Paul MillerDec 27, 2022
Jake Rodkin
Some work from Half-Life: Alyx. In Russell’s lab we wanted the space to be full of old computers all doing different tasks (mostly related to the development of the Gravity Gloves). I made a simple fake Win 95-era OS and filled it with a lot of output from our dev tools, some of the actual in game Grabity Glove source code, and Gordon’s gloves from Half-Life 1 as the “low res preview” model. #HalfLife
Dec 27, 2022 at 8:03pmWeb
Show threadJake RodkinDec 27, 2022
This is obviously not mind-melting design work but it was really fun to do! I came onto Alyx in the last year and a half of production, and most of the game was already in place, so one thing I helped out with was a bunch of little crack-filling and additive detail (one of the best tasks). Lots of stuff like this, old newspapers and employee notes up on bulletin boards. It was fun to know players would actually get their noses right up close to this stuff because that’s part of the fun in VR.
Show threadJake RodkinDec 27, 2022
I worked on this stuff with @Remo who wrote the newspaper and magazine copy as well as did a bunch of early game detail props like the signage in the laundry room, and @shoomlah who made a zillion good “flesh out the world” textures and had to figure out things like what nutrition text an Eastern European soda can would have on it in 200-, or what regional mid-tier wine label design would likely look like from that area in pre-Combine times (her old thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/shoomlah/status/1346644224112959495 )
Claire Hummel on Twitter

“Channeling Alyx for her little doodles of potential Dog upgrades in the hideout:”

Twitter
Show threadJake RodkinDec 27, 2022
The best Russell’s Lab monitor art is probably this screensaver @Leukbaars did with one texture and some expressions in the Materials Editor
Show threadRectusDec 27, 2022

@ja2ke @Leukbaars

material expressions are a neat feature

Show threadClaire HummelDec 29, 2022
@ja2ke @Leukbaars god this still rules
Show threadBrody 🚀 BrooksDec 27, 2022
@ja2ke Circa-2005 Steam connection error window is such a great touch too haha
Show threadJake RodkinDec 27, 2022
@brody I thought it was a fun tiny detail to introduce to canon, that Black Mesa’s internal network connection client looked like original Steam.
Show threadAbbanDec 27, 2022
@ja2ke Grabity Glove is such a great typo
Show threadJake RodkinDec 27, 2022
@abban it is! In this case it was an actual typo in my toot but “grabbity gloves” were the working name for the feature and I believe it’s still referred to as such in code in some places. I tried to reflect that in the filenames on Russell’s desktop even because why not!
Show threadChris Van GraasDec 27, 2022
@ja2ke I imagine this sort of work is how Chicago Ted was created for L4D!
Show threadlavahotDec 29, 2022
@ja2ke nice OG green steam callout there.
Show threadhJan 16, 2023
@ja2ke Ha! I did find myself peering at the screens in there to see whether they were pure mumbo-jumbo or something sensible. Nice work :)
Show threadJake RodkinJan 16, 2023
@howiem nice. We knew people would be snooping around that area since it’s a locked door space, and wanted to reward it with some good details.
Show threadhJan 16, 2023
@ja2ke whelp: serious high five. Alyx left me dumbfounded, awe-struck throughout. In addition to the usual muscle strain of having an HMD clamped to your face for a few hours, I found my smile muscles exhausted from grinning with glee at each reveal. The piano, the puzzle mechanics/animations, the bottle shader, everything about the ammo/weapon mechanics... nobody does it better, y'know. Don't get me started on how the Deck's got gaming back into this parent's life again or we'll be here all day