Updates to the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Graphics

• Fixed occasional graphics artifact tearing run running on Nvidia 6800 hardware


• Fixed mismatch of bumpmapped/non-bumpmapped surfaces in HDR


• Fixed bug where mat_colorcorrection wasn't getting set properly on when running for the first time


• Updated default configuration settings for some newer video cards


• Fixed full-screen flicker bug when Alt-Tabbing out of fullscreen (particularly at high resolutions)

User Interface

• Added progress bar state to print a description when the server changes levels


• Show disconnect dialog when client connection times out


• Fixed anti-aliasing on fonts


• Fixed a memory leak in vgui


• Fix for startup video not showing correctly if running fullscreen with desktop resolution less than or equal to 1024x768


• Fixed bug where game would crash when taking a bug screenshot if the screen/window resolution was wider that 2048 pixels

Sound

• Fixed sound initializing twice at startup in some cases


• Optimized sound engine performance


• Fixed a bug where machines without proper sound hardware and/or drivers would crash

SourceTV

• Added SourceTV port and delay time to status output if SourceTV is active


• Added new command net_status that shows more detailed information about total and average packet loss, latency, packets/sec and bandwidth


• Added convar tv_autoretry 1 so relay proxies try to reconnect after connection crashed/timed out


• Added convar tv_timeout to specify connection timeout limit in seconds


• Improved spectator client dispatching, should be faster and balance better


• Fixed SourceTV relays being unable to connect to sv_lan 1 servers


• Fixed SourceTV servers reporting password restrictions


• Fixed SourceTV bots joining game even if disabled


• Fixed disappearing weapons in SourceTV


• Fixed spectator chat not displaying on relay proxies


• Fixed SourceTV crash during changelevel


• Fixed command tv_record crashing relay proxies


• Reduced SourceTV CPU requirements

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Source Engine Update Available
Updates to the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Source Engine

• Fixed command allowing clients to change sv_cheat convars


• Fixed engine trying to load incorrect skill.cfg file and defaulting game variables

Valve Launches First of an Episodic Trilogy

Bellevue, WA, May 22, 2006 - Valve®, developer of the blockbuster series Half-Life® and Counter-StrikeTM, announced Half-Life® 2: Episode One has gone gold. Episode One is the first in a trilogy of episodes that will conclude by Christmas of 2007.

Half-Life 2: Episode One advances the 15-million unit selling franchise and launches the first in a new, three-part series that leads far beyond City 17. Half-Life 2: Episode One does not require Half-Life 2 to play, and will be available via Steam® and at retail stores in North America for just $19.95 on June 1st. Also included in Episode One is a first look at Episode Two, which will ship by year's end.

"Given the rapid changes in PC gaming, we expect episodic games will have the same impact on single-player gaming that Counter-Strike had on multiplayer," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "The frequent releases of upgraded technology and new content works better for both consumers and developers, and is one of the key reasons Counter-Strike grew to be 80% of the online action market. We decided that a follow-up to Half-Life 2 delivered in 18 months with our first episode was more in tune with what our customers want than waiting 6 years for another monolithic product."

Episode One offers a new single player experience created by Valve, and is designed to be four to six hours in length. Stepping into the hazard suit of Dr. Gordon Freeman, you face the immediate repercussions of your actions in City 17 and the Citadel. Alyx Vance and her robot, Dog, will accompany you in your efforts to aid in the human resistance's desperate battle against the totalitarian alien menace of the Combine.

In addition to the new single player experience, two multiplayer games are included. And those who purchase Episode One will have free access via Steam (www.steamgames.com) to Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, the interactive technology demo that introduces High Dynamic Range lighting to the SourceTM Engine, Valve's award-winning game technology.

Ghost Soldiers is currently on the look out for talented people to join the team.
The positions available are:

Character modeler
The player model is complete but now we need enemies, if you have experience as a character modeler, we want to hear from you, preferably if you can do it in 3d studio max.
Weapon modeler
A lot of our weapons have already been modeled but our weapon modelers are no inactive for various reasons so we need someone who can get the job finished.
Animator
Because our mod is 3rd person a lot of the animations will be focused around the player. Were looking for someone who can do this well, preferably who can do it in 3d studio max.
Coder
We are looking for an extra coder to join the mod team and help out Greywolf. It's helpful to have past experience with hl2 preferred, but if you know what you're doing, that is just as good.
If you are interested in any of these positions, please submit an application here

Just a short update here, the Hostile Intent team welcomes a couple new team members, PhilE and submdl, both texture artists. PhilE also does some level design and such too. Welcome these great talents to the team

H2's map is progressing nicely, so here's another screenshot of it. Remember it's still a WIP.

In addition, we continue our call out to the community for additional help in development; we are currently recruiting:

• Weapon Modelers & Skinners


• Player Modelers & Skinners


• Player Animators


• Level Designers


• Webmaster

Although we've only listed a few positions, the team is open to any talent in the community who wants to help make Hostile Intent Phoenix Rising the best game it can be. If you wish to apply for one of these positions contact widget@hostileintent.org.

We've had quite an interesting time at Nigredo Studios recently. NightFall went under for a couple of weeks due to lack of motivation and the sheer scope of the project.
However due to various outcrys from the community we have stripped the team down to core members and are carrying on.

As you can see, we've made the move to a new host. The new website address is http://nightfall.nigredostudios.com so make sure you update your bookmarks.

NightFall has now changed to an Episodic development model. The first Chapter, Initiation, is doing well. We decided to do this to keep motivation and focus in the team, and also to present the mod in a playable form to the public at an earlier date. Nearly all of the media in this update will feature in NightFall: Initiation.

To begin with for this update, we'd like to showcase 4 screenshots of Mess's map, Trainstation.

Next, we have some skinned models of our Mustang vehicle, wonderfully done by Farles and Clarky

The new, revised Rebel Compound maps, made by Zombie @ Computer, who we regret to announce has departed from the team. We wish Z @ C the best of luck in his future work.

Finally, we have the de-classified military profile of one of our key NPCs, David Sangster.

This update also acts as an open request to anyone who is willing to contribute. As previously mentioned, we are down to our core members and as a result need to expand the team for NF to get back off the ground. Feel free to post your resume on our forums

Finally, we will leave you with the information that Nigredo Studios has extended a branch
into the commercial videogames industry, by licensing the Unreal 3 Engine. You can read more
about that project over at http://www.nigredostudios.com.

As always, make sure you drop into the forums to post your thoughts, ideas, or just for a chat with the community and devs.

It's good to be back!

As some of you may have read, I'm one of the new coders working on Hull Breach. My first task is to create a heat vision mode . I think everyone is more interested in seeing how the heat vision looks then reading stuff about me so I won't talk about myself right now

It's still a work in progress so it most probably will change a bit. I'll post a video of it later (it's 3:45 here... and I need some sleep). I hope everyone likes the screenshot and comes back to see the video.

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The Video is now online so I took out the Image.


A few words about the whole thing. The HUD is work in progress. There are a few things out of place on it at the moment.

There are some features missing (like fading out the heat of players when they die), so expect to see an update in the future.

One special feature you can already see is that the gun heats up when being shot and cools down. As far as we know that's the first time something like that has been implemented in a PC game (correct us if we're wrong)

Dallas, TX – Thursday, May 11th, 2006 – The Cyberathlete Professional League® (CPL) and GotFrag.com announced today that they signed an exclusive streaming media agreement. GotFrag.com has purchased exclusive streaming video and audio rights to CPL’s 2006 season and to all primary matches of the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL). This contract is believed to be the first of its kind between an e-sports media company and a professional videogame league.

In a few months GotFrag.com will begin broadcasting live and on-demand streaming video and audio coverage of CPL worldwide events, along with coverage of CAL, on GotFrag’s new web destination, GotFragTV (GFTV). The broadcasts will include live, real-time stats, powered by GotFrag’s GameSense™ technology. GotFragTV will stream the intense competitions of CPL and CAL with expert commentary and casting from today’s leading e-sports personalities.

“We selected GotFrag as our Official Streaming Partner because of their long record of outstanding e-sports coverage.” said Angel Munoz, Founder and President of the Cyberathlete Professional League. “This is our commitment to the community, that we want the best partners to offer the best coverage of the sport.”

“Traditionally, the CPL's events involve the most intense, and action-packed competition in e-sports.” said Lee Chen, President of GotFrag.com. “That is precisely the action that we want to broadcast on GotFragTV. We are very excited to be expanding our relationship with the CPL, by covering them more in depth than ever before.”

About GotFrag.com
GotFrag.com is the leading online community and resource for competitive computer gaming news, features and content. The GotFrag.com website was launched in November 2002, and reaches over 1 million readers every month. Reporting live and on-site at every major competitive gaming event in the world, GotFrag.com has become the world’s largest and most influential independent online publisher of competitive gaming news and content. For more information, visit www.gotfrag.com.

The mod's development steps forward little by little and it looks more and more like a work of adding finishing touches.

A talented coder modified loads of thnigs when he arrived, and he decided to make great changes that many people should like a lot.

QGPR started straight away what we could call an entire reprogramming of the weapons' system on HL².

If this is to delay the release of our Beta 1.0 of several weeks, we believe that every one should agree in waiting for a novelty that should not have been in this 1.0...

Iggy hasn't been twiddling his thumbs, because he decided to strat animating loads of new models realised by a new and talented modeler, UnterX:

Pmods has released a video of what we presented of Perfect-Dark: Source at their 'Mods Party', you will find it Here (Register req.).

A quick translation and corrections made to what was said can be found Here.

We are every every week getting closer to something to which we only need to add finishing touches, because if the biggest part of it has already been achieved, there are still numerous tiny things to edit, improve... as the crosshairs, qgpr's massive job, some bugs and little details.

We Still have to warn you that, just like last year, some members of the devteam will be less available.

Most of them have exams between now and the end of June. Many of those will be hoping for a release short after their exams.

Nevertheless, we shall never release something in too much of a hurry. Therefore we are thinking of a date starting in the beginning and the end of the summer holidays.

As always, this will vary according to the disponibilities of each member and nothing prevents you from helping us.

To finish with, we though we should add those questions and answers that we have been used to reading so many times now:

• Q- Will the game be available in English?


• R- Yes, and in French and Spanish aswell.



• Q- Do I need Half-Life² intalled or other Source based games?


• R- You will need the Half-Life² application and its data files 'GCF' (those of the Source engine).

Well, we're going to be posting more updates now hopefully, and to get us started I'm going to post this short one. It's just an update to let everyone know we're still alive and progress on HIPR has been steaming along pretty good recently on all fronts. One of those fronts is player models... here's a nato model for the first release of HIPR.

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Time to get used to updates The team is progressing, I'd like to remind everyone that everything we post is a WIP unless we state otherwise. The following is a shot from one of our new mappers maps. Everyone welcome h2rra to the team, though he's been here for a while and fits right in.

On another note, we're current seeking a a player animator knowledgable in animating players for the source engine. We're also seeking modellers to model map models. Vehicles, props, etc. Experience in the source engine would be preferred but is not required. Any interested parties can contact me at widget@hostileintent.org.

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The HI team continues to evolve as we strengthen our ranks to help with ongoing Phoenix Rising Development. Everyone give a warm welcome to Sniper-X, an all-talent, over the last day or so he tweaks our commando model we featured in the previous update... beware it's still a wip, but it's looking much better.

Half-Life 2: Episode One, the first in series of episodic games from Valve, is now available for pre-purchase and pre-load via Steam. Those who pre-order the game before it is made available on June 1st will save 10% off the $19.95 price. For more information, visit www.steampowered.com.

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The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Fixed dedicated servers defaulting to LAN instead of Internetv
  
• Fixed chat text disappearing when the player respawns


• Fixed longjump not working properly


• Fixed incorrect explosive weapons damage (hand grenades, rockets and mp5 grenades)


• Fixed tripmines sticking out a few units away from the wall


• Fixed players sometimes being invisible after respawn


• Camera now follows your ragdoll when you die

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Updates to the Steam Client have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Added 'My media' tab to the main steam window


• Fixed 'delete local content' not working for SiN1


• Separated the notion of 'updating' and 'downloading' in the games list status column


• Changed selecting a new steam skin to prompt for a restart


• Updated internet connection speeds list in the settings dialog


• Added download time estimation to install dialog


• Added Metascore column to games list