source-engine-sdk posts

Valve's Source Engine technically debuted in 2004 with the release of Half-Life 2. While the developer has made a number of improvements to the Source Engine since then, many of its tools are still hard to use. Indeed the engine's Hammer level editor has changed little since the release of the original Half-Life in 1998.

In a recent interview on the Steamcast podcast, Valve head man Gabe Newell admitted, "our current tools are... very painful." He added, " ... we're spending a tremendous amount of time on tools right now." Newell didn't give a time when the revised SDK would be released but did say, " "when we're ready to ship those I think everybody's life will get a lot better."

Just a few days ago, we reported that one of the creators of the long-in-development Black Mesa mod for Half-Life 2 said it would finally be released before the end of 2010. Now a new article previews the mod and states that the Source Engine remake of the original Half-Life is " ... more or less complete - albeit with lots of tweaking to go - right up to the Xen levels."

The web site AtomicPC got a chance to play a build of the mod thanks to the fact that one of its regular forum members works as a texture artist on Black Mesa. While a gallery of screenshots from the mod has since been removed due to a mis-communication with the mod's project leads, the article praises what was seen in the build, saying "The combination of attention to original detail, and new material provided by the modern team is impressive." Hopefully that means the mod will finally be released in the near future.

[Via Kotaku]

Download the Black Mesa HD gameplay trailer at Big Download (104 MB)

It's perhaps one of the most anticipated mods for any PC game and we've been waiting a long, long time for its completion. It the Black Mesa mod that has been trying to do a full graphical remake of Valve's 1998 shooter Half-Life with the much improved Source Engine.

In late 2008, a truly spectacular trailer for Black Mesa was released that showed that the team was serious in its attempt to bring us a modern looking Half-Life. The trailer promised that the mod would be released in 2009 but that year came and went with no Black Mesa love. However in a forum post on the mod's message boards one of the mod's team members basically wants fans to go into a coma until the "end of 2010". Will this be yet another broken promise or will we finally get a chance to play the original Half-Life with some truly updated visuals? We are not holding our breath but we are still hopeful.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

Download the Black Mesa HD gameplay trailer at Big Download (104 MB)

As promised, Alien Swarm has been released as a free PC game download by Valve via their Steam service. The sci-fi themed top-down co-op shooter comes with both the game as well as the source code for developers to use as an example of how to make a stand alone game using Valve's Source Engine. It contains co-op suppor for up to four players, four player classes, over 40 weapons and items and a map generating tool.

As we reported last week Alien Swarm started out several years ago as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 that won many prizes during Epic Games' original Make Something Unreal mod contest. The mod team, collectively known as Black Cat Games, then announced plans to release a stand alone version of Alien Swarm using the Source Engine. Valve silently brought in the Alien Swarm team members to work for their company and in between working on major Valve games the team continued to develop Alien Swarm.

Valve moved quickly to debunk the rumors this past weekend that their E3 2010 "surprise" would be a showing of Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Now a new rumor by VG247.com claims that the surprise could be the first showing of Source Engine 3, the title for the next graphics engine from Valve.

Using an unnamed source, VG247.com claims that Source Engine 3 could be demoed by showing off Half-Life 3 which if true would be another surprise from Valve. It also hints that the reveal could happen during either the Microsoft or Sony E3 press conferences next week. The original Half-Life in 1998 ran on Valve's highly modified Quake 1 engine from id Software. Six years later the 2004 released Half-Life 2 ran on Valve's own in-house Source Engine. It's now six years since Half-Life 2 was released; you can do the math.

There's a couple of interesting Steam news items today. One is the release of a new version of the Source Engine SDK. As revealed on the official Team Fortress 2 web site, the new version include source files for 10 of Valve's multiplayer shooter's maps. Valve hopes the source files will help map makers learn more about how to build a TF2 level while advanced map makers can get "a variety of examples of how we design and construct levels".

The other bit of Steam news is a 50 percent off sale for the PC version of Dark Sector, the third person action game from Digital Extremes. From now until June 22 the game can be downloaded via Steam for just $9.99.