Officially in Hiatus & The Future

[Glitchvid]

Hello everybody, we've got some news:

The HL2EM team is announcing its hiatus, this means active work and production has ceased for the time being.
This does not mean the project is cancelled, it just means we're taking a break to decide our future.

   Primarily we're assessing Source 2 as our next platform, we don't have any special insider information or anything so we're waiting for further information, and it is probably going to be a long wait.

During this time we're going to try and set more concise project goals, likely this project will transform into something more akin to Black Mesa in scope and quality.

Source 2 should allow us to freely increase the technical fidelity of our assets to match a visual upgrade worthy of Half Life 2 after ten+ years, instead of being held back with the same engine it was originally made on.
* This post will be updated with information as it comes in.

[Mr. Someguy]

Sad to hear that work has stopped 

On the other hand, Source 2 looks promising. Although unless Valve fully supports it, porting the maps would be hell. Everything that can conceivably break, probably will.

[Glitchvid]

Sad to hear that work has stopped 

On the other hand, Source 2 looks promising. Although unless Valve fully supports it, porting the maps would be hell. Everything that can conceivably break, probably will.

The maps are the easiest part, currently the DoTA 2 toolset allows direct importing of VMFs.  The hard part is going to be batch decompiling the models and textures so they can be re-imported (temporarily, until replacements are made).

[Mr. Someguy]

The maps are the easiest part, currently the DoTA 2 toolset allows direct importing of VMFs.  The hard part is going to be batch decompiling the models and textures so they can be re-imported (temporarily, until replacements are made).

Huh, interesting. So HL2's maps with all their optimization and scripted sequences can be imported without breaking into a million pieces? I thought it'd be the other way around. I forgot about them abandoning the .mdl format though, so I can see that being really time consuming to convert every single model.

[Glitchvid]

Huh, interesting. So HL2's maps with all their optimization and scripted sequences can be imported without breaking into a million pieces? I thought it'd be the other way around. I forgot about them abandoning the .mdl format though, so I can see that being really time consuming to convert every single model.

The raw geometry can be imported, and the entities and their information will be in the same place; but so far a lot of the scripted entities have changed or don't exist in the DotA build; so they'll likely need to be remade.

[Mr. Someguy]

The raw geometry can be imported, and the entities and their information will be in the same place; but so far a lot of the scripted entities have changed or don't exist in the DotA build; so they'll likely need to be remade.

That's what I meant,  anything but basic geometry would probably break, and that's still a lot of work! I hope to see work resumed  at some point in the future, but I can understand why you'd want to wait for Source 2 since anything you do on Source 1 would need remade or converted should you decide to use Source 2 at a later date. That and Source 1 being a bitch to work with.

[RaTcHeT302]

Source 2 out yet

[Glitchvid]

Source 2 out yet

Not yet, hopefully an SDK comes out for it in full soon.

[Mr. Someguy]

I hear Dota's getting first dibs on Source 2.

[Glitchvid]

I hear Dota's getting first dibs on Source 2.

Yeah, Dota 2 Reborn is running Source 2.

I'm hopeful, Gabe has talked quite a bit about Source 2 being open source, very open source, so much so they're removing almost all middleware.  And while I haven't seen that happen yet, I'm hoping they're just waiting for the codebase to be fully finished so it can support multiple games needs (such as having proper global illumination, which it does not have currently), maybe they're waiting for their current project (Probably L4D3 and/or HL3) and shipping it all in a nice package.  Think SFM once Meet the Pyro was finally released, but with L4D3 and Source 2.

[RaTcHeT302]

No more SDL?

[Glitchvid]

No more SDL?

SDK?

No, not in the form we're used to; we don't have code access and can't compile custom mods like we used to, that's the main issue;  once that happens we can begin.

[Mr. Someguy]

At least the project isn't dead, just on hold until Valve actually releases Source 2. Hurry up Gaben 

[RaTcHeT302]

At least the project isn't dead, just on hold until Valve actually releases Source 2. Hurry up Gaben 

I was kinda hoping they would hold up to their promise by releasing Source 2 in January but, it's taking way longer than I had hoped.

The forums still look so ugly though. Also my avatar is giant, I really should revert to the tall animated one I had but I lost it.

[Mr. Someguy]

Yeah, they sure are taking their good old time with that.

[ninenullseven]

Hey dudes, since the mod is dead anyway can you at least invite me into private club? I mean can I get access to play that 282840 app if it isn't deleted completely yet?

[Gamer#1]

Can you please release the current files to the public, so maybe the rest of us can try and fix it? Source 2 will probably take longer to release than initially thought.

[Glitchvid]

Can you please release the current files to the public, so maybe the rest of us can try and fix it? Source 2 will probably take longer to release than initially thought.

The project was an amalgamation of a bunch of people's work, it isn't right for me to release others work without their express permission.
That said, a number of members have released their work outside of the project, such as Porky-da-Corgi, whom released his face textures on GameBanana independently.
I've also released a chunk of what I made on my own website.

[Gamer#1]

The project was an amalgamation of a bunch of people's work, it isn't right for me to release others work without their express permission.
That said, a number of members have released their work outside of the project, such as Porky-da-Corgi, whom released his face textures on GameBanana independently.
I've also released a chunk of what I made on my own website.

Well from what I understand, the project is still being worked on, but by only one guy. I just wish that more people could pipe in and assist for it to be finalized as a steam release....

[Glitchvid]

Well from what I understand, the project is still being worked on, but by only one guy. I just wish that more people could pipe in and assist for it to be finalized as a steam release....

Dunno who, Ken might be churning away at some code, but at this point it'd be so divorced from what "HL2EM" was that it's not relevant here.
I think Stiffy360 posted some work in the FP Mapping section, but that was mostly experimentation, don't think there was an intention to actually restart, especially since it was still OG Source.
But I can only talk about what comes my way, I'm not hard to get in contact with, so if people wanted me to know things, they'd do it.