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Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 3:30 pm
by Jenkins
AgentMomo wrote:sounds like something i would like to try doing then ,

What tools would I need ?


First off you need the original Half-Life for PC. Not the current fancy one on steam - the one which came out on discs in '98 (to make sure you have the lowest version possible). Then you should start looking for programs like Photoshop/Gimp (graphic edit), Milkshape (3D modeling and animations), WorldCraft/Hammer (mapping), PAKexplorer (to open and save PAK container), Audacity (sounds and music), a text editor like Atom/Notepad++ (to script some stuff and change cfg files), BootDreams (.cdi image creator) and a working Dreamcast emulator (nullDC e.g.)... BUT because of the missing WinCE support you can't test it on an emulator. So you must burn every single version of your attempt on a cd-r, walk to your Dreamcast and boot the "build" on real hardward. Otherwise you can't test your results.

If you want to port content over to Half-Life make sure you have the right plugins and tools to open/extract/encrypt/change/modify/save this other content.

But the most important aspects for this endeavour are: a LOT of spare time, patience and dedication.


These are just some programs that came into my mind while writing down this text. I'm pretty sure there are easier or more modern tools for the tasks. But I used them some time ago (and few still today) for my own projects and can confirm that they will do the job.

Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 5:19 pm
by krssn
Jenkins wrote:But the most important aspects for this endeavour are: a LOT of spare time, patience and dedication.

You forgot the most important thing.

A half decent brain.

Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 2:17 am
by Anthony817
Demul actually has Windows CE support and also Half-Life DC works on it as I have played it a few times to test it out.


Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 6:37 am
by Jenkins
It is (finally) possible? At a decent speed? This is very interesting.

Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 11:54 pm
by Anthony817
Full speed brother! XD

Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 5:56 am
by Jenkins
Thanks anthony! I lost track about two years ago. Haven't much time for Dreamcast since. My last stand was the implementation of WinCE wasn't done or at least not very importent at that point. Other things were more important.

So, Agentmomo, I have great news for you... :lol:

Re: HALF LIFE - RESIDENT EVIL MOD ?

Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 1:48 pm
by DR TEAMCAST
if i understand the original post correctly, he's asking about creating a brand new mod

you can create a brand new mod for half-life on dreamcast just as easily (or not easily) as PC. the only limiting factor is, as everyone said, not being able to extend the engine. so you have to work with all of the map entities provided in the original engine

if you're up for the challenge of basically creating a new dreamcast game, have at it hoss. i can provide a bigass dreamcast specific toolkit for you

the engine extending subject is one of great frustration for me. because it uses the same OS as PC (windows), it can compile the same format of the extensions (dll). the hl2 2003 leak contains the hl1 src file responsible for initializing the client extension, and there is a decent amount of code already in the dreamcast engine port for CRCing and dynamically loading and unloading the extensions specified by a multiplayer server. "DLL Injecting" has been a common and well documented practice for hacking windows games since forever, although obviously complexity and difficulty varies between each game\program in question

sizious from assemblergames (and author of CDI4DC you may have used in bootdreams) recently proved the concept of DLL injection on WCE for dreamcast. although for a much more minimal purpose https://assemblergames.com/threads/wind ... ers.68473/

so you can probably begin to understand why that subject is a frustrating one lol
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edit: to clarify and prevent confusion when i mentioned "multiplayer server", the entire multiplayer netcode is present in the engine. but there is no way to "send" the local server packets out through the modem to a server without some additional hacking or using the engine extensions to "send" the packets through the internet. as the engine is now, packet traffic is locked to the "loopback" which "loops back" the data from the "client" and the local server contained within the engine. so if you didn't know before, basically when you play any version of half-life single player, you're playing "online" but the server is being run at the same time on the local machine as the "game instance" you're playing

i say so nobody reads above and says "W8 HLDC HAS MULTIPLAYER?!1?"