Map project / mini episode, Outbreak: Origins

[IneptGuard]

I am announcing my little project that I have been working on for the past few months. I am currently in the process of finishing off the alpha version of the first map in a mini episode entitled Outbreak: Origins. It will be sort of a prequel to the events of city 17 which will take place in city 14. You will play as a combine soldier assigned to the Hazardous Environmental Containment Unit (HECU) who has been called in to sector C14 to advise local civil protection teams in the containment of an infectious entity of unknown origins. You arrive at the civil protection compound inside of precinct 6 (believed to be the site of the initial outbreak) only to find out that you have arrived too late and that the infection has spread faster than originally anticipated. You now take command of the CP compound and must defend your position until you and the remaining personnel can be evacuated. The story will obviously continue from that point as you and the surviving combine soldiers attempt to escape the city and trace the origin of the infection and the strange paranormal events throughout the city.
This will be a sandbox style map, standard attacker / defender but you will have some interesting features at your disposal. As of now I am still early in development and some things may change.
Here I a list of what I intend to have:
1. A generator which can be started up and used to power up one or both shield barriers placed at either entrance but the generator will overheat after a short time and it cannot be restarted until it has cooled down. (This is finished and working)

2. The ability to call for an air strike (linier) which also has a cool down period. (Also finished and working)

3. The ability to call for gunship support. (working and still polishing up)

4. The ability to request reinforcements via dropship if the combine soldiers assisting you get killed. Working bit not yet finished. (this has proved to be the bane of my existence for the past few weeks)

5. A mounted machine gun that will run out of ammo and you will have to reload it by fetching an ammo crate and bringing it the m-gun. NPC’s can use the m-gun and will dismount when it runs out of ammo. Working but has a weird bug that is not my fault but valve’s where the gun will still fire once it’s out of ammo but it will only fire one round every 0.01 seconds (which works out be something like 2 – 3 rounds per minute).

(UPDATE: Oct 30, 2008)
6. All of the combine soldiers will be real, not “friendly combines” and they will be on your side. I solved the problem of the combine soldiers blocking the player. All is well now, read later post with corisponding date for details.

Here are some early screen shots. Remember that this is still in alpha and a long way from completion. Any suggestions, constructive criticism, this is my first map so let me know what you think based on the screens you see below.

Trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2aTYKLGoFI


You can see part of the motor pool from here.


there are three entrances at ground level, zombies can come from all directions.


stereotypically slow reload just in the nick of time.


I love this pic, he's thinking "I'm going to eat your face!!!"


The second floor stairway can become a dangerous choke point rather quickly.


Looks even better with dead bodies and blood splattered all over the place.


Arather sweat pic, i was trying to take a pic of the soldier and i was struck by a zombie at the same time.

[wells119]

looks good

[IneptGuard]

Thanks, I had to edit that like 10 times because I kept screwing up the definitions for each image. I have a long way to go on this map but I am shooting for a release before December but we’ll see what happens. The funny thing is that these where taken on a fast VIS and RAD render and with no cube maps or HDR so this will look about ten times better when it’s done.

[veteran_gamer]

i had a feeling you'd be good at what you do gaurd
impressive! looks AWESOME!!!!!
wow!!

*EDIT* also, you know we can change the combine_dropship and its cargo container, right? instead of the blue trashbin, we could find some kind of....i dont know, capsule perhaps, ive used a cruiser or battle ship from eternal silence so far, a bit buggy, but to Quote you...I'm not worried

keep it up man we're both cooking up something nice, when its time, we can work together and provide pure 100% BEEF for smod outbreak

*EDIT2* i guess that ai_relationship thing worked for the combines huh? you know whats really cool about that, is not only will they have the regular combine_speech and "squad tactics" of the original, but theres anims that can be triggered through NODES i think, to make them grapple etc, cause the combine_f is cool in theory, but they kinda suck, which is why i didnt implement them in outbreak. if you're really serious into this mapping thing, we can do big things!

[ClaneLord]

Pretty nice.You two should work together=)

[Blubbles]

Superb little preview there!

[IneptGuard]

Sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner but I was drunk on Saturday after an awesome concert at the harbor lights in Boston, hung-over on Sunday (when I posted this) and in bed by 9 that night. Needless to say it was a good weekend.

(Edit)
Vet, I have only you to thank for this as it was this mod that inspired me to learn the intricacies of Hammer and create this map and yes I am pretty serious about this whole mapping thing and I do think that this mod has the potential to be the best SP zombie mod out there. Hell, I can see this thing breaking away from Smod as time goes on and becoming its own stand alone deal witch means if this mod ever got popular enough you could look into purchasing the rights to the source engine and turn this into the next Left 4 Dead. Imagine that, seems like a far fetched dream but remember counterstrike started out the same way.

As far as the dropship goes this is still my fly in the ointment and is giving me a headache. You see, Valve never designed them to make return trips (to be reusable) so if you call for reinforcements you receive 6 troops and if 2 of them are killed and the reinforcements power up is ready then it would be nice if you could call for 2 soldiers to replace your fallen soldiers. But this is impossible as the dropship uses 6 individual templates for each soldier and 6 individual dust-off points slated for a specific template. In other words you can’t deploy the same soldier in two different places at the same time. I am still working on a way around this but it has been thus far unsuccessful. There is a plan B and it involves using a prefab helicopter in hammer and having all of the effects and what not added and then having this helicopter hover over the helipad while combine soldiers repel down. The reason I didn’t do this in the first place is simply because I thought it was overcomplicating a simple task. I suppose I could do this but it won’t look as good and it will take a lot longer.

(Edit)

I have made a decision; I will be going with plan B. Although I will miss the effect of the dropship and its simplicity I have already found a good prefab on FPS banana and I think this is going to look just as impressive if not more so. It already has animations and sound all I have to do is set up a scripted event in the I/O system and we’ll see how the combine soldiers take to riding in this thing. If all goes well we will have an actual intro scene but there won’t be much to see as you will be riding inside the helicopter. I figure I will take a shot at adding some dialog for the brief scene that will help give the player the illusion of flying into precinct 6. I hate maps where you spawn in some random area with no explanation as to how you got there. I am not sure weather or not I should try getting them to repel from the helicopter.

What do you guys think repel or jump out from low altitude?

[veteran_gamer]

depends on the height, id say if its gonna be under 20 feet, let them jump, like some super human soldiers haha, but if its reaaaaally high, the soldiers are still organics, so repelling would look better i think.

and also man if you need effects done to certain models or what not we can have that happen, lets say you want the 4 "turbine" plasma effects placed here or there etc, it can all be applied to th e model i can take care of just about any special effect/ ghetto rig you can think of, except for the strider, im still having issues with striders so the re-skin is fine for now.

anyway, its the same story here, i was drunk friday and saturday, sunday was a resting day watching tv, and today im working on some youtube movies from this game called jericho (clive barker)

i had made little movies for this last year but after re-playing the SP campaign, this fucking game has some amazing tracks we can use for outbreaks soundtrack, And, the monsters look disgustingly dead and beautiful for outbreak. Im gonna *try* ripping 2 models from this game, and have mr lee rig them for me since he can do that shit super quick. that would be 5 demon/special zombie2 skins, regen, h ellknight, bloodsucker, jericho monster 1, jericho monster 2.

anyway thats great news im glad youre getting into this, smod was what made me want to learn source, and outbreak is whats made you want to learn source. who would of thought 1 year ago..... anyway, if this thing really does become the ultimate master of the universe (lol) perhaps it will inspire and draw more creativity towards us, which is what i kinda hoped for all along. kind of like bait you know? build a base, a working version of "huge potential", and draw others that can do certain tasks better to contribute. like the olympics with basketball, a dream-team sort of. so yeah, i painted the picture and you're the first one to jump on it, cool! history in the making!

ive kept my messengers, steam and everything offline for two days now, i think getting messages from people has finally drove me mad, and im patient. so ill just be checking this board once or more times a day, anyway who wants to contact me has to come here, its much simpler, and less annoying especially when modding. messenging is a complete distraction, UNLESS you're working together with someone on something

anyway i think im gonna eat and take a nap. see ya soon dude :]

[IneptGuard]

Speaking of the strider, I was thinking that if all goes according to plan with this map and the next I might be requesting a temp reskin for a strider. I was thinking for one particular moment in the storyline… dare I say… infected strider.

The synthes are after all bar biological and it would be a shame if something like this becomes infected and goes shithouse on just about everything in range. Imagine an infected strider battling a regular strider while you and your squad deal with zombies and other unnamed threats. This is a long way off so don’t worry about something like this yet. I just got my chopper in game and I am still tweaking the track_paths, I don’t know how the soldiers are going to respond to riding in it yet but I am not to concerned at the moment as I still =have plans C – Z to work with.

[veteran_gamer]

sweet, it cna be done with the ai_relationship i believe, and that would look amazing, especially in a trailer.

well, i just started uploading a batch of movies to youtube last night, oblivion got done, now the Jericho's, today, i will be attempting to use directx ripper for those 2 jericho monsters, as well ripping the music from the game, if all goes well, ill be having tons of new material for a showcase, but before any of this, SLEEP

good luck with your map

[IneptGuard]

I added some newer screen shots and I will try to get a teaser trailer up as soon as possible.
Additions:
1. I decided to stick with the combine dropship instead of the alternative.

2. Added a dynamic level AI that will monitor the player’s skill and progress through the use of logic timers and math counters and other entities. It will raise or lower the amount of zombie 2s based on how well the player and his allies are doing.

3. Adding an end level button, this will allow the player to decide when to initiate the final objective which ends the map.

4. Due to the limited selection of textures and models in HL2 I have decided to us CS:S textures and models as well. This means that if you want this map in its proper form you will need CS:S. I am sorry but I started using them before I realized that the next update would make having CS:S unnecessary. Beside if you’re playing outbreak now then you must have it so I assuming that most of you do? Once again sorry, but it’s too late to change it.

I will be trying to update this more frequently from now on. Please give criticism / suggestions anything will help.

[veteran_gamer]

cant wait :]

[Blubbles]

This would be a perfect map for the player to start off armed with a sidearm. And have access to more powerful firearms when the tension starts to Rise.

That's how I imagine myself playing your little Map Ineptguard. I'm really looking forward to this, as your putting a lot of time and effort into making this little episode as best as it's gonna be.

[veteran_gamer]

btw, flying into the first mission is an awesome idea, its been done before, and each time has been VERY EFFECTIVE, i mean even in hl2 they have ya come in a train. Theres also a map out there called "Antilion troopers", where they do the same thing...sort of, you look around and it looks like you're flying, but the actual effect is more like a "green screen" streaming pre-rendered footage of you flying to the scene.

So what I mean is, you're int he drop ship (probably a small boxed area/room) thats playing the fly sequence, then it switches to a scripted cinematic cut and out you jump from the dropship

look obviously this makes no sense, im reading it and im confusing myself, ill try to make a video if i can break away from my current tasks, a video of the intro to that map. in case your curiousity is killing you before i get media up, its called "antlion trooper" and can be found on filefront i believe

you know IneptGaurd, as a mapper, you have a LOT of power. Think of it, what makes outbreak what it is, obviously models for weapons and zombies, the special effects, music, etc. and what else? the mapadds. What good would outbreak be if it had the regular HL2 campaign, (no disrespect to the creator, would never dream of disrespecting the Author), or the regular SMOD SP campaign, it would look kinda cool but it'd suck.

Outbreak is already so cool, and the mapadds are AS BASIC AS IT GETS. I mean I literally Just spawn muthafuckas a few rooms away and the player doesnt notice. Thankfully with basic trial and error, I positioned a lot of npcs so it looks like a living breathing world, and presto, the illusion of a densely packed world.

Dude its the morning and im fresh with energy, but let me get the point before I annoy myself, what im saying is, Maps are 50% of the experience, you could have a shit mod but with fun, cool maps, and nice environments (there are some out there that suffer from this too, good map shit mod).

What I'm saying is, if you do stick to this because you enjoy it, and you keep growing more and more, you're gonna be OUTBREAKS left lung, as I am the right lung, we are alllllmost done with the basic foundation of outbreak, after im done (if im ever done haha) making this thing bullet proof from a technical standpoint, its all maps after that. Maps.

with maps, you can do things in days that would take me months abd years to get donw with the mapadds. you can spawn npcs, make them follow a little route, trigger spawns, make infinite spawns with certain spawnflag values etc.

See what im saying dude, after 15 minutes of typing?

[IneptGuard]

I understand perfectly, and this is exactly why I chose to learn the art mapping. The first editor I ever messed with was for Starcraft. I learned all about triggers and actions (standard input / output code) and allot about reply value. Then I made a huge map and I started editing the unit’s stats and I made a huge mess. That was the first time I came to understand the balance of gameplay. Then I started mapping with Never Winter Nights 2 engine, and I learned the value of structure and free roaming gameplay. Then the last engine I mapped with was time Splitters 2 on the PS2, wasn’t very in-depth but I learned here for the first time how lighting can make or break a map. This was also the first time I got to work with a real physics engine. After that I didn’t map for a long time (I became a G-Mod hore) and then I found tactical which was fun for a while with the map add generator. After which I found this mod through tactical’s forum (there where only like 6 members at that point and I joined later). I started playing this and when the SP campaign ran dry I started using the map add generator again and in my frustration (lack of decent maps) I decided to make my own. A proper map worthy of outbreak. It started out simple and grew more and more complex as I began to realize how much more I could do with the source engine. My only limitations are the hammer program and my imagination. This is why I love mapping.

And the drop ship intro, I think can be done with the point camera. I will have to look into this map, antlion troopers you say? Hmmm… I’ll check it out. Thanks for the info brother!

Oh and bubbles, I like the idea I hadn’t given this much thought but I think I have an idea as to how this can be worked into the gameplay and still make sense. Thanks for the input bro!

[IneptGuard]

Well, I’ve had some rather interesting developments in the last week. I don’t have any new screen shots as of yet as I haven’t been doing any real cosmetic work but I have made some major strides in my understanding of the Hammer / Smod relationship.

I just yesterday figured out how to get Z2s into template format and made a list of key values that show potential usefulness. I am currently testing some of these key values and if I am successful this could be what we have all been waiting for.

First of all I have managed to get the Z2 to make use of Source’s squad AI. Now when you are spotted by a zombie or zombie2 (provided they are in the same squad) they will telepathically (they can’t use radios now can they : P) share information meaning that if one spots you every other zombie in that squad is automatically informed of your exact location. In testing this I noticed that the Z2s will actually go out of there way to flank you and use other squad based tactics. This has really made them a force to be reckoned with.

Seriously, they fucking hardcore when they all know where you are and are working in unison with their slower brethren. I ran three test runs of my map with the Z2s and regular zombies in the same squad. I died all three times within only a few minutes of playing. And 2 out of the 3 times I was within inches of calling for reinforcements and the last time the zombies had completely infested the facility and went the reinforcements arrived we tried to retake the police station we didn’t make it off the second floor. : (

This is shaping up quit nicely and I am in the beta stages as of now and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. : )

Vet, if your interested try adding { squadname “X” } as a key value under the Z2s in one of your map adds and see if there is a difference in their behavior. I will be testing this my self but you’re a hell of a lot better with map adds than I am so I your feeling adventurous.

[veteran_gamer]

But Inept my brotha, there is, which I have never gotten into considering all the shit I do at once, this is where you will come in when the time comes, they act much differently, its almost as if the maps sets resources aside for the particular group, which means they act more "focused" rather than just spawned into a pile of shit.

i cant wait for this, ill have time to work on OUTBREAK the next 3 days, so im just getting back where i Left off as we speak, great to hear buddy!

[IneptGuard]

Here is a cheap and rather uninformative trailer.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2aTYKLGoFI

Hope you enjoy the little there is to see in this vid. Things are finaly starting to come together and I think we will see the first map released in a month or so. It 4:30 am here… I came home drunk at 12:00am and now I am sober. It’s time to go to bed before the hangover kicks in. good night / morning whatever.

[Sickle]

I liked your use of sound inept, made it more like a movie trailer imo

[IneptGuard]

Thanks, thats kind of what I was going for. I think the air raid siren would make a great ambient sound for outbreak. I should look into cleaning it up. Well back to work, so much has been accomplished and yet there is still so much more to do.

[Blubbles]

*Jiggling Sensation*

[wells119]

when are you gonna finish? i wanna play it

[IneptGuard]

Haha, don’t worry brother. I’d say about a month or two before I release some beta versions and beta testing will only last a few days then the final release.

Things are moving along nicely I have already started on a concept / blueprint of the next map in the story line. There will be two maps released at the same time. One being the map you see here and another being a small intro map (real small). Think of it as an interactive intro scene to the story line. That chapter will be called “Point of Origin” and will give the player little clues about why everyone is turning into zombies and where and how did this infection originate.

You will not just be fighting zombies (if you can even call them that after this storyline) in the next chapter. You will have to deal with a lot of threats. I promise that this will not be another “resident evil” story. This is very different and it doesn’t wander to far off of the HL2 storyline either.

EDIT:

New Screens! Action shots this time. I will keep updating this as thing progress.

[IneptGuard]

Update: ally issue solved.

The combine soldiers much like their rebel counterparts make better temporary walls and obstacles for the player than they do allies in combat. As a result they are more of a nuisance to the player than they are helpful. This was a problem but I have found ways around this that I am going to share with you all incase you find yourselves mapping and run into this issue.

1. There is no one simple solution to this problem but rather several.
The first thing I did was try to make hallways at lest 3 people wide (use the inf_player_start as a reference) this way one inept guard ( ) can’t block the whole hallway.

2. Combine soldiers will communicate with each other and call out positions of enemies that they can see when they are in the same squad. By adding all of the combine to the same squad, no soldier is left out of the loop and the moment the first zombie is sighted they all start moving around and rarely sit still. This helps prevent them from becoming a nuisance as if one of them decides to sit in a doorway then he will not sit there very long as he will be receiving orders from the squad AI. Members of a squad will frequently respond to calls for back up or try to find an alternate attack angle for a specific target (flanking).

[blackautumn]

Resident Evil Files feeling.

The combine communication sounds absolutely excellent, nice to way to explain the story, and an overall a good concept.
Well best of luck on your (Hopefully) finished product,
Au Revoir..

[veteran_gamer]

Man you're gonna be an entity junkie I bet, the guy who knows all the magic card tricks, good shit homie

[IneptGuard]

I already am, it’s pretty bad. If you name some function in hl2 I could probably tell you what entity you need to replicate it.

[veteran_gamer]

music to my ears

[IneptGuard]

I here by denounce Fallout 3 and return to the real world.

The burdens of the real word have been building and building and I have been ignoring them. Its time to give up fallout 3 and start working on more important things like this map project for starters, getting rid of the 20 Lbs I’ve collected while roaming the wasteland (ok, so I was out of shape before fallout 3 but still) and of course getting out of my pathetic job and into a better one.

I will most likely increase my alcohol and tobacco consumption to fill the void left by my addiction to fallout 3. So while I am suffering from Fallout withdrawals and trying to beat back reality, I may not have the time I would like to work on this so as a result things may slow down.

However this will not die, I refuse to let that happen. I have some military shit I need to deal with right now but I will continue to work on this and I promise you guys will get something for good for Christmas.

I will try to get screens up, I know you’re tiered of that shit so I will try to post up some game play footage as soon as possible.

[veteran_gamer]

dude don't even worry about it, well, that's impossible, so WORRY about it, just not as much as ya are now hehah

check this out, to lift your spirits and get a laugh

www.moddb.com/mods/smod-outbreak

i all but vaporized the bitch

...BAHAH

downloads - 0
release date - to be decided TBD

I read a comment by a little cock sucker today, the vagina eater said "hl2dm & css? would have been nice to know before i downloaded" - spoken like a true ungrateful, spoiled, rotten little swine

that was the last push. So now, you get NOTHING you fucks, go fish for it somewhere, enjoy a world with no outbreak. the way the world was before june 15th of 08'.

was thinking of deleting comments too, but I'm getting a kick out of making everyone look crazy hahah.

so you see Gaurd, your project for what? OUTBREAK isn't even released dude, don't tell me you're going crazy like the rest of those whores, you must be losing it.

you're working on a project for a mod that doesn't exist yet. Noone is tired of "this shit" because noone has a say in anything except for those working on this. OUTBREAK is a privilege, not a right, just like uncle sam told us when we got our license.