero Gordon Freeman to perform a critical rescue operation, this Singleplayer scenario never feels like a Nova Prospekt clone. From the unique introduction on board of a fishing vessel over the bizarre Prison interiors up to the showdown with a huge hangar-door opening up to a beautifully sunlit mountain scape, the campaign never looses the player in tedious puzzles, boring corridors or endless hordes of enemies. <br> <br>The battles are done quite interestingly, several scripted scenes, many of which involve your fellow inmate Richard G. Newell, are fun and memorable. Some of the lighting is a bit too old-school for a HL2 map with extreme colors and blocky brush-based lights. But considering HL2's fairly grayish texture-set, the authors managed to succeed in one important aspect: The levels never look boring. Sometimes you'd wish that some custom, more colorful texturing would have been used instead of flashy lights to achieve the effect. Also the huge piles of boring crates used as a filler everywhere, some rather randomly placed props as well as very rough brush- and displacement work here and there take away from the eyecandy. Ultimately, however, Rock 24 is very good and original looking for using the standard HL2 themes. <br> <br>Rock 24 has also plenty of custom voice acting. Unlike the mumbling you usually hear in user-made mods the voices are crystal clear and on par with HL2's mostly. I'm not a big fan of game-voice-acting in general, not even HL2's, but for a hobby project it's quite remarkable! <br> <br>There are two bugs I encountered. One was a sentry being stuck in the elevator with the combines that caused it to never move up. The other was when Newell was giving me a surprisingly logical explanation for why we have to kill all enemies before continuing but never bothered to let go of the MG and open the door for me. Both required a reload. Although I had worse bugs in HL2 and many people won't even encounter these, that was a bit of a turn-off. But still better than having to search for a hidden switch for 20 minutes - which the authors cleverly avoided. You always see where to go next which is very important for a SP game. <br> <br>If there is one thing I would have liked to see more of (in HL2 mods in general, by the way) then it would be scenes that present combine soldiers as less of a group of moving targets and more as a squad that actually outsmarts the player. The only point where I really felt like this in HL2 was the Nova Prospekt level where you set up sentries and see the combines throwing them over by sneaking up from behind or using grenades, only seeing the player himself as a secondary target. That was a powerful example of their AI system. But mostly (even in original HL2) you only see them as cannon-fodder, running straight into your shotgun, which is a real waste of potential. HL1 has a lot of 3-party fights with Human Soldiers vs Alien Soldiers vs Gordon which creates really unique scenarios. HL2 has very little of this and I'd love to see more diverse and tactical fights and less chaotic carnage between always the same combine/rebel groups. Rebels are rather boring IMO. <br> <br>Rock 24 is simply one of the best SP scenarios ever made for HL2. Right up there with Minverva or the somewhat strange DayHard, which I equally enjoyed. There is room for improvement, though. It hasn't the consistent amount of eyecandy like Minerva, neither it has the interactivity of original HL(2) SP gameplay. But onsidering that the authors, Henley Bailey and Richard Acherki, basically learned mapping on the fly with this project I can only guess what excellent stuff they will produce for coming SP mods (which are announced). I hope it will involve scenes as interactive as the sentry challenge in Nova Prospekt but in a theme far away from prison cells. smiley Everyone who has one or two hours to spare should give this mod a try.<br /><br /><b>Verdict</b><br /><br />One of the best HL2 SP experiences to date. Can't wait for the next. Play it!



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Sat Nov 18th at 12:33am 2006

Wow, the screenshots seriously look GREAT. Original settings, very polished and good-looking. Hour and a half of play time broken into chapters? Man, I can't wait to play this. Getting it now but I won't have time to work through it for more than about 15 minutes until tonight. <br> <br>If nobody beats me to the punch I'll be glad to review it. smiley



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by The_6th_monkey on Sat Nov 18th at 8:12pm 2006

Good job guys this is well worth playing the 2nd best singleplayer hl2 mod I've played smiley <br> <br>Only a few problems here and there, like the lack of clip in some areas that makes some areas accesible that shouldn't be and an invisible box on one of the later levels next to the cross bow hut that kinda got in the way. <br> <br>The only thing that could of been improved was the method of starting the elevator, I was running all over the place looking how to start that dam thing only to find I had to throw a grenade into a particular area which made little sense. Maybe there should of been a vent leading to that power switch smiley <br> <br>Anyhow good job, hope you continue map making, this was very fun



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 Re: Rock 24
Posted by midkay on Sat Nov 18th at 9:48pm 2006

6th monkey: Are you talking about with the electrocuted water? What I did was wait for it to become un-electrocuted (it electrocutes for a few seconds, every like 15 seconds) and swim through it to the other side where you can easily simply press the power button. <br> <br>I agree that this was kind of a confusing place. I wandered around for like 10-15 minutes looking for where I should go before I realized the electrocution was on a timer and I could swim through. <br> <br>I won't comment further yet because I'd prefer to write a review.. suffice to say that I played it all in one sitting and thought you did a great job smiley




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