Posted: 03-11-09 In:
Interviews By:
Hectic Glenn |
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Lost Hope is
a single player mod for Half-life 2. The mod isn't set in the HL universe, instead
it takes place in China. A time centred around a war ravaged world controlled by
military might and shattered by civil war.
Felix and Victor from the Lost Hope development team spoke with Halflife2.net about
their new media and what we should expect from this fantastic looking mod.
Interview
Hectic Glenn: Your mod involves a struggle between a military group - the
World Union and rebel groups, which side will players be fighting for and what have
you included in the story for us to understand their problems?
Felix: The player isn’t really part of any of the 3 factions. As
a foreign war journalist you’re in China to document the war and the innocent people
in it, when by surprise you get caught up in the conflict. And because of the player
being there without permission, you are regarded as a rebel by the World Union,
and therefore a threat.
So the player was there to document the problems of the people caught up in the
conflict (think of famine, violence, absence of emergency services etc) but ends
up simply trying to save himself and the people around him. The local Chinese military
forces however won’t be seen much, as they already have been wiped out by or defected
to the rebel forces.
Glenn: Is it an almost total conversion? Being set in it's own universe,
how many custom models and textures are going into this mod?
Victor: Lost Hope will be a total conversion, however we're currently
still using some HL2 props as placeholders. These will be replaced later on. We
think it's important to do all our props and textures ourselves to keep a consistent
art style in our levels and assets. How many props and textures we will use exactly
is unimportant to us, we just want to make sure that we have all the assets needed
to achieve the desired atmosphere.
Glenn:Set in the future you mention the WU provide China with 'high-tech
military equipment', does this mean much of the weaponry in the game will be fictional
fusion / pulse rifles, or will we see a mixture?
Felix: In Lost Hope the weaponry will be fictional but not fusion,
laser or pulse based. We're trying to keep it realistic and sci-fi at the same time...
but because lasers don't give a cool bang and hand-held cold fusion is quite unrealistic
we're sticking to old fashion gunpowder bullets.
The 'high-tech military equipment' the WU provides China with, is the replacement
of the Chinese military forces, and consists mainly out of unmanned anti-personnel
robotics. This is what the player and the rebels will be fighting against in Lost
Hope.
Glenn: What is your inspiration behind creating this mod? Are you doing
a degree in game making or are you self taught?
Felix: Most of the team is self taught, some are professional others
do it as a hobby. It’s a great way to build up a portfolio, Victor and I got hired
based on the work we had done for Lost Hope.
Victor: Our inspiration behind creating this mod was mostly playing
Half-life 2, and experiencing a totally new way of storytelling in a FPS. We have
looked at (and played) a lot of Half-life 2 mods ourselves, but we felt that, though
most were good, there was never a mod that met all our expectations, and we knew
that we had to do it ourselves to get exactly what we wanted from a FPS mod.
The story and art style of Lost Hope were inspired by movies such as Black Hawk
Down, Ghost in the Shell, Akira and real-life warfare. Our gameplay is based on
that of Half-life 2 and complemented with gameplay mechanics of various games of
which we feel ’did it right’.
Glenn: How are you looking to develop characters and their relationships?
Felix: Well, HalfLife2 did a perfect job at developing the characters
through ingame cinematics. We are trying to get the same kind of cinematic experience
in Lost Hope. Even though this means a lot of animation, voice acting, and scripting,
it really fits the atmosphere and story we want the player to experience.
Victor: By doing these cinematics, we are trying to get the player
to sympathize with the rebels, so that he will feel involved in the conflict. We’d
like it if the player actually feels obligated to get himself and the people that
help him, to safety. The characters in Half-life were very likeable and interesting,
and we hope to achieve the same feeling in Lost Hope.
Glenn: Are you concentrating on a solid storyline or on interesting and
diverse variety of gameplay?
Victor: We want to keep a balance between storyline and gameplay,
because we think both are equally important. A solid storyline is necessary to keep
the player immersed in the game and interested in completing the main goal. We like
to have the story reflect in the non-combat situations, for instance NPC conversations,
but also in the environments where we try to convey the story by using story-related
set pieces.
As for gameplay, we’re aiming to keep a good pacing, while having a lot of diversity
in objectives and combat. We didn’t choose to give the player a little taste of
‘everything’, like vehicle combat and huge battles, because we feel it’s better
to focus on specific aspects of the gameplay, and spend more time on doing those
things right.
Glenn: The quality of mapping looks extremely high from the current media
available, what are some of the targets your team aim for when creating new maps
to fit into Lost Hope?
Felix: When the team produces content for Lost Hope there are three
main targets: functionality, consistency in quality and style. With functionality
I mean making sure that the asset being produced, it for instance being a texture
or a prop, is either highly re-usable or is a specific set piece that we need. Consistency
in quality makes sure that there isn't something on screen that breaks immersion.
And because of the team being small, with Victor as the main asset artist and myself
as the level artist, we get a consistent style and quality in props and maps. The
art style we target makes sure that the props, maps, characters and guns look like
they all belong in the same universe. For the maps it's the same. I try to make
sure nothing in the map looks out of place and that the quality and attention to
detail is consistent throughout the map.
Glenn:In the exclusive media you've provided Halflife2.net we can see some
props and level screenshots can you tell us a bit about this?
Felix: The level screenshots are from inside and around an apartment
complex. We made use of some cool mapping tricks, like the fake "sub-surface scattering"
plastic walls around the staircases. These look like they are emitting light from
the sunlight penetrating the thin outer plastic walls.
The props are some we use around the maps, most have a fairly low polycount and
texture resolution. Only the anti-riot barrier makes use of Specular and Normal
maps. We found that most props can get away with not having a Specular or Normal
map although these might get added in a later prop polish pass.
Glenn: The quality of recent SP mods released has been superb and has raised
the bar significantly, what new experience to do you think Lost Hope will bring?
Felix: We want to create a believable sci-fi adventure that really
immerses player. A mod with a solid background story, a good balance between exploration
and combat and an interesting and realistic feeling atmosphere. Now we know that
these aren’t the most original goals, but we feel that if we do it right it can
give an unique and of course awesome experience.
Many thanks to Felix & Victor for their time and providing the first look at some
brand new media for Lost Hope.
Want to be involved?
Help is always welcome! Currently Lost Hope are looking for Animators and Prop Artists.
- Prop Artists will help create assets for the environments in Lost Hope.
Skills required are Modelling, UVing, baking Ambient Occlusion, Texturing and
compiling the prop for Source. Art Direction will be supplied by Felix and Victor.
- Animators will work on Weapon Animations, Cinematics, and NPC Animations.
Skills required are animating either in Max or Maya and exporting to Source
for testing animations. Art Direction will be supplied by Felix.
When applying for this positions you need to be able to support your application
with work examples.
