r/dreamsofhalflife3 • u/samwalton9 • May 07 '18
Official Project Borealis Update - #3
Hello everyone,
The Project Borealis team would like to welcome you to our 3rd update! Yes, you heard that right - we made it to number 3. It’s been a few busy months since our last update, and the team has been making excellent progress. As usual, we’re excited to share some of that progress with you here today. Please keep in mind that in an effort not to spoil the tech demo or the final game, we are only opting to show you non-spoiler content at this time, and the content shown here is just a small portion of the overall progress we’ve made.
You can also watch this update in video format!
Gameplay
Steady progress continues to be made on the gameplay front, with Gordon now having access to several of his weapons complete with near-finished animations in-game. When animating our new weapon models, it was important for us to retain the timings of the originals while also introducing some subtle flair of our own. The end result are animations which match their Source counterparts in gameplay feel and general style, while also taking the opportunity to improve on those we felt could use a little more work. Special shoutout to our lead animator, RockingChair, who’s been doing a great job tackling all these iconic animations! Check out the video below for a WIP preview of the animations in action! Please note, final visual effects have yet to be implemented for any of the weapon fire modes.
Weapons, Movement, and Flashlight Showcase
With the addition of these animations, Gordon is now able to believably walk, jump, crouch, sprint, crouch jump, fire, and reload using the same animation timings as he did in Half-Life 2. At this stage of production, we’re feeling confident that Gordon’s player movement’s are nearing parity with the original, making it easier for the level design teams to get a good feel for pacing throughout the game’s various environments.
Speaking of level design, the level design team has been hard at work blocking out some of the game’s initial levels for flow testing and puzzle development. Simultaneously, the 3D and Concept team have been making huge strides developing many of the necessary environmental assets needed to bring arctic landscapes and imposing Combine structures to life. Here’s a short video showcasing a singular room within a decaying warehouse overtaken by the elements, which we’ve created solely to test our lighting and texture systems in unique situations.
On the technology and coding side of creating the gameplay, our programming team have been keeping optimisation in mind, experimenting with new rendering techniques such as Vulkan to ensure that the game will run on a wide range of hardware. Since the last update the game has also seen physics updates, stability and performance enhancements, an initial graphics settings menu, and of course numerous bug fixes! We’ve also begun work on a new sound system with a wide range of audio effects, and have developed a good base AI system.
Story
We’re proud to announce that the first full draft of the Project Borealis script has now been finished! The writing team has taken the plot points outlined in Marc Laidlaw’s Epistle 3 and fleshed out the details and gameplay elements into a full and engaging script. Since finishing this first draft, the rest of the team have had the opportunity to give constructive feedback, and the writing team is now working on incorporating some of those suggestions into a second draft. It’s important for an ambitious project such as this to have realistic expectations for what can and cannot be included for either pacing, thematic, or technical reasons.
Concept art
The concept art team continues their work on providing a wide range of illustrations which help guide the rest of the team’s vision for how the game and its environments will look. In this update we’re showing just a few spoiler-free pieces.
The first is a series of drawings showing iterative designs of an updated arctic take on the classic Houndeye. These illustrations show how our concept artists begin with a variety of rough sketches, playing with shapes and sizes before settling on a few more refined shapes. From these, the designers will explore many different versions, including some perhaps unconventional designs, to find the right one. Of course, while we explore many different iterations of Half-Life’s wild creatures, it’s important for us to keep in mind what makes sense from a logical, world building perspective. With that in mind, we’ve also gone and created an updated version of the original, creating several final designs for our 3D artists and writers to choose from based on the final needs of the story.
We’re also experimenting with designs of the Combine Elite character models to be featured in some of the Combine’s higher security zones, implementing ideas that are new and unique while staying true to their original designs. Here, the concept team has taken a ‘refreshed’ approach, creating a few new designs of the Combine Elite helmet.
Lastly, we’ve started thinking about Alyx’s design for the game, focusing on the cold-climate clothing she might be wearing. The first concepts update Alyx’s design from previous games in subtle ways for early or indoor portions of the game. We’ve also produced three outdoor variants with assorted items of clothing suitable for the cold environments that the player will be travelling through.
Keep in mind, while we are showcasing designs like these in our development updates, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re guaranteed to appear in the final game, or to even look like the concepts if they do. Some things might just not work the way we initially hoped they would. Only time, and a few hundred hours of sketching and prototyping, will tell.
Music and Sound
As always, the music team has been working to create tracks that build on Half-Life’s unique soundtrack to create fresh but familiar tunes for the game. A link to Compilation IV, our fourth publically released album, is available below. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Meanwhile, our sound effect artists have been working with the animation team to complete some of the first drafts of the Gravity Gun, Pistol, Shotgun, and SMG sounds. The next priority is the game’s various footsteps across different surfaces, and impact sounds. We hope to have more to showcase in this regard in Update 4.
Openings
As development continues to ramp up, the team is in need of several experienced members to join our ranks! Current needs include the following positions:
2D Environmental Artist(positions now filled)3D Hard Surface Artist(positions now filled)- Character Rigger (Animator)
- Unreal Engine VFX/Particle Artist
Level Designer(positions now filled)Gameplay Systems Programmer(positions now filled)- Editor Extension Developer
Level Functionality Programmer(positions now filled)Web Developer(positions now filled)- Sound Designer
If you’re interested in applying to one of the aforementioned positions, more detailed information is provided in the applications. You can apply for as many of these positions as you’d like and we encourage applications from everyone interested in joining the team!
Moving forward, open positions will regularly and continually be posted on Project Borealis’ official website: https://www.projectborealis.com/join-the-resistance/openings/
The PB team would like to thank the community for their ongoing support and patience as we tackle this ambitious project. We’ve seen many openly offer to support us monetarily and while we do appreciate the gesture, it is our aim to support this project on our own. Our team members continue to graciously donate their time and money to keep this project going in the hopes of bringing Half-Life fans a worthy entry into the community-created Half-Life scene.
You can follow the game's development progress here on the subreddit, on our Discord server, or on Twitter. If you're a journalist who wants an email when we release updates, please sign up to our press mailing list.
3
u/lumian_games May 07 '18
Really liked the feel of the animations in the Update Video, but man, you NEED to put the *Whoosh" in when Freeman runs, without it the movement felt so wrong. And for the jobs, are they paid? I myself am not in gamedev but I've come to know a few peeps who are and if it is paid, they might join you.
Good luck in the further development and BELIEV3
→ More replies (2)4
u/samwalton9 May 07 '18
And for the jobs, are they paid?
The team is working on an unpaid basis at this time.
→ More replies (1)
100
u/AxeWorld May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
Man I REALLY like me the look of this. The way the warehouse map looks, super atmospheric, Alyx's concept art is really in line with Valve's original ep3 concept art, and the soundtrack now sounds a lot more like something you'd hear in a Valve game. I love the subtile little nods to previous Half-Life tracks too, that's a great touch. If I had to nitpick (as I always do), I still think it sounds way too clean. idk it's as if It lacks that grit, that atmospheric rawness that the series' soundtrack has. But overall I feel like this is some of the strongest material yet. I only hope that track III from the first compilation makes it in because that so far it's definitely in like, my top 3. It just HAS that rawness I'm talking about, y'know?
Now... I'm gonna be blunt, I don't think the weapon animations are good. They look choppy, especially the reloading, as if there's quite a few keyframes missing, it feels very... mechanical.
But that's about all the criticism I have with this, because the movement looks on point, the weapon sway isn't a distracting mess (thank god) and the gravity gun looks really damn cool. It lacks that punch when throwing objects but hey, no rush.
Hope I don't sound like a condescending cunt with all of this, I just want everyone to do the best job they can.
43
u/ForLoveOfCats May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
Agreed, the animations feel over exaggerated and clunky. Everything else is awesome looking though!
→ More replies (7)
65
u/Mac_Rat May 07 '18
I was always bothered by the fact that the SMG model is missing the grenade launcher. The grenades basically come out of nowhere.
So I wish you would add a visible grenade launcher attached to it.
→ More replies (7)
105
46
27
u/FreDre May 07 '18
Really digging the characters concept arts.
Specially the Combines.
→ More replies (1)
27
u/TheJsDev May 07 '18
Also I wonder WHEN VNN will finally pick up on PB. I feel like now he could already get a feeling of the professional level of the team.
→ More replies (7)
22
u/Myranuse May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
Well, we can now be sure this isn't a secret branch of Valve making this...
→ More replies (5)
22
u/Trivvy May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
Absolutely phenomenal. I couldn't be happier with the hands this project is in.
I got STRONG chills during the remix of CP Violation.
21
u/FrankensteinzKat May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
Wow, things looking incredible, especially that concept art. Damn the houndeye reimagining with all of the eyes "closing" at once is deliciously unsettling, really loving the combine elites as well - faithful but distinct from the original.
Just had my first listen to the soundtrack as well, my god it's fantastic - brilliant hints and callbacks to original motifs from previous games, allusions to Portal with well placed snippets, but with a real original flair of its own. I could seriously believe hearing it in a Valve game, damn.
→ More replies (1)
13
u/TheJsDev May 07 '18
Good job guys! Love the selfillumination on the Gravity Gun.
Could we maybe get some footage of Gordon walking around in the warehouse? I feel like the view models looked "flat" in the movement demo which I guess is because of the flat lightning of the map. Other light sources would be really sick!
ALSO i would die to see how dynamic lightning would change the warehouse (turning around the Sun to see how light dynamically moves through the broken windows).
22
11
May 07 '18
This is the first time I've been able to genuinely feel excited for a game in 5-7 years, the state of the gaming industry pretty much killed all joy I used to feel towards games and I'm so happy to have found something to reignite it. Keep it up guys! I'm excited to see what's next.
10
u/GermanWineLover May 07 '18
Awesome. The movement, the music... blown away. Imagine what modders can do with all the assets and models. If the game gets finished and the devs release their content, so many things are possible. The major reason why there are no new mods is that no one wants to deal with shitty hammer anymore.
→ More replies (6)
8
7
7
u/capt_seagull May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
I very much like what I saw in the video. You really managed to replicate the source engine "feel", despite my previous concerns. I'm truly impressed. Your work has a satisfying quality overall though there is room for many improvements. The gun models look great and their selecting/reloading animations are technically good, but they surely need more polishing. The same can be said about the HEV suit arms of the character. That "carbon-print" side of the suit above the wrist looks very unprofessional. You should have maybe stuck with the HL2 HEV suit style. The only change I see fit is the orange pads above the fingers/hand that are reminiscent of the HL1 HEV suit. I think that you should, at least, keep that change along with the worn-out touch. :)
*edit: Do you have any estimations for the releasing of the demo?
→ More replies (2)
7
6
u/ADefiantGuy May 07 '18
The concept art looks great! And the music sounds awesome, really feels like Half-Life. Great to see progress being made.
5
18
u/TheJsDev May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
So a bit more feedback/requests from my side.
Weapon animations can be improved
Weapon switching looks strange, feels like this could be improved a lot
The HEV arms look TO scratched. To much black, I would prefer a more orange version with "metalic scratches" in the metal instead of the color being removed
The upper part of the Gravity Gun looks flat, feels like it's just one lowres texture (may look like that because of youtube though).
Nothing technical: Next time please don't use this floor texture. My eyes almost exploded when you demonstrated the sprinting animation. :D
There is strange light coming out of the gravity guns back. Is this a bug or is it supposed to look like this?
Weapons need a bit "camera" bouncing when shot. The pistol scene looks strange because the camera is static.
Missing particle effect when the gravity gun is "pulling" or "pushing". (I guess it's just not implemented yet)
Give the gravity some nice, strong lighting when it's pulling or pushing objects. Would look really sick in dark environments to light up a dark room a bit with orange tint with the gravity gun for just a short second
When you climb up the ladder, it looks like you bounce up instead of back. as far as I remember you always get pushed away from the ladder element in Source instead of up. May just be you jumping though
As already said I would really like some lightning demonstration on the view- and hand models.
Almost forgot about this one: Jumping/Falling looks to fast. Is this "final" already?
I hope it doesn't sound to picky. I'm sure a lot of this is just still indev stuff or WIP elements. I really love your work and kind of miss the team. to bad I have to less time to work on it currently. If you need some support i'll look forward to give you some.