/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3127052
As someone who was obsessed with Half-Life modding and Goldsource - from model hacking, reskinning, level design, interfaces, and contributed to a couple mods - I can say Source didn't take off because of the engine.

Techncially you can create a Source mod yourself, but the amount of effort and man hours you have to put into it doing something is doubled and tripled compared to Goldsource. Even very simple things like hacking, rigging, and compiling a model should not be that complex.

Want to add a texture to the game? Convert it to the shitty Valve™ texture format, write a complimentary text file describing the material which is required. The amount of texture maps that you have to take care of is doubled because you need normal maps now. Don't forget to export it with the correct DXT settings, including those mip maps. Oh and mapping textures are now mixed in with model textures.

Compare that to what you need to do for Goldsource. For mapping textures, make a WAD package, import your 256 color bmp and make sure the resolution is an integer of 16, hit save. Load that WAD into Hammer. For model textures, compile your texture also with a 256 color bmp with the same integer of 16 rule. Maps are .bsp files, and they go into /Half-Life/your_mod/maps. Models are .mdl, and they go into /Half-Life/your_mod/models/. Even simple concepts like directory trees are a fucking mess on Source.

But here's the final nail in the coffin, Valve keeps updating the Source engine like the Episode 1 engine (HDR), Orange Box engine (throws the rule book out the window), L4D engine, and then I stopped following it. Black Mesa Source was delayed because they probably had to switch engines.

Doom and Half-Life share this quality, where it's simple enough that one guy can do everything and not have to stress out that much. Which means more content, more frequently, more creativity from individuals and teams in the form of basic Half-Life-ish mods and total conversions (NS, TS.)