Photos from City 17 (56K Beware)

[jasonh1234]

Well Valve has said that the idea for the look and location of the Eastern European City 17 came from from one of their staff members who is Romanian.

So assuming they're going off the capital city of Romania (Bucharest)

Here are some Pre-Combine invasion shots I took on of "City 17" while on Vacation. In case anyone is interested.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/01.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/02.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/03.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/04.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/05.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/06.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/07.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/08.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/09.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/10.jpg

[jasonh1234]

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/11.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/12.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/13.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/14.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/15.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/16.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/17.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/18.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/19.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/20.jpg

[jasonh1234]

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/21.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/22.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/23.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/24.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/25.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/26.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/27.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/28.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/29.jpg
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/30.jpg

[jasonh1234]

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/31.jpg

[jhero]

Whoa, nice pictures! :) It'd be sweet if HL3 looked liked that!

[Cedric]

after a long loading time (56k :E) i finally loaded all the shots and i think you might be right, a couple of those shots look similar to the HL2 level. so i suppose maybe valve did base some of city 17 on it?

[Vitalogy]

Originally posted by jasonh1234
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/City17/31.jpg

Thats a sweet picture. A lot of the ones did remind me of the HL2 level, so I think this may be correct.

[khaki]

Yeah, it looks like VALVe was inspired from the surroundings. Especially from this shot.

http://khaki.arialsize8.net/images/misc/strider.jpg

:P

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by khaki
Yeah, it looks like VALVe was inspired from the surroundings. Especially from this shot.

http://khaki.arialsize8.net/images/misc/strider.jpg

:P

LOL I actually got scared when I saw that. Maybe I need some sleep

[simmo]

:laugh: good work Khaki, looks like the car is going straight for it! oh no!

[Sat]

Originally posted by jhero
Whoa, nice pictures! :) It'd be sweet if HL3 looked liked that!

But i hope it will looks like that heh !
HL3 is coming in 4 or 5 years, so imagine what computers will be able to do.
I really think it will looks like on this photos with just a little less details.

[Cedric]

lol :laugh:, nice editing khaki! its weird how it kinda fits in after seeing the HL2 screenshots.

[righte0us]

rofl nice editing :E

[dk_bot]

wow lovley pics thats a nice country, i love the editing too i was like wtf???

i hear new or better quality hl2 media out soon :)

[pinkerton]

creepy

[Lifthz]

I thought you were gunna show me some in-game pics man.

[jhero]

Hehe, me 2...

[Frost]

Wonderful shots! They could have used you as a location scout and texture finder :) I registered just to comment! I hope you had a good vacation, those pictures are amazing when held next to ones from Half-Life 2... just great!

[jasonh1234]

Originally posted by Frost
Wonderful shots! They could have used you as a location scout and texture finder :) I registered just to comment! I hope you had a good vacation, those pictures are amazing when held next to ones from Half-Life 2... just great!

Actually I took a lot of photos for the sole use of making textures from. The great thing about all the photo taking I did was that when my camera filled up I just popped my memory card into my laptop, moved all the files over, popped the card back in my camera, and started shooting again. 2 sets of rechargable batteries too. I must have took 2 GB of Photos between Istanbul and London. That was in 2001.

It's a completely different planet over there in Europe.

Romania is nice but it's EXTREMELY run down. The pictures above don't really show it but to best describe it I'd say it looks like the capital city was completely abandoned for 40 years and people just moved back to inhabit it about 2 years ago. The air quality is worse than LA, there is barely any city maintainence (full on trees are growing through the sidewalks in some places) The city is full of communist built buildings which all look the same and are massive. Many entire neighborhoods were never finished because they ran out of money, so there are blocks and blocks of massive partially finished buildings that no-one has touched in over 20 years. It's a very poor country but they all get by pretty good.
The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)
The Romanian girls all love anyone that can speak English. American, Canadian, British, Australian, whatever. You speak English and you're the man over there. Plus you can roll like a king with the exchange rate.

Check out the hottie I met my first night in Romania at a club. :cool:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/1.jpg

Then I met her girlfriend. :E
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/2.jpg
Damn that was fun! :smoking:

In the summer everyone heads to Costinesh.(sp) (Beach town on the black Sea.) That's party central in Romania during the summer.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/3.jpg

Oh and here's Dracula's Castle if anyone was interested. I spent a full moon night in an inn right next to it. Didn't even know it was there until the next morning.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/4.jpg

The highlight of the trip was definately Istanbul though. That city was great. Met a couple more girls there.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/5.jpg

Can't wait to go again. :bounce:

[FalconNinja]

Wow!I must say!Ummm where is this place because I wanna goto Europe but do you have a location or directions??????.

[jhero]

NIce Jason! :thumbs:

[xtekian]

1337 69 posts! ;) nice going jasonh1234

[Peks]

damn those chix r fine

[LoneDeranger]

The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)


Yep, stray dogs are a big problem in former Soviet republics, especially in smaller cities. They probably outnumber normal dogs by at least 3:1. I remember when I was a kid we used to run away from them and hide on fences/trees. One guy got bitten and had to go to the hospital.

At one point it got so bad they had the army drive around and shoot them around 4:00 AM. Not pretty.

BTW, those are some hot girls you got there! :)

[Newton]

Customs Officer : "Do you have anything to declair?"
Jason1234 : "Just this......"
Originally posted by jasonh1234
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/2.jpg

They are deffinately 2 high quality specimens of hottness.

I must make my way over to europe again.....

[JunkieXL]

did you get some? :naughty:

[Jagermeister]

Nice pics, jason :afro: :thumbs:

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by jasonh1234
Actually I took a lot of photos for the sole use of making textures from. The great thing about all the photo taking I did was that when my camera filled up I just popped my memory card into my laptop, moved all the files over, popped the card back in my camera, and started shooting again. 2 sets of rechargable batteries too. I must have took 2 GB of Photos between Istanbul and London. That was in 2001.

It's a completely different planet over there in Europe.

Romania is nice but it's EXTREMELY run down. The pictures above don't really show it but to best describe it I'd say it looks like the capital city was completely abandoned for 40 years and people just moved back to inhabit it about 2 years ago. The air quality is worse than LA, there is barely any city maintainence (full on trees are growing through the sidewalks in some places) The city is full of communist built buildings which all look the same and are massive. Many entire neighborhoods were never finished because they ran out of money, so there are blocks and blocks of massive partially finished buildings that no-one has touched in over 20 years. It's a very poor country but they all get by pretty good.
The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)
The Romanian girls all love anyone that can speak English. American, Canadian, British, Australian, whatever. You speak English and you're the man over there. Plus you can roll like a king with the exchange rate.

Check out the hottie I met my first night in Romania at a club. :cool:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/1.jpg

Then I met her girlfriend. :E
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/2.jpg
Damn that was fun! :smoking:

In the summer everyone heads to Costinesh.(sp) (Beach town on the black Sea.) That's party central in Romania during the summer.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/3.jpg

Oh and here's Dracula's Castle if anyone was interested. I spent a full moon night in an inn right next to it. Didn't even know it was there until the next morning.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/4.jpg

The highlight of the trip was definately Istanbul though. That city was great. Met a couple more girls there.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/dellylah/europe/5.jpg

Can't wait to go again. :bounce:

Good stuff man. I hope you got what you wanted. :)

[Frost]

Well now I KNOW you had fun there! You took pictures of those girls just for textures and model references too right? LOL Very cool stuff and thanks for telling us more about your trip. I've never left the states, I'm only 19 but I can't wait to visit the world. I might have to check out Romania first now too :)

[BWMASTER]

*edited*

I have been to Romania.

The black sea is the best, only the water is salty when it gets in ur mouth.

Whats really fun is that some pretty ladies dont want a tan line around their breasts and what I'm getting at here is...........

[BWMASTER]

I also want to point out that the last BIG building in your pictures there is the second largest in land area in the World, next to the Pentagon in USA.:bounce:

[teobg]

I think Gabe made a mistake in that interview:

"Viktor Antonov - Art Director/Conceptual Designer
Viktor has been a conceptual designer for the videogame industry since 1996. He first joined Valve from Xatrix Entertainment where his responsibilities included designing environments, lighting and atmosphere on projects such as Kingpin. He holds a transportation design degree from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has also designed for commercials, animation and film in the USA and Europe. Viktor was born and spent his childhood in Sofia, Bulgaria after which he has been living in Paris France, Montreaux Switzerland, Los Angeles and Seattle."

The above info is from their website. So it's safe to say that the idea for the look and location of the Eastern European City 17 came from Victor Antonov who is BULGARIAN - born and raised in Sofia, BULGARIA.

Ted

[jasonh1234]

Whoa.

[FiVe7]

Definately resemblance! Valve has done a great job capturing the city.

[csmighty]

whhhhhhooooooo....god damn, those are damn fine romanians

[Delicious Bass]

nice, the city looks a lot like city 17

[Wsh]

teobg, almost, yes. Only that it isn't about Viktor Antonov afaik :p

[teobg]

Originally posted by Wsh
teobg, almost, yes. Only that it isn't about Viktor Antonov afaik :p

I dare to differ! Here (http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=14716) is the interview in which Gabe's talking about Viktor and him been a Romanian:

"HomeLAN - There are any number of directions you could have taken the story of Half-Life 2. Why did you decide to take the story to a fictional Eastern European city?


Gabe Newell - Within the story, there are reasons why you are in City 17. Outside of what is happening in the story, two factors influenced our inclusion of City 17 - the first was that Viktor Antonov grew up in Romania and without really intending to he got a bunch of the artists excited about an art direction that drew heavily on eastern European source material, and the second was that thematically present day eastern Europe exists at a really interesting crossroad between the past and the future which resonates with what goes on in Half-Life 2."

Gabe has obviously made a mistake.

Ted

[GOoch]

jasonh1234


Good god youve done some good work here m8 :) any chance of you setting up some sort of thing were we can view some of the other pics m8.
mostley with the lovley women in them

[Rigamix]

http://membres.lycos.fr/infinyclan/alien.jpg
:)

[dikki]

yo ppl,

nice pics. I'm from Hungary, the west-neighbour of Romania. Just had to say that :afro:

Rigamix: rofl :)

[green1152]

wow! You must have a really nice graphics card!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Rigamix, it looks like the shadows are going the wrong way on that one.

[Rigamix]

Oups ! Thx :)

[Solidarnosi]

Cool pics. I have been to Russia twice, lived there for a few months. My wife is Russian, of course! :cheese:
Single guys, get away from your computer for a bit and go to Eastern Europe! These pics of the chicks, well you'll find beauties like that in every store, every cafe, everywhere....Whether it is Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia (Dbrovnik is amazing with clubs & girls).

Since I've got mine already for four years now, I just have HalfLife2 to wait for! :cheers:

[jasonh1234]

Originally posted by Solidarnosi
get away from your computer for a bit and go to Eastern Europe! These pics of the chicks, well you'll find beauties like that in every store, every cafe, everywhere....Whether it is Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia (Dbrovnik is amazing with clubs & girls). You speak the truth! I will never marry a girl from North America now that I've experienced Europe.

[Rigamix]

French girls are so...hum...boring :) Lovely, but really boring sometimes :) Often...ok ok always !

[Punzz]

nice camera by the looks of it btw and that edited pic LOL

haha european girls are the best :D

no offence but exept girls from the UK... ugly bitches :)

[Rigamix]

And French girls ! Never forget that ! Never approach some girls in France ! Never ! You'll die ! :)
They are DEVIL !!!! Gniahahahahahah !

[muffinass]

...
I accidentally came across your post from a diff. forum, but all i gotta say is that i'm disgusted in the posts that you've made, and the rest of these pubescent immature kids that replied to your 'hot bitches in eastern europe' post.
There's so much shit for me to sling at you buddy...i don't know where to begin.
1) I'm sorry you're from canada (from what your website's extension shows)...God knows North America is full of ignorant bastards, but I always thought Canada to be slightly more educated when it comes to history and europe especially.
2) Now, let's start off with the whole...
Romania is nice but it's EXTREMELY run down. The pictures above don't really show it but to best describe it I'd say it looks like the capital city was completely abandoned for 40 years and people just moved back to inhabit it about 2 years ago. bit. Where the hell do you get off even saying such bullshit? I mean, I realize that being the typical north american you probably took the 'hotel->disco->bar->hotel' route everyday, but you must be completely blind and historically retarded to make such comments. Abandoned you say...LOL. Buddy, those pics that you posted clearly show the French influence in architecture. If you paid a visit to Paris you would've recognized the layout of several neighbourhoods from La Place de la Republique, etc. For Christ's sake...did you take a walk down Magheru? You know, that street with McDonalds, KFC and a bunch of other recognizable tokens of modern civilization that you'd relate to. While I'm not contesting the fact that the majority of the country is in shambles, Bucharest is NOT severly run-down as you're making it to be. But i'm writing too much and there's too much to touch upon.
3) there is barely any city maintainence (full on trees are growing through the sidewalks in some places) Well THANK GOD for those damn trees buddy. Take a walk down any North American town and you'll be surrounded by concrete and nothing else. See, that's the difference between Europe and NA: in europe, they pave AROUND trees and nature...in NA, they pave over everything just to put a little convenience store with a gas station, and some good ol' mickey dees or tim hortons. And NO, those treest weren't sipmly growing out of the damned sidewalk. My God man, do you have any sense as to think back on your comments and realize the ignorant generalization you're making?
4) he city is full of communist built buildings which all ook the same and are massive. The city isn't FULL of them ya pratz. The city HAS SOME buildings, but you're not greeted at every corner by some stark angular concrete box. And btw, who was it again that sold off the whole of Eastern Europe to the russians? Let me know when you look that up.
5) Stray dogs ya say...LOL. Damn man, you must be really scared of some wandering pooches eh? LOL. Last time i checked and that was in May of 2004, i must've seen about...20 stray dogs (not even) after a whole week of roaming the capital. BTW, there's roadkill all over the damn streets in NA that's left for several days to simply rot.
6) The Romanian girls all love anyone that can speak English. American, Canadian, British, Australian, whatever. You speak English and you're the man over there. Plus you can roll like a king with the exchange rate. See, now you've hit a very soft spot, and you really overstepped your boundary. This is what got me so angry in the first place. I am sick and tired of impotent, socially and aesthetically repressed morons who show up in Romania and flaunt their foreign currency, thinking they're the shit. The WHOLE of Romania isn't like that. That's the reality that you see in the clubs, a reality you see in EVERY club in north america. So don't you even DARE make that general statement about girls in Romania. If you wouldn't have been so sexually deprived as to be so blind, you would've realised that that 'girl' of yours was some cheap whore. I mean if the uglyness didn't give it away, the skankyness should've smaked you dead on.
As for the rest of the girls in the picture, the same goes for them. My friend, these girls are called GOLD-DIGGERS, something that is quite popular especially here, in NA. And if you dare say that every girl in Romania is one...oh boy...
LOL...feelin' like a big boy ain't ya...amongst all those turkish ladies (which look strangely uncomfortable and out of place...hmm...) Damn man, strap a machine gun and some fatigues and you paint the perfect picture of a good ol' yankee hick whose ignorance has affected him not only mentally but physically too (as it is apparent by your ugliness in the pic with your 'conquest').
So please, stay out of Romania...the country DOESN't need your cheap money. I mean, it's pathetic enough that you didn't go to ANY historical sites to admire the REAL essence of the country, but for you not to even KNOW that you were by the Bran Castle (that's what it's called btw, not Dracula's Castle - again playing in the whole stereotypical 'the only thing i know about romania is...nothing' bit) just reeks of stupidity, sorry to say.
your ignorant remarks don't deserve an objective and to-the-point reply from me. However, it's nice to see that all the horn-dogs on this site are well pleased with their libido now that you've supplied them with fantasies (and i stress that word) of 'cheap hookers in run-down countries'. I mean...this kind of shit was peddled in juniour-high...
As for the lot of you googly-eyed pubescent boys that got turned on at the first site of those girls, just stick to your north american TV channels with jerry springer, and all those oh-so-precious-and-intellectual Fear Factor/Survivor/Big Brother.
I shake my head in disgust in conclusion, and leave you with something that i'm sure you picked up from your lady-friends: te fut in gura si numai bine.
Btw, fyi, I do live in NA, specifically Toronto Canada. The comments above apply for this city as well, so don't bother replying about that. As a ROmanian-born Canadian, I respect all countries/people to a certain point. And that point just got overstepped by American Gigolo johnh1234.

[Javert]

My my, nice eye candy. And I mean more than just the cityscape. ^_^

[CyberSh33p]

blahlblahlbalahlbalhaa... ...anadian, I respect all countries/people to a certain point. And that point just got overstepped by American Gigolo johnh1234.
you dragged up a topic OVER A YEAR OLD to make this guy look like a fool(of course making yourself look no better and mostly just pretentious and self-absorbed, and doubtfully have any idea of what you are talking about), and waste your time writing this huge freakin response. seriously, do you always get worked up about random things like this? jeezus.

edit: no, seriously, I remember this topic from when I first joined.

[Mr.Reak]

Wow.. god I remember some people here.. where did they go.. where did LONE went to? I miss him :(

[Mr-Fusion]

wow muffinass rage

[The Dark Elf]

Don't drag up old threads