Half-Life: Source Anthology. Everything you need to know i guess?

Posted by woody on Mar 21st, 2019

Alright, it's about time I started posting about this project. I wanted to keep it to myself until the day of release, but since my vision has changed drastically unfortunately I'm forced to overhaul and restart the entire thing.

I officially announce...

Half-Life: Source Anthology

(for lack of a better name, it's a working title)

Half-Life: Source Anthology includes the following titles in one complete package.

Half-Life: Uplink

Half-Life: Source

Half-Life: Blue Shift

Half-Life: Opposing Force

Half-Life: Decay

Half-Life: Source

Valve's Half-Life: Source was a mere tech demo showing off what the Source Engine was capable of doing back in 2004. Unfortunately it was a straight port taking little to no advantage of the technology the Source Engine had to offer.



My project sheds new light on the long forgotten title in regards to higher quality level design and geometry, better usage of the physics engine, and countless other features the Source Engine has to offer.

Half-Life: Uplink

Half-Life's demo will see the light of day once again, brand new level geometry and features, along side with compressing it all down into one map file!

Half-Life: Blue Shift

Blue Shift will finally get to see the Source Engine as Half-Life once did and it will receive a similar treatment in higher quality map design and possible features.

Half-Life: Opposing Force

Opposing Force will also fit comfortably within the roster of titles to be ported over. It too will get new polished level geometry.

Half-Life: Decay

Only seen once on the PC as an unofficial release, Decay will also be included in the Source Anthology. Ending this package with a proper Co-Op experience playing as Colette Green and/or Gina Cross, with the potential of being able to play through ALL the other titles in the package as a barebones Co-Op compatible experience.

Half-Life: Multiplayer/CTF

I don't have any direct plans on doing any form of multiplayer related stuff besides Decay at the moment. I'm strongly considering it though.

There will be three multiplayer modes.

Deathmatch

Team Deathmatch

Capture the Flag

These three modes will be fully customizeable, they will include all the original Goldsrc multiplayer maps, with possibility of user submissions. You'll also be able to enable or disable Half-Life: Opposing Force weapons and related content.

Now to the Why of things:

I've previously mentioned that I've been working on this project for a really... REALLY, long time.

I personally thought Half-Life: Source had huge potential, obviously I wasn't the only one because mods like Black Mesa, Guard Duty, and Operation Black Mesa all exist now. Black Mesa's seemingly eternal development period gave me comfort to work on this project, but they beat me out in 2012 causing me to really put a halt on the entire thing. Now that a good chunk of time has passed I just want to finally finish what I started.

This isn't supposed to be a "Black Mesa", this is supposed to be what Half-Life: Source could've been. I guess it's sorta like Half-Life: Source Enhanced or Half-Life: Source Update.

This mod will capture the EXACT atmosphere and feel Half-Life did when it first came out. It's not a re-envisioning or a re-interpretation. I want to capture the Half-Life experience as if Half-Life originally shipped on the Source Engine.

Help:

Being the sole developer of a project as gigantic as this was very daunting, and exhausting for the longest time. Even though I'm really stubborn and I wanted to take all the credit for this... I'm going to officially change that.

(my skill set is very outdated for something as big as this)

Programmers

I'm using the Source SDK Base 2013 branch. (maybe see if i could port to ASW branch? for the main menu specifically)

I need a dedicated programmer with basic knowledgeability in regards to rewriting Half-Life: Source's messy and outdated code. This is important because I need a good base for all of the expansions.

An example would be to replace "monster_" with "npc_" and adding new ones. Also rewriting all of the ai, updated player movement, and weapon functionality to perform more closely to their Goldsrc counterparts.

One huge goal for the mod is for it to be a centralized hub for all of the games. Including separate "New Game" menus for each of the titles, also separate Multiplayer and Co-Op mode buttons. I'm not versed well enough in vgui stuff to full know if this is possible, but I cannot imagine any reason for this being difficult to make happen.

Modelers

I'm primarily in need of someone who can be dedicated to reanimating weapon view models and helping with porting over models PROPERLY (a lot of my work is horrendous and needs redoing).

The view models need to be updated to Half-Life 2's standards including "v_hands", FOV adjustment, and general reanimating. (I have also very limited knowledge in this area).

I like the classic LD models Half-Life shipped with, as a non-priority I also want optional HD models for those of you out there that like that kind of stuff.

Extra Info:

I've been working on this for much longer than any publicly posted mod related to this. As I previously mentioned, my original plan was to publish the game when it was completed, instead of having a mod page be barely updated and abandoned for years and years. I want to finally change that.

My dream is to release this on Steam, it's pretty far fetched, but that's why it's a dream. I want this to ultimately replace Half-Life: Source and be a landmark and a resignation from modding Valve games.

My project has ZERO relation with any other mod prior to mine pertaining to the concept of porting, such as JASONakaBOURNE's multitude of unfinished, poorly ported, and broken mods. My technique for porting content (maps specifically) is much more efficient, optimized, and overall the highest quality standard as possible.

I don't release unfinished/broken, content to the public just to claim the title of being the "first" at something, that is also why my choice of waiting till now to make a mod page will bite me in the butt.

In Conclusion:

I think that about raps everything up, I'm typing all of this in a trance-like state so I might be forgetting some huge things.

If you're interested in helping out in any way shape or form feel free to contact me via:

Email: jonahwoodside@gmail.com

Discord: woody#1714

Steam: Steamcommunity.com

Thank you all, and I look forward to working with some of you.

Old Outdated Media:

All of these are heavily outdated and were never intended for public viewing. Please excuse the poor audio mixing and the rambling nature of my commentary. I just need to at least show something and this is all I got, I'll get better videos in due time.