Source
r/hlvr•
Inimitable

Where is HL2VR? (And other FAQs)

Pinned

First and foremost, a disclaimer: I am not a member of the mod team. I've got no insider info. I'm just trying to help make current information on the mod more easily visible.

 

 

What is the HL2VR project?

This is a fan-made mod for Half-Life 2 that will allow you to play the game in VR. It will support 6DOF motion controls, fully modeled guns, enhanced assets, improved maps, and even some engine updates. The goal is to make the game feel like a native VR release.

Any HMD that can utilize SteamVR will be supported (including HTC, Oculus, Valve, and Windows MR products). The team is targeting SteamVR and Oculus Rift runtimes for the PC, and planning to support Steam VR Input 2.0 so you can remap everything to your liking. Standalone VR headsets, such as the Oculus Quest and Go, will not be supported; rewriting for mobile is too large of an undertaking, and there are legal issues with the Source license.

The team is developing a "VR core" that should make it easier for other mods' developers to implement VR support into their own projects, but it will be up to that mod team to implement and adapt the VR core APIs. (This means existing mods, like Black Mesa, won't work without modifications.) The HL2VR project will also not work with Portal / Left 4 Dead / Team Fortress 2, because the source code for those games is not available.

The mod has not been completed or released yet. There is currently no release date other than "when it's done."

 

Is this project dead? Why is it taking so long?

No - development is ongoing! The team is intentionally staying fairly quiet to avoid generating hype before the mod is ready.

A big hurdle is a lot of the game and engine code needs modification to work with the high standards of VR support the team is aiming for. In the meantime, other team members are remaking a lot of assets to work well in VR (weapon models, props, map elements, etc).

And most importantly: this project is all done on a volunteer basis with a very small team - all the developers have jobs and family to attend to! Team member WormSlayer noted "there is still a bunch of game code to write/fix, and the few volunteers with the skills to do it only have so much time they can donate," and "the only thing holding the project up is boring practical stuff like day jobs taking up our time."

 

I want to join the project, how can I help?

The team is still looking for more contributors! If you want to see this project released sooner, contributing your time and skills is the biggest impact you can make. Programmers/coders that can work in Source and C++ are particularly valuable at this time.

If you can help, private message one of the team members like u/WormSlayer, u/Mr_So-And-So, or u/MaruluExploit with a description of your skill set.

 

 

What about other ways to play Half-Life games in VR?

A thread with info on other unofficial mods available to play Half-Life and Half-Life 2 in VR is available here: Playing Half-Life and Half-Life 2 in VR. If you're interested in Half-Life 2 in VR, but just can't wait any more, there are options available.

And if you've been stuck under a rock for a while, you may be interested in the official Half-Life game released early 2020, Half-Life: Alyx!

 

I have more questions!

Try checking out the community-edited FAQ on the subreddit wiki! Last year, it was created to collect a bunch of the small details on the project the devs have discussed. (The dev team is usually also very responsive to questions about the mod, so long as the question is not "when is it being released?")

Posted Apr 3, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC · edited

3952
caymantiger•

I do feel like they need to make something available -a demo or some footage of playing. Something tangible that is proof. Or else they risk working on a project that is going to become irrelevant. Something that I'm going to forget about and won't even care about by the time it comes out. At the moment I'm honestly wondering if this was a con.

13
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

What sort of con could this be, none of us are getting paid?

12
caymantiger•

Yeah it really would be ridiculous. Not a financial con but a major "fooled ya." For how excited we all were so long ago to now with no real evidence that this has actually progressed. Or maybe I'm wrong and there's more than screenshots

0†
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

Yeah I get the frustration with lack of progress reports, but is it really more frustrating than us generating hype about something you cant play? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7
Invinciblex•

No? Cyberpunk has been generating hype for 5 years...

3
caymantiger•

I just start to ask myself how long I should trust random user online lol but I'm Uber excite about the project so... Here we are! Lol

1
montugarSource VR Team QA•

well, rebuilding the engine's shader compilers from the ground up doesnt exactly make for great progress images. once we have a working demo, it will be put out but most of the work right now is in adapting the game's backend code to a more modern source engine version as the original engine was bodged to all hell to get the game out for it's original launch day. many maps have one-off texture and lighting calculations that look fine on a screen but look quite terrible in VR.

I cant stress enough that this is a very hard task to accomplish and while the team does not have anything to show the public just yet, real work IS in fact being done. as a member of the QA side, we too have been waiting for even a broken build to test.

my best suggestion for everyone's sake, forget about the project, move on with your life. we will continue toiling away and eventually, we will release a demo.

if the team wanted to just slap assets into unity and call it a day, they could at the expense of looming and feeling like the original game.

6
InimitableOP•

Impossible. A fire burns within my heart. To be the one free man. With proper lighting calculations.

3
TheIntolerableKid•

what pointless scope creep

2
Mavenix•

Yep, I will forget about this, there's not even a newsletter to subscribe to, right?

1
caymantiger•

As far as I know there's nothing but an occasional response on this sub.

2
InimitableOP•

I've talked with a few of the devs on and off, just with some questions out of curiosity. They're pretty responsive. But as Wormslayer recently said, usually the only question they get is "when is it done?" so conversations are infrequent.

3
EksCelle•

It's alive! Fantastic!

6
Crislips•

Valve stated they plan to release VR modding/development tools like they released for HL2 back in the day. Would leveraging these tools and migrating assets to their engine something you as a team have considered? At this point, creating your own VR tools may be more arduous than it's worth now that HL Alyx is out. At that point it seems like it's mostly a matter of remaking the maps/scripts/models that don't exists in HL Alyx.

Either way I've been following this for a while and can't wait to see what you guys put out. Thanks for the update, it really helps the community know what's going on to have communication like this every now and again.

6
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

Obviously we've talked about this since it became clear that Valve were working on some kind of HLVR game themselves, but the tools arnt released yet, and its not clear how much work would be involved in porting everything over.

I've been flirting with loading some maps into the new engine, and its straight forward enough to convert the bulk content, but updating everything to the fidelity of Alyx would be a long-term project. Valve have clearly remastered lots of the assets used in HL2, but not all of it.

3
Crislips•

Hey man, thanks for the response. Have you guys considered an iterative release pattern? I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than this, but I'm just throwing this idea out there. This is of course assuming Valve makes tools available in the near future.

You could start out with 2 levels of fidelity that are intermingled. HL Alyx remade props and original props. I don't know if this would he jarring in VR to have some high res and low res props intermingled, but if that's the biggest concern you could make an initial release in that build and update as you go. That will eliminate the need for you guys to need to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Then you guys could update old assets to higher fidelity as deemed necessary and release those as updates.

This would serve a purpose to eliminate a lot of work for you guys having to redevelop VR tools that now exist, and be able to release something for the community. It seems a lot of the modding community develops in a waterfall pattern and don't release until everything is complete, but it would be interesting to see modders take on an agile release pattern like a lot of the gaming industry does these days.

Anyway, I hope this doesnt sound presumptive or reductionist of the work your guys have already put in. It's just interesting to be able to speak with the devs and find out their perspective into the whole process.

2
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

Remaking HL2 in the new engine would be a whole new project. I've seen at least a few other people who have also been loading old maps into the new engine, but I'm not sure how committed any of them are to remastering the original game in its entirety.

As for "you guys" updating assets, that would be me and maybe one other person XD

2
Crislips•

Very interesting, thanks for the feedback! It sounds like this mod is suffering from the same problem pretty much all mods suffer from: not enough staff/time.

Have you guys considered typing up a paragraph here and there about progress every few months? I feel like the amount you've interacted in this post alone told a lot about progress without being anything definitive. "The past few months we've worked on x, y, and z. We still need to do a, b, and c." I think that's really what people are looking for and you seem willing to discuss it on an individual basis. That guy calling it a scam is an asshole, but I think that can help the community feel connected to the development of the mod without you having to give definitive progress percentages or time frames. It feels like you guys don't want to post about any sort of development milestones, but are willing to discuss on an individual level which makes me think you guys would rather be completely quiet about it than risk creating deadlines you can't meet.

2
tactican•

Is there any way to play a beta version?

4
InimitableOP•

Nope. I'm sure the team will make an announcement when it's ready.

2
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

no they wont lol

-2†
TitusCN•

New arrival to this sub. Has there been a "proof of life" for this mod? So far it seems likes it been "all-talk". A clip? A screenshot? Anything?

Black Mesa mod team maintained a wiki during its development.

4
Geekygami•

...No Portal.

But Portal 2 should work, right?
... Please?

​

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2
InimitableOP•

God, Portal or 2 in VR would be a nightmare vomit comet.

I mean... I would still try it, even knowing that, lol. But I can't imagine it'd be pleasant.

3
Geekygami•

My stomach is made of steel. Anything short of Quake in VR with mouse and keyboard, and strafing twisting the head left and right, I can handle for hours at a time.

I want this about as bad as I want AudioSurf 2 in VR. (I want it really really bad.)

3
JDawgzim•

Have you tried Jet Island? Most experienced VR players with VR legs would be fine in Portal VR. Rotational movement has a lot bigger effect on making people sick then lateral movement.

I would totally love playing through a Portal VR and I'd be fine even though some other VR games make me a little sick.

1
vlastimirs•

Well, this was an extremely apologetical message, but now let's get real.

No demo, no progress indication, closed source.

Stinks like vaporware! But thanks for your time.

2
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

this guy gets it

2
Igorevo•

You guys should organize a fundraiser. Say, I would easily pay $100 for this mod and I bet I’m not the only one. I really want this mod to be released as soon as possible and I’m ready to pay for it.

2
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

It's not a bad idea, and it's been suggested before, but I'm not sure how it would work out. Even if we somehow raised enough money to cover the cost of working full time, for most of us it would mean quitting our day jobs.

4
oopsidaysy•

Can I ask how many people are working on the project at this point? I occasionally get myself rehyped for the project, only to come back to this subreddit to see radio silence from the devs here, so any kind of information, screenshots, etc would be appreciated by the community :)

3
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

Currently, only 2 of us really have any time to work on it, and I'm not able to contribute to the programming side of things. We did just have someone offer to join us and help out though, so hopefully he will stick around and get some work done :)

2
oopsidaysy•

Damn dude, last I heard there were six of you :( it's good to hear you're optimistic about it though.

Is there any chance of official communication in regards to the state of the mod soon? Also, if you're getting low on devs and such, I suppose it'd be a decent idea to post some sort of update with a call to arms for modders at the end, recruiting/asking for help, but idk I'm not a project manager so idk what's best 😅 thanks for your response

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
Disc81•

Or perhaps, with some luck, some of you could negotiate a unpaid leave.

1
Nothanks2020•

Giving you money is a terrible fucking idea

0
YoMommaJokeBot•

Not as much of a terrible idea as joe momma

^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Downvote ^to ^remove. ^PM ^me ^if ^there's ^anything ^for ^me ^to ^know!

2
InimitableOP•

It's not about money, it's about time.

3
Arturo-oc•

Playing Half-Life 2 with Garry's Mod and a few extra addons is actually pretty great, and you can play coop! I have been playing with a friend and we were having a blast.

I don't really have much trust in this other mod ever coming out to be honest, and the comments by the developers make it sound like they don't have much expectations either.

I have a feeling that some other team will recompile all of Half-Life 2 maps under Half-Life Alyx's engine before we even get an alpha or a beta, or even some gameplay footage.

I would love to be wrong, though! This mod used to sound very promising!

2
CoolKids25•

  1. If you don’t want a newly remastered game then just play gmod hl2 vr.

  2. The dev takes a while because unlike valve they don’t have hundreds of people working with them and secondly working on the mod is not their actual jobs, they don’t have time to much time to make side projects due to the fact that they need to spend time on their day jobs, valve/Half Life Alyx developers get to spend a lot of time on it as it is their real job.

  3. Why would you be willing to allow this game to come out without vr integrated interaction when you’re just able to play hl2 vr on gmod which checks off everything on your checklist.

  4. These people are working on their own time to deliver you guys a cool new experience with whatever free time they can spare and instead of being grateful and happy, all I can see is that everyone thinks that they are shit devs. If you don’t want to wait just don’t start taking a huge dump on the devs. They are working and if you don’t have patience, that’s your own fault, not their own.

2
Sutanreyu•

Are you guys planning on using Source 2...?

1
WormSlayerHeadcrab Wrangler•

The plan at the moment is to release the version of the engine we're working on.

5
Sutanreyu•

Great. Hope I didn’t derail current plans.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
OXIOXIOXI•
  1. Gotta ask, is it possible for someone to do Team Fortress now that we have source code or does the game not work offline/LAN?
  2. You talked below about Source 2 and comparing it to Alyx and someone would have to be out of their mind to think that you could magically make something that looks like a 500 million dollar game like Alyx.
  3. I've been thinking of trying HL2 through the garry's mod approach, how does yours differ? I just want to know more about the project and how source works with VR.
1
peedi1603•

Need any 3d artists?

1
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

crazy how valve made a new game before these guys made a mod for a 16 year old game.

-1†
InimitableOP•

A game development studio made a game faster than a collection of fans who work in their free time. I agree, this is utter madness.

9
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

a brand new game took 4 years to develop on a brand new engine. HL2 has been modded since release and this mod FOR A 16 YEAR OLD GAME has been "in development" for over 2 years, while other modders have taken it upon themselves to do it in gmod instead. i get it's normal people in their spare time but the interaction here has been completely one sided. Don't announce a very highly anticipated project if you aren't going to release it or can't even be bothered to post updates. At the very least, post dev builds or videos or SOMETHING. LITERALLY ANYTHING. This whole sub is just jerking off the devs to release a fucking mod that was already done 6 YEARS AGO.

2†
InimitableOP•

Look man, I'm sorry that simply knowing the project exists makes you this upset. I know it's required a lot of patience for those of us who are extremely excited to play it. I'd like to see some content too, but what are ya gonna do? Getting mad about it won't help anything.

If you know anyone that can work with C++ and Source I'm sure they'd be very happy to have the extra help to speed things along.

4
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

yeah i'll totally join the dev discord.

"hey did you finish those opening city 17 assets?"

"nah"

.......

2
VerrucktMed•

Gmod’s VRMod didn’t completely remake the maps and props to have better interaction in VR...

2
Mr_BoournsDebeaked and harmless•

Why do people think we need remade maps and assets to play in vr? We don't. it's completely unnecessary and takes focus away from the actual VR part of this mod, which was the entire fucking point. This is a VR mod not a remaster. Stop making excuses for these shit devs.

0†