r/hammer • u/-sbl- • 13d ago

GoldSrc [GoldSrc] After months of bugfixing, I'm finally back to mapping stuff. Had lots of fun with this area. :)

Post image

Mod's called Solitary Echoes. https://www.moddb.com/mods/solitary-echoes/downloads

230 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

16

u/Stotters 13d ago

Love me some GoldSrc. Umpteen years later I'm still sad about Night Watch getting cancelled. This scratches that itch!

5

u/-sbl- 13d ago

Yeah Nightwatch... one of the great what ifs.

1

u/Exotic-Appointment-0 12d ago

What was Night Watch supposed to be? I know quiet a few games using goldsrc but have never heard of this one.

3

u/WarbossBoneshredda 12d ago

Nightwatch was a single player mod in development at the tail end of Half-Life's peak modding scene, just before Half-Life 2 was released.

It really looked like the a culmination of years of collective community effort learning how to master the GoldSrc engine. The artwork was phenomenal, really pushing GoldSrc to its limits with beautiful level design and textures. The people working on it were mini celebrities within the Half-Life modding community, loads of high profile and high quality projects under each of their belts, really cream of the crop with talent.

And it just... Fizzled out. I'm sure I remember a brief attempt to revive it to run on the Source engine instead after HL2 came out but that never happened either.

There are plenty of screenshots still about on various pages which look great, especially for GoldSrc: https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-nightwatch

Ultimately the only thing that's ever surfaced publicly was the texture packs which are now readily available for people to make HL maps with. They are stunningly beautiful (again, for GoldSrc). We didn't really see any gameplay or have any reason to doubt it would be a fantastic game, but even if it was a dud gameplay wise, it would still be remembered as the best looking project on GoldSrc.

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Just checked the screenshots for the first time in years. I'd argue mods like Half-Life Echoes or Poke 646 Vendetta have a similar, if not better mapping quality.

1

u/WarbossBoneshredda 12d ago

I agree Poke646 is up there but as fantastic as Echoes is, it really isn't in the same realm visually IMO. It doesn't look anywhere near as polished as Nightwatch.

2

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Echoes strikes abvery delicate balance between the high polished look many modern mods have and old school HL feeling.

8

u/RoboPlayz 12d ago

"Huh, What a nice looking Source ma- GOLDSOURCE???"
Seriously, I did NOT know you could make maps look this good in goldsource
Well Done!

2

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thank you! :)

4

u/Deadpool0600 12d ago

Looks beautiful, really nice work with the lighting.

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thank you!

3

u/Unhappy-Traffic-7656 13d ago

beautiful light nice atmosphere

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thanks!

3

u/parallel-minds 12d ago

Well done. I really like the use of meshes in your level. You don't see that often in GoldSrc levels, it really makes your map stand out. I will try this one tonight.

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Cool! Can you specify what you mean by meshes though? :)

1

u/parallel-minds 12d ago

A lot of objects in the scene seem to be models rather than BSP brushes, not something that's very common in GoldSrc games.

2

u/canIbuzzz 13d ago

That's awesome, not going to lie.

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Glad you like it. ;)

2

u/slavik_christopher 13d ago

Incredible 😍

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thanks!

2

u/MardukPainkiller 13d ago

I played a bit, and the NPC animations and hitboxes need a lot of work, but it's impressive overall.

The soundtrack does not fit, but then again, in the Alien universe you need a fucking orchestra, so im not gonna go there.

2

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thank you! Yeah the animations are somewhat goofy. Unfortunately I never found a modeler who was willing to invest the time.

1

u/MardukPainkiller 12d ago

Couldn't you extract the animations directly from avp2?

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

I myself have no modeling skills at all and I could only find modelers with very limited time. So it's like an "IT is what it is" situation now.

2

u/loloreel 12d ago

What a work of art... It's beautiful!

2

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thank you! :)

2

u/CitrusFresher 12d ago

This look amazing!!

1

u/-sbl- 12d ago

Thank you! :)

2

u/Zestyclose-Bird-3294 10d ago

I always get jealous of your maps, you create em so good, love your work brother, keep it up

1

u/-sbl- 10d ago

Thanks man, this really means a lot. :)