I've been a huge fan of Valve’s work ever since downloading Half-Life: Uplink from a game demo website back in 1999, then running out to purchase the full game after saving up enough nickels and dimes.
Utilize whatever methods you are most comfortable with.Īt the start of this project I had been building props professionally for four years and as a hobbyist for ten. While I would place this build in the high difficulty range, do not let that deter you from utilizing these techniques in your own builds, and since there is more than one method to tackle any build, do not feel as though you have to adhere to these instructions 100%. Though the Portal Gun is the main focus of this build, the process involves a number of techniques which can be applied to a wide variety of projects, such as blueprint making, laser cutting, construction, mold making, casting, rotocasting, painting and basic electronics. In the case of bringing Portal to life in Half-Life: Alyx, TheBoxTrot received assistance from another modder called Adesiwho helped develop a working portal gun.This Instructable will detail the process I went through while building my very own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device from the Valve games Portal & Portal 2. One of the many things TheBoxTrot loves about the modding community is that it is full of amazingly supportive people who are always willing to jump in and lend a helping hand when you need it. For him, it’s about figuring out how “these amazing works of art are put together.” S&Box may be splitting the ecosystem and is likely the future of Source 2 modding, but it’s steeper learning curve still makes Hammer for HL:A the best place for new creators to craft unique VR experiences that thousands can enjoy.”įor TheBoxTrot, modding is something that reflects his passion and love for his favorite game series peeling back the layers to see how it all works.
“Sure it’s kneecapped as it wasn’t a full SDK release, but the results speak for themselves and I see so many passionate creators continuing in this space, even though Valve hasn’t released an update to the game or tools in over a year. “A day (after the release of the Alyx Workshop), we had dozens of playable maps which speaks volumes to what is possible within Hammer 2,” said Skummah, a YouTuber who specializes in reviews of gamers’ content and modding tools.
This is easily one of the most technically-impressive mods currently available for Half-Life: Alyx.
“It’s very annoying, but at times it’s really satisfying when you finally figure out how to solve a problem.” The most time-consuming part for TheBoxTrot was remaking choreographed scenes from scratch, as well as recreating the original map with new meshes and then texturing them using the original map almost as a base to sketch over them,” added the VR modder.Īt the end of the day, TheBoxTrot’s hard work paid off.
“For example, the time in Portal uses material texture switching, so I remade the time in Final Cut Pro and turned it into a panorama video that Source 2 could playback in the game.” Seeing as some engine features were either missing, broken, or vastly different from their Source 1 counterparts, TheBoxTrot had to find new ways to replicate them using the new engine. TheBoxTrot tells me that the process of modding HL:A was difficult thanks to the incomplete nature of Source 2 in HL:A. Getting the tools was the easy part using them to effectively recreate Portal in Half-Life: Alyx was a different story.