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Half Life N64 rom hack running on Quake 64?

 
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Fillerthefreak
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 PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 1:17 am    Post subject: Half Life N64 rom hack running on Quake 64? Reply with quote Back to top

Half Life runs off the Gold Source Engine (I think). Which is a modded version of the engine Quake for the PC uses.

So I thought, if Quake 64 mod tools where made, would it be possible to make a full-blown Half Life 64 using the Quake 64 port? With much lower poly models and compressed sounds and textures. As not even the Dreamcast could run Half Life without major lag. (And yes, Half life was ported to the Dreamcast, but was never released in stores)

Or is that just me dreaming too hard?
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fantsu
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 PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 6:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

It was on PS2, so why not? The difference isn't that huge.

They did make Duke Nukem on GBA. Smile

I would expect pretty poor view distance, even worse than in Turok games.
Also hugely compressed textures.

I don't think polycount would be that much of an problem.
 
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Sogun
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 PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Instead of waiting for Quake 64 mod tools to appear, I think it's more feasible remaking Half Life in the Perfect Dark engine. Of course, it won't look anything like the PC version, but we can get closer than most people think.
It's something I want to try in the future, although only the beginning of the game.

There are tools that let you export HL backgrounds and models to OBJ, so we can tweak them to the N64 specifications.

Some textures are waaay bigger than the N64 can handle, but we can split them in smaller textures that fit the cache and redo the base model.
For example, the soda machine:

Let's say the model is a cube (12 tris) and its textures are something like 96x144. We can have exactly the same thing splitting the textures in 8 parts of 96x19 and having a 96-tri model instead. Well, maybe it's too many resources for a soda machine, but you get the point.

Other textures can be adapted by making them greyscale and adding shading. Using symmetry you can get very close to some of the original textures, too. And an artist that was able to create good looking 16-color textures (like 90% of color textures in PD) would come in handy.



As for models...
We can use PD character models and retexture them to make them similar to the original ones. Of course, that means no "facial" animations. That's something we won't be able to replicate.
Alien models are a totally different matter. We'll have to learn how to create and animate our own models.
For prop models we'll have to find a good balance between poly amount and texture quality as explained before.

I think framerate won't be an issue, since HL is very linear and we can split the background in as many parts/rooms as we need to decrease the amount of tris loaded. Actually, it's the number of enemies on screen and things like smoke that hurt the framerate the most.

The PD engine allows ingame dialog, although the N64 doesn't have a lot of memory for everything. So probably we should change to text instead of voice.

Another big issue is "how much of a level" can be loaded at once. It's a double matter of memory and background size limitation (GE was a little more flexible).
Since HL doesn't have levels (it has chapters and loading screens, but you can always go back), we can't reproduce the development with the PD template. We might fit the chapters and loading screens within the limited amount of levels PD has (maybe even using multiplayer levels), but HL is very long and I doubt it would fit.

And the last big issue is regarding gameplay.
In HL you can jump and it's very important for a lot of puzzles. You can swim and dive too, things than can't be made in PD.
And there's also the lantern, which I can't think of a way to replicate either.


So if someone's going to try this, he has to think how to avoid these limitations. Probably will need to redesign a lot of the game, cutting parts that will be difficult to replicate (especially the Xen part).


I think that with a 512 Mb cart, a very good use of the expansion pak (no hi-res), the best tools available at the end of the N64 lifespan and a long and dedicated development (no port, but building the game with the N64 strenghts and limitations in mind) a Half Life 64 game would have been possible. Heh, but who would buy HL64 in 2001.
 
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Fillerthefreak
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 PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

@Sogun

My guess would be to perma-patch a PD rom with a jumping feature? Maybe pressing L or R would make you jump, since Half Life lacks the GE rail shooter aiming style.

As for textures, I guess you could 16-colour limit them. But maybe cut down the size of them. As the soda machine could be two 32x32 textures per side.

And PD anim editing is in beta (I think) So adding new anims may not be hard.

Level design is this biggest issue. If we can't get big levels, I guess a multiplayer only hack could be made for the kicks of it.

I already know how the crowbar could be made. Just take the Hunting Knife, remove the throwing secondary mode, and the Crowbar model and sounds. Maybe shift the fire rate and anims, too.
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Sogun
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 PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2015 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

For the jumping feature my guess is that we can tweak the 1.2 control scheme and jump by pressing the R button just like in Turok.

And yeah, we don't need textures to be as good as the original PC version because the N64 runs at 320x240 most of the time and PD hi-res mode runs at 640x224 if I'm not mistaken. Far less than the 1024x768 (and probably more) resolution you were able to play HL back in the day.

As for multi maps. They NEED the jumping feature. You can jump of a window, or from building to building, or above railings... HL multi is faster paced than PD because of that.
 
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Fillerthefreak
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 PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2015 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

That also brings up another issue, how will crouch jumping work? That also plays a major role in Half Life. As you need to crouch Jump in some areas.

For Swimming, the game would just allow you to hold the jump button to "Swim up".

My guess is to hold down R to crouch in mid-air. While a button press does a simple jump, like how the Dreamcast version holds up on the D-pad (I think), but that may be a bit complicated to work out.

The polycounts on the weapons are another issue, some of them have counts too high for the N64, so dumbing them down will be needed.

My guess for maps would be to have a feature that auto loads a map from the game. (Rather than from the menu) And increasing the map count would work too, but I don't know if PD supports that.
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