Firearms 2 « Cale Dunlap

Half-Life 2 Mod (2007 – Present)

Overview

Firearms 2 is a recreation of the Firearms mod for Half-Life. It is one of two Firearms-based mods. The other is Firearms:Source. Firearms 2 introduces the old Firearms community to a few new weapons, much better graphics, and some new levels as compared to the original version of Firearms.

Firearms 2 uses the same gameplay style as the original however we’ve removed the Objective-based gameplay:

Push – Capture and control all points on a map to win. Round restarts on capture of all points.
Territorial Control – Capture and hold given areas of a map. Reinforcement bonuses are given for holding.
Search and Destroy – Find a map-specified object of the opposing team and destroy it.

Weapons

KABAR
Colt 1911
Glock 20
Colt Anaconda
Desert Eagle
H&K MK23
Benelli M3 Super 90
Remington 870
Benelli Nova
UZI
Akimbo MAC-10’s
SAC Sterling L2A3
Izmash Bizon-2
H&K MP5A4
AK-47
AK-74
H&K G36E
H&K G3A3
Colt M4A1
Colt M16/M203
Springfield M-14
FA-MAS G2
PSG-1
SVD Dragunov
SSG3000
FN M249 SAW
M60
PKM
Stielhand Grenate
M84 Flash Grenade
M79 Grenade Launcher
M67 Frag Grenade
Claymore Antipersonnel Mine

Technology

Firearms 2 is powered by the Source Engine(tm) by Valve Software. This engine boasts HLSL shaders, LOD on world and models, HDR, radiosity lighting, dynamic shadows, motion blur, water refraction/reflection, shelf-shadowing bump maps, dynamic color correction, and a ton more. That was just the rendering pipeline. For more information, visit http://source.valvesoftware.com.

As far as FA2’s technology is concerned, we’ve used the power of the Source Engine to perform a multitude of tasks. For special effects we’ve created new shaders for use in post-processing and new particle systems for world and model effects. Our texture artists have used advanced techniques to create realistic looking textures and skins. These techniques include normal mapping, detail overlays, and specular mapping among others. The animations are done through basic keyframes and bone structures with a little bit of scripting for cueing any special effects.

Personally from my point of view as a programmer, this game is incredibly complex. The source code for the game dlls (client and server) totals over 750,000 lines including the SDK and our modifications/additions. It has been quite a learning experience for me and is a far cry from when I wrote Half-Life 1 mods. Buried in that labyrinth of code are the custom particle effects I’ve written (for artillery smoke for example), night vision post-processing, death/stun/concussion screenspace effects, new HUD elements, bullet penetration, all of the custom gameplays, firemodes for the weapons, a highly enhanced magazine/reloading system, the skill system, and a plethora of other details that are too long to list.