【HL2书籍】《Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar》[2005-8-21]
If you loved Half-Life 2, you'll love this book7757
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ISBN：0-7615-4364-3
原价： 美元34.99(美国) / 美元49.95(加拿大) / 英镑19.99(英国)
总页数：288
本人简单的翻译一下介绍：
[*]前所未有的向读者展示 Half-Life 和 Half-Life 2 台前幕后的故事
[*]本书引言由Valve创建者Gabe Newell题写
[*]本书包括数百幅原画, 插图, 草案,和各种相关图片
[*]超过12位Valve骨干成员的访谈记录
[*]此书通过Valve官方核准
[*]包括17号城市和其它地区的资料
[*]Source引擎开发部门资料
[*]怪兽、角色资料
[*]关键武器开发的启示录
[*]带您从头到尾的游览整个游戏过程
[*]囊括来自Valve小组的图片和文字资料
本书其中的[Half-Life 2 Digital Drama]部分的扫描图片和书的预览介绍
7700
If you don't live in a cave and you own a PC, then you should have bought a copy of Half-Life 2 by now, and beaten it at least once. Now that you've played the game, do you want to know more about the mysterious universe of Half-Life? Do you want to know more on how the game came to be? Do you want to see the first pre-visualized copy of Gordon Freeman, who looks more like a Viking than a scientist? Of course you do!
I haven't talked to a single person who has said that Half-Life 2 sucked. I haven't even heard anything near the lines that someone was mildly disappointed by it. Everyone who I know that played the thing absolutely loved it, including myself. After I beat the game, though, I wanted to know more about how the game came to be, and everything behind its production, which is why I picked up this book.
Good things
Half-Life 2 Raising the Bar is a decently large book that's about 287 pages long. The cover features a crowbar equipped Gordon Freeman strolling the streets with a laminated Lambda symbol on it. Basically, the cover art alone rocks. Getting inside the book, you'll notice that it's broken up into six chapters. Since every chapter is a winner, I'm just going to break it down chapter by chapter and talk about what was cool with each one. (Warning: Minor spoilers lie ahead from Half-Life 2).
Investigation 1: Anomalous Materials
.01 Half-Life: A Nonstandard Specimen
After the foreword by Gabe Newell, the book sort of begins with its introductory unit: Anomalous Materials. Named after the first real level in the first Half-Life, one would expect that this unit would discuss stuff on the first ground breaking game. And it most certainly does, giving you even more of an insight of Half-Life. Here it shows you all of the conceptual art designed for most of the creatures in the game, including favorites like the houndeye, the Big Mama (A.K.A Gonarch), and those damn headcrabs (I hate headcrabs!).
But with every creature that did make it into the first Half-Life, there were at least a dozen creature designs that never made it into the game, including the “Kingpin” and a monster that’s entitled “Mr. Friendly” (Mr. Friendly has a very interesting story behind it…). There are also different views on creatures in the game, most notably the option of the “organic chainsaw” arm for the Alien Grunt. All and all, this section serves mainly as an introduction to the game we all love, and it’s very interesting at the same time.
.02 Extra Life: The Mod Movement
Half-Life was a genre defining game, and it was even more revolutionary for the mods that spawned from it. Starting from the very early mod of Team Fortress, this chapter features a few of the mods and a little bit of background information with each. I’ll admit that this section is probably my least favorite of the bunch―hardly a complaint, mind you―mainly because it refers to nothing from Half-Life 2.
Luckily, many people out there are Counterstrike fans and fear not: most of this chapter is about the origin of Counterstrike and even better, the whole deal behind Counterstrike: Source. It shows various art pieces and the map conversions from the first game of all the maps that you love. There’s Italy, Dust, Aztec, Havana, and a few more. Also, a bunch of character models are included. Comparing the new ones to the older ones hurt.
Investigation 2: Unexpected Interference
.03 Half-Life 2: Creature Discomforts
Now we’re talking. This next unit is, you guessed, all about Half-Life 2. Now you’ve got 200 glorious pages of Half-Life 2 art and scripts and all sorts of stuff that you’ve been itching to know. And this chapter talks about all the things that want to kill you in this game.
Similar to the first chapter, this chapter has dozens upon dozens of conceptual art drawings for all the creatures and various vehicles found in the game. Between the ten or so pages dedicated to the Combine solider, the several pages behind the abstract Combine ships, and of course your headcrabs and other alien favorites (I hate headcrabs!), this chapter is a good way to start off the hubbub about Half-Life 2.
Even more interesting were the creatures that were designed to be in the game, and made it through the painful process of texturing and whatnot, and finally scraped out. I questioned in my Half-Life 2 review (link is at the bottom if you want to read it) why the blue hydra like thingy that was in every single screenshot was not actually in Half-Life 2. In here they give you the answer (along with many more answers to many more of my questions). Overall, this chapter is an excellent in-depth look at the creatures in the game.
.04 Half-Life 2: Digital Drama
Half-Life 2 has been critically acclaimed for not only its stunning visuals and physics, but also for the multimedia perspective that you’re thrown into by the key players in the story. Between lip synching perfection (something that everyone has been dying for in a game) and realistic and interesting characters, Half-Life 2 brought itself to a whole new level. This is my favorite chapter of the whole book.
When you flip to the page with comparisons of the in game models of the characters to their real life models, the resemblance is scary. People like Doctor Wallace Breen look almost exactly like the real person it was modeled after. I just stared at that page for a long time looking at each person and it really shows how much Valve put into texturing these peoples faces. Hands down, these are the most realistic people found in a game.
This chapter also gives a good description of each character, including favorites like that dastardly G-man and Gordon Freeman (even know you never see his face, they put a lot of time into making one). Also, you have scripts to serve as an introduction to certain characters (Alyx is the most notable of the bunch). Then you’ll see the people who actually voiced the characters, and the process behind the lip synching perfection thing. This whole chapter was so remarkable, and it was even accented on the account that I cared for the characters in the game.
.05 Half-Life 2: Welcome to City 17
This chapter is big, and when I mean big, I mean it’s almost 100 pages long. But it doesn’t matter, since this chapter provides everything that you really wanted to know about City 17 and its production. A lot of it is all the paintings and drawings made for the pre-visualized City 17. Also included are a bunch of scripts that either served for parts in the game (most notably the Train opening sequence), parts that didn’t make it in, or simply an act for inspiration. Although some of the fonts on a few of the scripts are hard to read, it’s still rather fascinating to find out what could have been in Half-Life 2.
Speaking about what could have been in Half-Life 2, there’s actually a map that was supposed to cover the route of Gordon Freeman. He was meant to go over on ship and on a train, and go to places like “The Weather Control” area. Some of the drawings are very amazing the look at, for much detail went into each one as if each idea was going to be used in the final product. What this chapter really does is it makes you realize the evolution behind Half-Life 2. So many ideas went into it, but eventually all of them were sculpted into an amazing game.
There are simply too many drawings and conceptual art pieces that I can’t even get close to describing all of them. One of my favorite ideas though was the whole idea about Combine propaganda posters, with sayings like “It’s great to be part of the greater good.”
This lengthy chapter covers about every building or piece of architecture that made it into the game, and once again fulfills my hunger for curiosity.
.06 Half-Life 2: Final Sequence
This nice “short and to the point” chapter will be the one that all the Mr. Technicals will flock to, mainly since it talks about the Source engine, how it works, and how everything was applied in the game. Everything you wanted to know about this game’s technical stand point is basically covered here, including bump mapping techniques, shading methods, textures, lighting, etc.
What can be really appreciated about this chapter is the amount of work the people put in at Valve to create this game. It says that they collected over 50,000 pictures just for reference points, and it tells of all the time they put in just to make the game run perfectly. Although this is the shortest chapter of the unit, it’s a good, humble way to close the story.
“What makes me happy is when we sit people down who have high expectations for the game and they play it and afterward say, ‘Wow, that’s great. That exceeded my expectations.’ That’s what we’re looking for. Does it exceed their expectations? Because if it does, then I think we’ve succeeded in what we set out to do.” - Gabe Newell
Not so good things
There aren’t any! Can you believe it?
The Verdict
I loved Half-Life 2. Everyone who played the game that I know loved the game as well. It is certainly, in my opinion, one of the best games ever created. And if you loved Half-Life 2 and wanted to know how this game came to be, this book is definitely for you. It took me probably a good 5+ hours to go through the whole thing, and it was thought provoking the whole way through.
But more importantly, it shows what can be done to a game if you put in hard work and are passionate about it. It also shows the sheer evolution that this game underwent, for it was virtually a completely different game that it originally intended to be. But Valve did it all, and the impact from Half-Life 2 is the rewards for their struggle. So bravo, Valve, for you created a game that not only exceeded my expectations, but I think of everyone else who played it. And this book shows it all.
就是没有Gorden Freeman :brick:
哈哈
真象啊，真是有 才啊 非常像。不过这本书叫什么名字？:DSourceSDK开发手册？ 是真的参照这些人物做出来的吗？ 多半是照着真人设计的 马里奥I 服了 YOU！ :brick: 你可真能转。 :too_sad: hl2 真心:thefinger Post by 星期八
马里奥I 服了 YOU！ :brick: 你可真能转。 :too_sad: 哈哈哈:em17:
书的名字我看清楚了，转贴没有介绍，看得费死劲了
叫《Half-Life 2 Digital Drama 》
大家感兴趣可以搜一下http://forum.dt-club.net/images/icons/alumni/0.gif Post by jzhao1989
就是没有Gorden Freeman :brick:
HL1里的主人公看来是完全虚拟的，所以没有真人版，只能靠以后HL/HL2粉丝亲自cosplay了:cool:
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