Here is the report on forum steampowered:

Rebellion
Bugs: Got Engine error AD_Alloc: no free edicts during “Breen” character script. Added num_edicts 2047 as launch option and still got error.
Comment: In gameinfo.txt, needed to change SteamAppID to 215 and add Game sourcetest at end of SearchPaths. This allowed the mod to start, but did nothing for the Engine error

Even there, there is no fixes/patches nor updates to re-start this mod’. So this mod’ is COMPLETLY dead until some new info’s.

(Damn Valve!).

Sorry, but I gotta ask–did you enable sv_cheats before you tried using noclip to move? (I had the same problem with another mod not too long ago and, after deleting the mod/map, finally realized I may not have turned cheats on.)

Can anyone help?

thanks,
Sean

(english; aha, your a Belgium guy).

still, we will keep it on English here ofcourse.
am glad you go on with a new project, most modders keep fixing there old work and keep releasing the newer versions. so, good you go on.
its true that HL2 itself also has no depth in the making of there windows and doors as i and you described above., what really amazes me, because hl2 is much about realistic lloking worlds, and windows and doors that have no depth don’t really add realism, still, they only do it with a few walls, have seen much streets in hl2 itself, were you could walk really close up to these houses, that still didn’t have depth in it. guess some mappers didn’t and others did, because i believe that each map is made by one mapper, so some maps are made by person A and others by person B,C and so on. and some of them didn’t think it was nessesary to build those windows and doors, because it also is ment for doors ofcourse.
am glad i could be of some assistance, and about that one link that you gave, to that image from the inside of the ship, and the lightning. you say you think its to dark, but, i think its just right like this. but, ofcourse is this also a case of personal taste. it could be a bit brighter, that’s true. but, a bit of darkness add more realism to it i think, and more shadows and darker places. but i do have to add that it can’t be much darker, much mappers make the mistake of thinking that very dark maps (maps were you need your flashlight about 80% of the time, you know what kind of maps i mean) are more crazy and so. but this is not true, many people anoy them about such dark maps, some dark places are great, but only when there few, when there to many its starts to anoy.
but, this i never had in your maps, and i’m glad about it, for my taste there were sometimes a bit to bright, lol.
still, always make what you like to play yourself.

leon

Thanks for the congratulations, it feels good

As for the depth, it’s a good idea to do that with windows ! I thought about depth in doorways for instance.
Actually, I took inspiration from the buildings in the first chapter of Half-Life². They aren’t making any depth with windows, except for more detailed places. But you’re right, and I won’t forget the tip !

Concerning the lights… strange thing I’ve just checked the brightness of the lights in the very first corridor, inside the Mothership. It’s 45 and on my screen, it’s pretty dark. Check it :
http://www.rebellion-source.net/images/screens/1.jpg

Could it be due to the fact that I’m not using HDR ? (this is the simple Half-Life² engine, not Episode One or Two)

And concerning light_environment, I certainly use them (with a shadow_control which has the same orientation as the light_environment), with the properties from this page :
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List
I’ve also noticed that some times (on some textures ?), shadows just don’t show up or are almost not visible. I don’t really know why.

… the main thing is that you enjoy making it.

Very important thing

personaly i wouldn’t go on with this one, fixing and changing stuff, but i just would go on with a total new project,

Sure thing ! I’ve made a fesw improvements thank to the great feedback of the community. Most of the modifications were little things. Little things that could help the player having a smoother and better experience.
But I probably won’t be working on this anymore, since I want to move on and create other stuffs.
And, that’s fore sure, creating a brand new map from nothing will always be better than improving one that has been build earlier when I had less experience. Now, I have much more things in mind when I start a new map than I had before. And that helps making the good Level Design decisions.
Very important !

So, thanks for the advices ! It’s all really helpfull !

So you’re dutch (I’m belgian) … goie avond allemaal !

Cheers

Raph’

glad to see the screen is showed, i guess you now know what i mean, and you will i think agree that the second window looks more realistic because of how it is placed (bit inside the wall), you could make it even better by doing the same with the actual window, by placing the glass a bit back again, so the wood around it is more up front.

then about the light, i know that it really depens on what kind of rig (pc) a map/mod is played. but i didn’t realise that it even could ment that some maps look brighter in a lpc screen. i myself have a lpc screen and it was quit bright. in a lot of places, outside and inside. outside for instance did i notice that you probebly used no color at all in the light_envirement. best is that you open an original HL2 map (vmf) in hammer and take a look at the normal and ambient values of the light envirements that they have used, and you will see there are many different colors used, to even dark blue and nearly black purple ones. in my last mod CtoA i used simular values to what you used for ambient light outside. its a bit to bright what makes that the overall look of the map looks a little bland. and i seem to remember, but forgive me when i am wrong, its now allready days ago that i played it, that the sunlight (light_envirement’s pich value) comes from straight ahead (value -90). when you give it a value of -50 to -70 you get shadows, what gives more depth to your map. but again, maybe i remember it wrong.
i suggest you just copy the light anvirement values of an existing daylight HL2 sp-map and paste them in your map and compile the map then. you will be surpriced how much of a difference this makes, really!
then about lights inside, before i also used values of around 100 and above. but, now i have learned hardly ever use a value of above 90, believe it or not, but most of my lights have a value of around 5 to 35.
but i am not sure anymore after you said that lpc screens do show it all less dark, good thing i will test our pre release next week with my borther on his ‘old’ pc monitor, hopefully it will not look that much different.

we all know now that i like more action, lol. but, like i said before, please just make what you think is best, or, what you prefer most!!!! i can’t say this strongly enough! because the main thing is that you enjoy making it. we both know that it takes so (soooooooo) unbelieveble much time to create these kind of detailed maps, that its very importent that you feel good when you create them, when there liked to its great, but not the main thing.

knowing this is your first big project i am even more interested in your next work.
personaly i wouldn’t go on with this one, fixing and changing stuff, but i just would go on with a total new project, (what could be the next chaper to this one). ofcourse could you now start working for months on this again, but, its allready played by many people, and probebly will not many people play the newer version of it, (have to agree that i personaly hardly ever play a newer version of the same mod).
its probebly also more fun, now you have learn so much more, to use all that info and skill on a new project.
but, its all personal, so, just do what you think is best, and what you like best. then it will be automaticly become each time better and better.
and i say it again, for a first project this is really amazing, its simply VERY promising!!

well done!

leon

i didn’t mean the choise of the wall/house texture, but only the brushwork in it. when you watch there screen you will see what i mean for instance with a window that has real depth in the wall, its placed a bit inside the wall what makes it much more realistic.

leon

Hey, there are some interesting comments beeing posted lately !

Hi Leon ! Don’t take offense, but I didn’t bother to take the time to write a reply to your first post, since you looked more like an angry kid who was frustrated because he couldn’t kill enough people in the game

But now that your second post is way more constructive than the first one, here are a few things I’d like to say :

To start with your comments, I’d like to raise one point that you mentionned : You can’t please to everyone.
And that’s indeed a very wise lesson you bring us here.
So that’s exactly why one should keep doing what he actually likes, what is actually passionating him.

I haven’t got the chance to play your mod yet, but I promise I will !
Now, to the look of it (please, correct me if I’m wrong), if you had to point out the main points of your game, explain the things you kept in mind while building your levels, I believe you’d say : the architecture and the action.
Probably because this is what is important to you. Have a very good looking mod with lots of combat moments.
Now, here’s what I kept in mind when building my levels, what I tried to achieve and what is important to me : A nice story transposed into a game, with a good atmosphere.

So, saying that I looked like I wanted to show I can make scripted sequences would be silly. Please don’t fall into that. I wanted to show I could create a living story in a game. A game where many things happen around the player. A story that will evolve progressively with the player as he goes through the game.
I did not want to create distinct “levels” with some sort of briefing and clear mission objective for each of them. I’ve said it many times, I want a smooth and progressive game experience. Because that’s what is talking to me in a game.
I really see Video Game as an evolved support to tell stories.
Remember these magic times when a parent, or a teacher or anyone else read you a story, remember how you were imaginating you were actually living these stories as the hero, or along with him. Remember how absorbed and dreaming you were by a simple story being told.
Now we have the opportunity to go to the next level. Before, you would let your imagination bring you to some fantasy world. Now, we can actually Live these imaginary moments. And that very thing is what makes Video Games so great and important to me.

That’s why the secondary title of Rebellion is “a Half-Life² single player story”. Story.

And to tell a story in Half-Life², you use scripts.
Now I’ve taken the time to write at two occasions a little above why I use these scripts to tell my story. So I won’t do it again and will ask you to take it a look if you didn’t already.

Now I’ve said I wanted to make a story that evolves progressively as the players goes through the game.
That also requires NPC’s to have a coherent behaviour. Not stupid robots waiting for the player to make the first move. I wanted my NPC’s to have their own personnality, so they say things that come to their mind and take action according to the situation. That helps for the immersion. And I truly believe that will never ever be comparable to the online experience. These are just two different things. One is about story telling and immersion, as the other one is about gameplay and competition.

I don’t like NPC behaviour like you can find in Call of Duty for example, where you, as the player, are required to do absolutely everything. And your allies are more there for the show and the epic battle feeling. I just don’t find it coherent.
Again, I did what I like
And I understand it will never fit to everyone. That’s why I made some improvements in order to open the game to a broader range of player while always making sure to stick to my initial objective. That’s why feedbacks have been so valuable so far. But don’t expect me to make a shooter of my game, that’s just never going to happen

Waw, now that the big thought has been layed down, lets lean over the more detailed points :

About the lightings, they could definitely use some more work, although I believe they are really far from looking bad. Now I wonder, might there be an important luminosity or contrast difference between screens ? I’ve noticed that on my screen, when playing the first mission, and start in Mandella’s room, I don’t see anything but the table, the chair and the shelf. The light on the table has a low intensity of 20. All things on the opposite wall are just too dark to be noticed. But on a LCD screen i tried this, you can actually see all details in the room (and luminosty is really low).
Also, in the second mission (Invasion has Begun), when you walk downstairs with the soldiers, the light is pretty weak, and it has got an intensity of 100.
So, for supposedly well lit areas (for example the control room of the communication center), I used an intensity of 200 which actually looks right. Less than that would look to dark to me.
So, could you please tell me which areas look overbright to you ? Or could it be due to screens settings ? That would really help me.

Oh, you really found the Spaceship architecture too blocky ? I really did my best to try to make the walls look detailed and not flat. Could you please expand a little more on this ?

he made entire house walls from one texture, without using the brushwork option here.

Come on… I can take take critics since it helps me, but they should be based on something true. I never did that. There’s always at the very least a ground floor texture for the first 128 pixels, then two or three floors of one texture and finally, a roof texture. That’s the least detailed I did… except for that stone wall on the right of the strider that lacks details and brushwork.

As for the volume in the streets, I think you’re right for the little narrow streets. Some of them definitely deserve more depth. Good point. And for the main streets, well, I payed a lot of attention to bring variety. So you have multiple buildings of different size, architecture and texture. I added some parking lots, garden, porches for depth… So, what more would you advise me to do in these areas ? That would help !

-personaly i would like some more action and shooting scenes

Hehe yeah ! I got the message

As for invisible walls, you’re 100% right ! At that point, I just didn’t want to go with more details. Actually, simply creating more displacements with some kind of tunnel blocked by a jeep where the soldiers start would have made it. That something I should definitely correct !

Now that we are talking about displacements…
You’re right, they look blocky. That was my first attempt with displacements, and I’m not happy with it. Ideal would have been to delete them all and get started anew. But since they were done and that they weren’t looking too crap, I prefered to concentrate my work on more important issues. And eventually, if I had time later on, I would do them again.

Actually, Rebellion is my first project, and I learned to use Hammer and Faceposer thanks to it. Anyway, I really worked hard so that it would look as complete and thorough as possible and feel as professional as possible.

And your feedback, everyone, really helps me get always closer to this objective.
So, thank you. Sincerely.

Take care guys !

Raph’

well, that’s it for now.
again, i ONLY give my personal impression and idea’s, the maker should ALWAYS make what he likes himself, i do to, although it is helpfull to get your work played to read as many comments about your work as possible, see what it thought most about as many people as possible and try to implement these things.
and, i want to finish with that i made most if not all ‘mistakes’ myself, and probebly i still do with some. but, mapping is a learning experience, and each new project is (or should be) better then the last one.
so i say it again, i am looking forward to play his next project!!
therefore;

leon
(SPY-maps)

i have to say that i did find the brushwork and the way some texture were added looking a bit amateuristic

I personally disagree with this statement.

because i HATE sp-maps/mod or games for that matter that try to give a mp experience in there sp-mission through the systhem of making the player game in some kind of group of npc’s. when i want to have a mp expereince i will play mp on line, what i never do with fpshooter

Leon: In this case, I don’t see how that might help Raphael, as he (and more players by the looks of the overall comments) don’t really have a problem with being part of a group while playing games. Multiplayer and multicharacter are different things. In multiplayer games the actions of other players (not characters) constantly change and are impossible to predict, while adapting to squad mechanics is usually simple.

it looked more and more like the modder wanted to tell us a story and not so much give us a fpSHOOTER experience.

I have my HL2 box in front of me, and nowhere in it do I read the word “SHOOTER”. It actually says “3D Action” which does describe what HL2 was about. Exploration, combat, puzzles and character interaction (mostly unilateral though ). To think that HL2 is just a fps shooter (in the lines of Doom, Serious Sam) is a big mistake since the tools provided by Valve and Valve’s own games hint at a much more complete gameplay experience than just shooting down bad guys.
In this case, I don’t think the choice of gameplay done by this modder (because we are talking about a modification, let’s not forget) can be questionned or criticized based on our personal tastes. We can though, give our point of view about how it’s actually implemented and how it can be bettered.

seems it will be followed up by another part/episode. at least, that was what a message said at the end. and i’m interest how that will look, hopefully a bit more action.
although i am afraid it will not have a new episode, because many maps/mods end with this message, and only a very few really do make one.
we’ll see

leon
(SPY-maps)
(stridermountain.com)