Freeman's Two Escapes from City 17 (a map?!?)

[Maturin]

Half-Life 2 is a linear game that is built from a series of small, self-sufficient maps that are loaded one at a time, hovering in space. Every now and then a particular mountain, or most often the Citadel, provides spatial reference, but for the most part, Valve disregards geography and objects on the horizon in favor of providing an action-packed playing area. If you don't believe me, look at the radio tower at White Forest in its three maps and discover that it exists in multiple dimensions at once, because the loading areas don't match up.

I'm a map junkie, however, and like to know exactly where I'm going and how I got there. So I looked at some in-game maps, looked at the citadel and even the infuriatingly inconsistent position of the sun in the skyboxes, navigating by it.

So this is what I came up with, confusingly flipped so that South is up and North is down:

Study it, trace the route, and if you can ready my handwriting, you can see Freeman's progress from Point Insertion to Eli's lab, as well as his progress out of the city with Alyx.

Notes:
The route arrows and city limits are fudged and supplied by my imagination. The coastline is from an in-game map. Most locations are placed relative to each other, the citadel, and my opinion.

The Apron is the term a rebel uses, I assume, for the Combine Wall that encircles the city and keeps monsters out. You pass through it at the end of Episode One.

In my opinion, the coastline in Highway 17 is based on the Crimea, and the extensive Port Facilties are based on the Russian Naval Base at Sevastopol, which is in the area. Hence the labels.

Ravenholm lives! Judging the distances involved and the strength of the blast at the end of Episode One (just strong enough to topple a decrepit bridge but not hardy pine trees), the blast dissipated far before it reached Ravenholm, as the distance Freeman covers in the Airboat dwarfs his progress in the escape train with Alyx. Flying chunks of Citadel probably hit London, however.

Freeman's progress on Episode Two is almost entirely northerly, especially his roadtrip. This is due to dialog, the citadel storm, and this: http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/fms/Image.php?id=11406

I'm a giant nerd and had too much fun with this.

Last word, this map is flipped upside down. Judging by the morning sun and your earlier course out of Ravenholm, up is South and down is North. That means that Nova Prospekt is just East off the edge of this map.

 

[Commander Xillian]

Wow man...

I would give you rep for this, but, alas, I cannot...

So, have a cookie.

 

[Maturin]

thanks

I may have to take screens of Water Hazard and make a roadmap like the one I linked. Then we could sit the record straight. Because if you listen to the position of the sun, the bay with Black Mesa East actually points north.

I suck at photo editing, though.

 

[coheedswicked]

i would love to see a road map of all of hl2. how did they get such perfect top down angles on all of the "riding shotgun" maps btw? i mean besides noclipping

*edit: if you can provide the screens i could edit them together, im pretty handy with photoshop

 

[Vegeta897]

i would love to see a road map of all of hl2. how did they get such perfect top down angles on all of the "riding shotgun" maps btw? i mean besides noclipping

Noclip would not give you perfect top down angles.

It's a console command, I don't know it off-hand.

 

[coheedswicked]

ya ok thats what i thought. hmmm.

 

[Maturin]

If I can find the code I might take you up on that.

Water Hazard would be the obvious choice, as Sandtraps and Highway 17 follow a semi-accurate in-game map.

Anticitizen One's cityscape would be interesting, but then everyone would realize how little ground you actually covered.

 

[ChiliFan]

cl_leveloverview 1

I've gone through Point Insertion and Route Kanal and made an overhead map. What I didn't know at the time was that putting a higher number in the place of the 1 shows more of the map at once.

 

[Maturin]

cl_leveloverview 1

I've gone through Point Insertion and Route Kanal and made an overhead map. What I didn't know at the time was that putting a higher number in the place of the 1 shows more of the map at once.

Route Kanal, eh? Did you notice the path circling the citadel clockwise, or am I looking for patterns in randomness?

 

[coheedswicked]

Anticitizen One's cityscape would be interesting, but then everyone would realize how little ground you actually covered.

haha. so true

*edit: ok i tried the overview thing and it doesnt show as much of the map as noclipping does even when i plug in higher numbers. noclipping shows up until the next load screen, leveloverview shows only small preloaded segments. is there any way i could expand this to have a larger area loaded at once so i wont be taking like 60 screen shots of the train depot
btw i tested out noclipping and then just setpos and setang on hl:s and it works pretty well for those maps because as long as i have the x and y coordinates set to 0 then the camera is centered over the top of the map but i looked at the first couple in hl2 using these coordinates and they were way off center

 

[Maturin]

In my experience, cl_overview shows as much as is on my screen, but most of the objects and terrain disappear past the draw distance or when I leave the skybox. In short it works when coupled with noclip but it's an unreliable pain in the ass, even in Episode 2. I expect the roadmap guy did a lot of display console tweaking.

 

[coheedswicked]

hmm... i actually didnt try it in conjunction with noclip... ill have to try that... as far as making a map of C17 (and surrounding areas) it should be ok if some objects are beyond the draw distance (although i can see if i can tweak that) as long as all the terrain is visible, right? anyway i kinda went a little crazy with the HL:S mapping of black mesa. i have up through apprehension but im not sure where to put the following chapters, i dont think you revisit anything from earlier in the game after... so suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[swan_song1973]

there are a few maps (map maps, not bsps) in the beta which had locations like bays and straights labeled on them. i forget what they said though, but thats a place to look if you want to make a semi-accurate map.

 

[coheedswicked]

hmmm... not sure where id find an HL1 beta but thanks anyways.

also i posted a new thread in the source editing section but i figured id ask here too. Whenever I type "cl_leveloverview" into the console i get a thin red line appearing vertically about a third across the monitor from the right. Is this a glitch or error or is this usual for this viewmode? Either way is there a way to get rid of it?

 

[Barnz]

there are a few maps (map maps, not bsps) in the beta which had locations like bays and straights labeled on them. i forget what they said though, but thats a place to look if you want to make a semi-accurate map.

Yeah, they have maps of Washington, Seattle.

 

[coheedswicked]

ah well thats none too helpful now is it? anyways ive begun maping out C17 i have point insertion and some of red letter day mapped out and so far so good no major map overlaps

 

[Maturin]

hmmm... not sure where id find an HL1 beta but thanks anyways.

also i posted a new thread in the source editing section but i figured id ask here too. Whenever I type "cl_leveloverview" into the console i get a thin red line appearing vertically about a third across the monitor from the right. Is this a glitch or error or is this usual for this viewmode? Either way is there a way to get rid of it?

I got that red line too. Does it look like something a decent photoshopper could take out?

When playing through Water Hazard I noticed that your prevailing course is northwest, not southwest, at least until the citadel is out of sight. But it's not surprising, given that Valve didn't think about this half so much as I am because I'm bored before Empire comes out.

Keeping track of this stuff does, however, make you conscious of how brilliant Valve's level design is.

 

[coheedswicked]

I was able to get rid of the red line. I just had to switch my screen resolution to a 4:3 aspect ratio. I currently am up working on mapping water hazard. so far so good

 

[-ilu-]

cool project, I hope you get it done. I always go grazy when I see maps in game, they some how make things more clear, like you know where to go. Heh, maybe I'm just a map junkie like you

 

[coheedswicked]

ok project update... ravenholm is not where it appears in the skybox... it actually ends up being in front of black mesa east which as we all know is a river so im going to try to correct for this as best as i can

in any case i will get this done i just have alot of other things to do, namely college

 

[Maturin]

Just place it where the town appears in the Black Mesa East Skybox.

There is a spire that doesn't exist but whatever.

 

[coheedswicked]

i ended up keeping ravenholm connected to black mesa east via the ravenholm tunnel but i rotated the direction that you walk out of the elevator and into ravenholm so that you go behind black mesa east like you're supposed to. hopefully everything will still fit together

 

[Laivasse]

This is interesting stuff. Kudos to the two of you. Take your time so it doesn't become a chore, but keep at it and keep us updated with how you're faring.

 

[Maturin]

Well, he's doing all the work now.

 

[coheedswicked]

just thought id update... im almost finished with highway 17. it took a while because the maps were so big i had to piece together like 7 or 8 screenshots for each load point

 

[arcv]

This is really awesome

 

[susko]

Awesome project, keep it up

 

[coheedswicked]

ok, ive mapped all of hl2. I want to get started on ep1 but dont really know how to fit the two games together. Mainly i just dont know which side of the citadel you start on. My idea is to use the position of the sun to determine which side you are on because i dont think the two games overlap except at the citadel and i dont think there are any internal areas that are revisited. any ideas let me know.

 

[Maturin]

Just start episode one and look up. The detailed citadel model joins with the skybox model, and as soon as you noclip past the seam, you are right close to the citadel model and can examine it. (The sun is skybox dependent and I only pay attention to it when it makes sense.)

The tower is a triangle, so you in the center of this picture of the tower a single edge that runs from top to bottom. This faces due North, thus the altitude of the triangle points towards white Forest and the base faces South. In Follow Freeman you entered the tower just a little to the left of that leading edge.

IIRC, in Episode One you show up farther to the left, near that protruding spine with all the equipment jutting out on the lower half. Then dog throws you in and when you stabilize the core, the train takes you North again, and you see that the citadel's configuration has changed to "crash mode" or something, with the ribs covered and lowered.
Edit: Just looked on youtube, and you start out only a little to the left of the tower's central leading edge. Quite close to the place you entered, in fact. You can see a skybox model silhouette that looks like the ruined Overwatch Nexus dome in the distance. http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Nexusruins.jpg

And wow, you've done a lot.:bounce:

 

[coheedswicked]

ok. that makes sense. now lets see if it will work

 

[MattyDienhoff]

Great topic! I've always been fascinated by the geography of the City 17 region, but whichever way I imagined (or re-imagined) it, it never made quite this much sense.

I'm a map junkie, however, and like to know exactly where I'm going and how I got there. So I looked at some in-game maps, looked at the citadel and even the infuriatingly inconsistent position of the sun in the skyboxes, navigating by it.

Man, you'd love Operation Flashpoint. That game features topographical maps of the entire play area, and in-game you use the map, compass, and even the stars in the night sky to navigate your way around.

 

[Maturin]

heh
I've had my eye on Arma II, which I understand is very similar. And needless to say, I'm an Elder Scrolls fan.

Anyways, now that I look at it, the citadel in the OP is facing the wrong way. Should be rotated 5-10 degrees counterclockwise.

 

[coheedswicked]

operation flashpoint was sweet. but also insanely difficult due to its intense realism. you literally have to account for wind speed when shooting a rifle and tanks actually needed an entire crew to fully operate. Elder Scrolls is also a favorite of mine. i m gonna have to remap the citadel from hl2 so i can accurately interlay the ep1 content in with it. when im done ill probably have a condensed .jpg version and an extra hi-res .psb file with layers so you can toggle the visibility of layers that overlap each other in the citadel so you can see down into it.

 

[Maturin]

operation flashpoint was sweet. but also insanely difficult due to its intense realism. you literally have to account for wind speed when shooting a rifle and tanks actually needed an entire crew to fully operate. Elder Scrolls is also a favorite of mine. i m gonna have to remap the citadel from hl2 so i can accurately interlay the ep1 content in with it. when im done ill probably have a condensed .jpg version and an extra hi-res .psb file with layers so you can toggle the visibility of layers that overlap each other in the citadel so you can see down into it.

You're slightly insane. Just slightly.

Since it's my thread: I'm a little confused about OPFP vs. Arma. So Bohemian made OPFP but OPFP 2 was made by someone else? And now BI is making Arma II?

 

[susko]

So how is the project going along?

 

[coheedswicked]

Since it's my thread: I'm a little confused about OPFP vs. Arma. So Bohemian made OPFP but OPFP 2 was made by someone else? And now BI is making Arma II?

ya something like that.

 

[Maturin]

So, any news? Any maps you'd let us see?

 

[Maronan]

The Apron is the term a rebel uses, I assume, for the Combine Wall that encircles the city and keeps monsters out. You pass through it at the end of Episode One.

I'd thought the "apron" was part of the dam. Black Mesa East is quite literally a stone's throw from it, if you had the gravity gun and could find a stone.

 

[Maturin]

I'd thought the "apron" was part of the dam. Black Mesa East is quite literally a stone's throw from it, if you had the gravity gun and could find a stone.

Could be, although it would be slightly redundant to give the dam an obscure name when it is referred to as an "old hydroelectric plant" in the same sentence.

Anyways, I like the image of a hundred mile ring of iron that crawls back and forth across the landscape at the whim of the Combine, isolating the city from the worst of alien wildlife and sealing off escape.

 

[Otto-Grainer]

Maturin, I forgot to tell you how much I love this work of yours. As Dienhoff said,
I've always been fascinated by the geography of the City 17 region. I might end up
using your map for something (with full credit, of course) but just looking at it and
examining each detail is fun. Great work.