For the last couple of months a team at Valve has been working away on Day of Defeat: Source. We'd like to give people some insight into what we've been doing during this time.

The initial plan following the launch of Half-Life 2 was to get a near direct port of the existing Day of Defeat up and running and release it to the community. After this release, the plan was to take the approach of iterating on the art and gameplay of Day of Defeat through the end of the year. We finished this porting work a few months ago, released this version to a small group of beta testers, and then took stock of where we were. We didn't feel like the game was good enough from a visual perspective to release.

We decided to rework all of the content of Day of Defeat: Source before the full public release, hoping that people would be happier waiting for the product to ship while we gave DoD the attention it deserved. We hope our assumptions turn out to be accurate.

Here is the first screenshot from dod_flash, which is the first map that has been given this complete art pass. We'll have more things to share over the next few weeks.

In other news, our friends at Softimage are having a modeling contest and offering $25,000 in prizes for the most original and compelling characters produced with the XSI Mod Tool. Submissions will be judged in-game on specific visual and animation criteria. For more, head to the contest’s offical page.

The Avid Computer Graphics team, in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard, NVIDIA and Gamedev.net, is pleased to announce the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool “Lock & Load” Challenge (the “Contest”).

The SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool is setting a new standard in fun for gamers and modders alike. Offered free of charge to anyone who’d like to try it, the Mod Tool extends the life of your favorite games by giving you the power to produce new characters and props using the same tools as the professionals and to export that content to your favorite games, such as Half-Life® 2: Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, or Epic’s Unreal® Tournament 2004.

We are looking for original, compelling characters produced with the XSI Mod Tool that are both visually stunning and believably animated. The characters will be judged in-game on specific visual and animation criteria.

In order to recognize and encourage the on-going creative abilities of gamers and modders worldwide we are offering fantastic prizes for the winners of the Contest. In addition, the winners will be announced at the prestigious Avid Computer Graphics User Group meeting at SIGGRAPH 2005.

Make sure to read all the information below, including the official rules, and to complete all of the necessary forms.

If you haven't downloaded the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool, you can get it here for FREE!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at challenge@softimage.com.

Good luck!