#keyboard configuration

[jswatson]

is your phone headphone jack busted? do you not want to pay for bluetooth headphones? do you have a raspberry pi collecting dust somewhere? turns out that the solution to these 3 problems is the same! :D

this world hates me and its for good reasons

i followed this guide and used a raspberry pi 3 with raspbian lite

[doom-nerdo-666]

2 videos by Dwars about how keyboard + mouse was always possible in Doom.

[sovamurka]

Not gonna lie, I’m still having a good time playing the Golden Compass game from 2007 even after all these years. It’s challenging, it’s aesthetically beautiful, very good plotwise (because they included additional materials) and simply fun to play. You can actually see what the creators of the movie really wanted to do and what was taken away from them (and from us), they actually made it closer to the book and included scenes that were cut (AND KEPT THE ENDING, THEY KEPT THE ORIGINAL ENDING)!

[ryanthedemiboy]

Fuck playing stardew valley with a controller. Guess I just won't play until my hand heals! Fuck me I guess!

[prismit]

<- their ass has NOT been shiny hunting mew (23 days remain)

[tears-of-boredom]

i think the way subtitles should be done, is when the dialogue is supposed to be understood by the viewer, it's translated into the language of the subtitles. but when the dialogue isnt supposed to be understood, or is intended to just be considered general "foreign language", they should write it out in the language that they are speaking in.

like, okay, im writing english subtitles for a finnish movie, i dont think meaningless small talk between some random french background characters who are not the focus of the scene should be translated. but it should still be subtitled. so instead of the captions reading like "Where is he?", id write "Il est oú?". because i consider dialogue like that to just be a fun addition if you happen to know the language. like that one finnish girlie in black widow who was not meant to be understood beyond "she's not from around here".

[commodorez]

IBM 5170 - PC AT

Left: CGA configuration, IBM 5153 monitor, Model F AT keyboard Right: EGA configuration, Amdek 722 monitor, Model M keyboard

[felassan]

Snippets. you know what about. 😊

On configuring the HUD: "Too be clear, you can't go crazy - but there are a bunch of options if you want fewer things on screen or some alternate ways of having some elements activate" [source: the Discord]

"One of the skill trees for Rogues is more focused on ranged combat, and it's pretty viable to go almost pure ranged (honestly maybe a bit OP at the moment" [source: the Discord]

Each of the 3 main classes has 2 distinct weapon types [source] (Fel note: this is written in a way that makes it sound like it applies for mages too. Apart from staff, I wonder what the other weapon type for mages is..? :>) it's bow and dual swords for rogue, 2h and sword and shield for warrior.

for the Discord Q&A, the goal is to be able to read it in writing later on. [source: the Discord]

So for classes, it's looking like this right? ^^ 3 mages: Neve, Bellara, Emmrich. Lace - Rogue in DA:I. Lucanis - Rogueyness akimbo. Davrin - sword and shield in trailer, so warrior. Taash - seems like a warrior. 3/2/2 mage/rogue/warrior.

Many of the devs that made previous games are still at BioWare. "The creative director of this one has been there since 2007, the art director since 2004, the producer since the MDK2/BG2 days." and there are tons more too. [source]

It's not huge open regions like DA:I [source]

The team took focus to get keyboard and mouse on PC feeling good [source]

A user asked about accessing more abilities and how there was a 'second layer' of mapped abilities in a previous game. Answer: The DA team is going to showcase more combat soon where they talk about that and show the full list of options for how many abilities you can use [source]

A user asked about the presence of complex fights in the game, and mentioned the Cory battle in DA2. Answer: there is some stuff in the game that takes forever to get to and then kicks your ass for a while. there is also some fixed level stuff that you need to explore to find [source]

More on exploration coming later [source]

"Pretty sure the team is primed to showcase a lot more of the combat and progression depth in the near future." [source]

The name of the game has officially been changed internally for a long while. "It just takes a lot of moving pieces to make it official" [source]

"At a proper time we will disclose more details about our composer, soundtrack and playstyle options." [source]

"I have to say that even though I knew what was going to happen, when I played the SGF Demo for the first time, in a room with full surround sound, I got several emotions." [source]

Mark Darrah on the name change: "Change can be scary but this is a good sign." [source]

Re: the game's character focus: "It's not that DA hasn't been about characters [in the past] it's more that we haven't been willing to admit it [until now]" [source]. This is the first DA to be this deliberate in its focus on characters [source]

A request for Ukraininan language localization to be added to the game was passed along [source]

[mybeanalgebra]

I use (neo)vim

I've been using arrow keys for navigation, and I decided I wanted to use hjkl instead

Someone on the internet had the idea to rebind those to jkil to make it easier to pick up

I decided I wanted to do something like that

I think I picked the most cursed option

Behold: English (US, intl., with dead keys, cursed edition)

Yes this is my keyboard layout

Yes I decided to edit xkb rather than my neovim configuration

Over the next few days we will find out what effect this has on my typing

[kiwie-not-kiwi]

The first snowflake of the winter ❄️

I had the joy to draw Bertolt with the tablet Artist Pro 14 (Gen 2) sent by XPPEN ! Thanks a lot to them again for this wonderful and inspiring opportunity ! 🥹💕🙏🏻

If you’re curious to know my opinion about this tablet, here is my review :

The design is pretty and modern, giving the will to work right away ! The sensations with the screen are very nice and fluid. The screen is also anti-reflective, it’s an huge advantage for people like me who have often headaches because of this

There are lots of accessories, including this remote control allowing to configure your shortcuts ! The time you save with this tool is huge, and it’s much more nice than a keyboard ! This remote control makes the using of this tablet truly professional and addictive !

I was also surprised to discover two kind of mines in the stylet case ! With the classic smooth mines, you will also find rough mines ! Preferring the feeling of the pencil on paper, I found this addition so clever and I really appreciated !

You understood I’m really enthusiast about this tablet which has lots of qualities ! I even think to integrate it in my work routine !! 🥰🙏🏻

[verynerdyelaine]

Window Managers are cool

So, I've been using Unix based Operating Systems (MacOS and Linux) for a while now but when I was just starting to use Linux there was a term that a lot of people were using and that was a "Tiling Window Manager".

What is a Tiling Window Manager?

Well, A Tiling window manager is a window manager that organizes windows into grids of tiles and not promote the overlapping of windows.

Why do you need it?

Tiling Window Managers are amazing at organizing windows and keeping in track with whatever tasks that are in-front of your face. Tiling Window Managers are also keyboard centric in which you can switch between windows with just your keyboard and as I am a Neovim user i use HJKL to breeze through the windows. Tiling Window Managers also have the feature of workspaces (desktops on MacOS) in which you can designate whatever stuff you have into different workspaces.

What Tiling Window Managers do I use?

On, Linux i use dwm and on MacOS i use yabai. dwm is an amazing Window Manager due to it being highly configurable, minimal and yet simple which fits my cozy zone. yabai is what i use for MacOS due to it being 1 of 2 Tiling Window Managers on MacOS (the other being Amethyst) but yabai is much more powerful and more configurable.

Final Thoughts

Tiling Window Managers are cool and you should give them a try :3

[vimeddiart]

I DREW MY OC TOAST AAAAAA

The folks at XPPen sent me the XPPen Deco Pro (Gen 2):

XPPen is having its 18th anniversary, and is celebrating with sales and product promos, so it's worth checking those out.

My thoughts on the tablet (and purchase links) under the cut!

⭐ Review ⭐

First impressions: After unboxing the tablet, I thought it sleek and professional-looking, especially after setting it up with my PC.

The remote I LOVED right out of the box because I enjoy fiddling with buttons and wheels. The keys are super satisfying to press.

The pen and storage case are nicely complete, lots of spare nibs to switch out (though I mainly stuck to the default nib while drawing, the textured ones have a nice gritty feel similar to paper).

I had some troubleshooting when I started, as connecting to Bluetooth wasn't happening with either the tablet or the remote. I tested the Bluetooth connection with a different device and my phone successfully, but couldn't with my work PC. I was promptly helped by XPPen Support, and it turned out to be a Windows update messing things up, so I uninstalled it and Boom; I could connect both the tablet and remote, no problem. Up until then, I used both via cable, which was a convenient option!

The tablet: The XL model at 15 x 9 inches, with plenty of space to work (although you'll need space to put it, luckily I have a lot of desk to spare), and can connect via cable or Bluetooth. It also looks so dang pretty.

The tablet was so smooth, and the pressure (16k pressure levels) felt amazing to draw with. After fiddling around with the pen settings, I barely had to press down to get a nice flowy line.

I usually work on a screen tablet, so it took some getting used to returning to a pen tablet and looking at my PC screen again, but it came back to me quickly. It actually helped my posture, as I tend to shrimp-curl over my screen tablet while working.

As lovely as it was to work on, I feel this size may be too large for me, despite it being perfectly proportional to my PC screen. I like to draw quickly, and I noticed myself making more effort to travel over the surface of the tablet and tiring my arm out faster than usual. I needed to take more breaks and stretch often, although I could classify that as positive. That said, this tablet has a sloped resting area that helped. All my drawing tablets have been medium-sized, so I'm probably just conditioned to that surface area.

The battery lasted as long as it took to draw this piece and more! I didn't need to charge it the entire time.

The remote: I love this thing so much. It has ten shortcut keys and a wheel you can configure to your heart's desire. Five sets of key functions!!! That's fifty shortcuts!! I only configured four sets and struggle to memorise them, but it's very convenient. I have my keyboard right next to the tablet and would bang out shortcuts there, but this remote changed my life.

I've been using it for a month now, and it still hasn't needed charging!

The pen: Comfy to use, with a design I was already accustomed to, and one thing I noticed was that the nib wasn't scratching the heck out of the tablet. After all the drawing I did with it, not a single mark.

I LOVE popping the case open to retrieve or store the pen, and it's one of those physical things that I find satisfying and so rare with digital products. I thought it would be nice to have a pen stand too, but I have pet birds that will (and have) run away with my tablet pens, so a storage case is a strong solution.

Final thoughts: This is a solid tablet with the potential to become an essential tool for industry professionals and freelancers. I didn't think I could be convinced out of a screen tablet, but I was offered a super strong contender. I can confidently recommend it, plus my experience with support was a positive one that boosted my trust in the brand. Overall, I had a great time using this tablet and really appreciate the opportunity I've been given to try it out!

⭐ Purchase links ⭐

US Walmart Store

CA official store

[kremlin]

Traverse The Haunches

a short story written w/o keyboard

“Knight positioned ?”

“Knight positioned.”

“Index Queen”

“Preparing to index queen!” 

Oliver hesitated for a moment. Some quick mental math; he concluded it would be sensible to configure the optical collimator. It wouldn’t be getting dark anytime soon this time of year, and the absence of cacophony otherwise made by the X-Ray beam felt welcome after twelve long days of playing chess. 

“Chess! Four Zero Nine!” Oliver shouted into the intercom, alerting his fellow Chessmen to clear the aperture area, lest they lose some digits to its mechanical contrivances. Two pairs of legs, four total feet, shuffled above in response, with such alacrity suggesting their movement was purely a reflexive and instinctual response rather than one born of Facts and Logic. 

Orange dust immediately polluted the gamesmanship compartment as Oliver furiously rotated the rusted Tulley Toggle. 

These were Chessmen. Smart, huge, and unbelievably sexy, these were the men given the honour, the responsibility, of representing the United States of America in the 4092 Olympic Games. 

Oliver had them all lined up. The Chinese team had taken their whole ass out of their pants and he was looking right at it. He had maneuvered himself and his team to this advantageous position brilliantly, turning what otherwise would have been an earlygame misstep by the Chinese into an all-out blunder. 

The opponents’ strategic objective lay ahead, soon to be threatened by Oliver and his fellow 6’8” teammates. In such a situation, it would have no safe haven to escape, nor any counteroffensive ability to thwart assailants. Oliver’s opponents were uniquely chessfucked, an idiosyncratic gameplay state the written word has no ability to succinctly describe. 

“They nearly had us” Oliver whispered to himself. 

He had done it. The United States will take home the gold in Men’s Chess. Knowing this, Oliver luxuriated for a scarce few moments before depressing the lever to the right of his position. Immediately, machine gun fire echoed as it massacred the Chinese team. 

“Game, set, match. That’s chess baby.”

[theirishwolfhound]

Wow holy shit wasn't expecting people to actually like the idea of Menace reader so here's part two! Part three in the works with a poll on the end of this one to see how it goes. Enjoy :)

Thus begins the prank war.

It would go back and forth for a few weeks, Menace constantly finding new ways to make sure they're never one upped by the other operators in playful retaliation to their pranks.

For example: they knew it was Gaz who painted "dickhead" on their helmet with glow in the dark paint, so in turn they messed with the bottoms of his boots so they squeaked with every step. When Kyle had seen Menace after the fact, he chased them down while they cackled like a hyena becauae who wouldn't laugh if the person chasing them had squeakers strapped to their heel.

Or how Soap managed to switch out Menace's body wash with a menthol infused one— so when he caught Soap in the shared restrooms he dumped ice cold water onto the man's bare back and head. Never before had Menace needed to run out of a shower so fast to the sounds of Scottish yeling, but John learned to shower whenever the Coperal was fucking off somewhere else.

When the Price and Ghost managed to inconvenience Menace by changing the keyboard configuration on their computer and unscrewed the bolts of their chair... they responded in kind by seran wrapping Every. Single. Item in Price's office when he was on a mission. Though truly this one backfired as they were called into the same office nearly an hour later— running face first into a near invisible seran wrap blockade that was hiding in the doorway, and they had to help unwrap all of their hard work.

They had even replaced all of Ghost's nice, full pens with shitty one's that are completely empty when they knew he had a lot of writing to do that day. Little did they know he kept a pen on him at all times, but they did hear soft swearing from his office when they passed by— mild inconveniences worked best on him, after all he had briefly mentioned that life was a big inconvenience as is.

It's all fine and dandy, but Menace knows they have to step up their game.

Then one of them winds up in a snare trap that Menace set on the path around the base, only for said trickster to pop out of a bush wearing a ghillie suit they stole from sod earlier in the day. They'd been waiting all day for John to spring their trap and now that they got him where they want him, what happens?

Three words.

Pool Noodle Piñata

Menace doesn't even let the man get a fighting chance before they're whacking him in the stomach, only to dart away when they realized he hadn't come alone. John and Kyle had come with water guns to find them, and they nearly yelled at the ice cold water that just barely sprayed their back.

The new idea of the pseudo guerrilla prank warfare was entertaining to say the least... and provided a good means of training for practically everyone at the base. After all, some other soldiers had gotten into the crossfire multiple times. Whether it be the salt that had been replaced by sugar, or stumbling into an office that had just been boobytrapped for someone else.

Everyone knew how to be professional when they needed to, but when they didn't have to there were the occasional nerf gun fights in the cafeteria led by none other than Menace themself, or a water balloon strike from the roof of one of the buildings.

Team building exercises they would call it others would call it an uprising. But the operators of 141 knew better, especially after realizing how Menace meant no harm— this is just who they were.

Their harmless trickster.

The same harmless trickster who comes back from a mission to find that their office had been fully gift-wrapped and the boys who had done it were hiding behind the door with swords fashioned from the sane pool noodle they used on Johnny.

Though the bottle of glitter Menace had picked up along the way came in handy since they were all in once space together. To this day everyone is picking glitter out of their hair or clothes. So who really won this time.

PT 1 | PT 2 | PT 3

[demifiendrsa]

Valve has released a 20th anniversary update for Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2 with Episode 1 & 2 are free to own on Steam until November 18, 2024 10AM PT / 1PM ET.

Overview

BRAND NEW INTERVIEWS WITH THE HALF-LIFE 2 DEV TEAM!

Our Half-Life 1 25th anniversary documentary went so well that we invited Secret Tape back to make another one—this time focusing on Half-Life 2. And it's about a lot more than just the making of a game. Running out of money. Getting hacked, and an early version being leaked online. Being sued by our publisher. Trying to build Steam. It's all in there!

THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY UPDATE FOR HALF-LIFE 2 INCLUDES:

EPISODE ONE AND TWO EXPANSIONS IN THE BOX

Half-Life 2 now includes the complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions along with the base game. They’re accessible from the main menu, and you will automatically advance to the next expansion after completing each one.

HALF-LIFE 2 DEVELOPER COMMENTARY

When we shipped "Lost Coast" a year after Half-Life 2, we included an interactive developer commentary mode to offer interested players a deep dive into the new technology that inspired the demo. We did it again for every Half-Life and Portal game afterwards, but Half-Life 2 itself never had commentary... until now. We got the original HL2 team back together to record brand new commentary tracks for the whole game.

STEAM WORKSHOP SUPPORT

Browse, install, and play user-created content for Half-Life 2 without ever leaving the game. Look for it in the Extras menu!

STEAM GAME RECORDING

Preserve your precious memories of City 17 with the help of Steam! Take a look at the Game Recording timeline in your Steam Overlay for event markers that commemorate big and surprising moments in your playthrough.

UPDATED GAME CONTENT

Every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to fix longstanding bugs, restore content and features lost to time, and improve the quality of a few things like lightmap resolution and fog:

Fixed pops, holes in the world, fading-out and disappearing objects across the game.

Rebalanced the lighting across Half-Life 2 to account for playing with HDR on or off, using the original release as reference.

Cleaner, smoother horizon lines thanks to new radial fog!

Added higher-resolution lightmaps across the game!

Removed green glow from the G-Man model’s eyes in the opening of the game, and restored the reflective glint as seen in the original release.

Fixed missing grass sprites and blacked-out models throughout the game!

UPDATED GRAPHICS SETTINGS

Choose either the original launch day blood and fire effects, or those created for the episodes, when playing the Half-Life 2 base game!

Play with only the highest detail models in High Quality mode!

Get smoother lightmap shadows at Very High shader detail, thanks to new bicubic lightmap filtering!

GAMEPAD, INPUT, AND STEAM DECK UPDATES

Gamepad controls have been updated to match the Half-Life 1 anniversary update.

Aim Assistance has gotten an overhaul making it feel better to use, and there are more configuration options available. Aim Assistance can be enabled separately for gamepad or mouse/keyboard input. The amount of assistance can be tuned up and down, and it’s no longer tied to a skill setting. Want to play on Hard with high aim assist, or Easy with it off? Knock yourself out.

The Steam Deck main menu has been updated with all of today’s additions including the Episodes, Workshop, and new input configuration. The Steam Deck version of the main menu will also appear when you play Half-Life 2 on a PC running Big Picture Mode.

LONG-LOST LOOKS INTO HALF-LIFE 2'S DEVELOPMENT

WATCH OLD VIDEOS FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF HALF-LIFE 2

We rescued these old demos from the hard drives of ancient computers scattered around the office, and are offering them up as high quality videos:

E3 2003

The demo that revealed Half-Life 2 and the Source engine to the world. This was previously only available as shakycam recorded from our E3 booth, now available as direct capture.

E3 2002

We built this demo to bring to E3 a year earlier, and then decided at the last minute we weren’t ready to show the game. 20 years later, we’re okay with you seeing this stuff.

SIGGRAPH 2000

Also known as the “Free TVs” demo, this was shown at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference, hot on the heels of the release of the original Half-Life. This is the highest quality video we’ve still got from this era of Half-Life 2’s development.

RE-RAISING THE BAR

A NEW EDITION OF RAISING THE BAR IS COMING BACK INTO PRINT IN 2025, EXPANDED TO INCLUDE THE HALF-LIFE 2 EPISODES

Nearly two decades since it first went out of print, Raising the Bar is set to return with an expanded second edition—offering a comprehensive look into the creation of the Half-Life 2. Originally published in 2004, this book captured the story of Half-Life 2's development but missed the episodic content that followed.

This new edition concludes the Half-Life 2 development story, with never-before-seen concept art from Episode One and Episode Two, along with ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be.

---

Looking for something to read right now? The Final Hours of Half-Life 2 was written twenty years ago by Geoff Keighley after spending time in Valve's offices during... you guessed it.

---

BUG FIXES AND CHANGE NOTES

Content

Added 3.5 hours of Developer Commentary by members of the Half-Life 2 team.

Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two are now playable from the Half-Life 2 main menu.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast has been added to the Extras menu.

Added Steam Workshop support. Play entire campaigns or replace weapons, enemies, UI, and more with content created by the community.

Added custom Steam Game Recording gameplay events and phases throughout the game.

Rendering and Graphics

Fixed issues causing props or entire maps to be fully bright or fully dark depending on settings.

Added bicubic filtering for lightmaps to produce smoother shadows. It can be enabled by setting Shader Detail to Very High.

Fixed missing grass detail sprites in many maps.

Added settings to enable Classic Effects that were originally in Half-Life 2. These effects can also be enabled using r_classic_blood or r_classic_fire.

Added support for radial fog.

Specular reflectivity has been adjusted throughout Half-Life 2 to better match the original release.

Updated models for the Crossbow and RPG weapons to support ultrawide displays.

Fixed camera clipping into vehicles at high FOV settings.

Fixed lambda cache indicators and other decals vanishing when backtracking through map transitions.

Setting Model Detail to High will now always display the highest detail version of a model and never swap for a lower level-of-detail.

Set Antialiasing to 4x MSAA by default.

Fixed teeth shader rendering fully white on some GPUs.

UI and Options

The UI now scales to support higher resolutions.

Launching the game in Steam Big Picture mode will now use the gamepad-friendly UI previously available on Steam Deck. You can also launch this mode with the "-gamepadui" launch option.

The High Dynamic Range setting has been moved to the main Video settings page.

Commentary mode can now be enabled on the New Game screen.

Fixed display of greyscale art for locked achievement icons to match their behavior in steam.

Improved legibility of gamepad button icons.

Button hints will now prefer to display standard face buttons and trigger icons only. This behavior can be disabled with the "sc_prefer_basic_origin_hints" convar.

Replaced instances of system fonts like Verdana throughout the UI with a new font, GorDIN.

Added a new font renderer that provides more consistent rendering between platforms.

Fixed edges of certain font characters being cut off with antialiasing enabled.

Fixed scrollbars and button animations using inverted colors.

Removed the non-functional "Use 'bloom' effect when available" setting.

Added Rich Presence info while playing Half-Life 2.

Input

Updated the default Steam Input configuration.

Added a Gamepad settings menu.

Added the ability to select a weapon selection UI style while using a gamepad.

Added settings for separate Aim-Assist modes for mouse/keyboard and gamepad. The new Aim-Assist "Enhanced" mode now attempts to track enemies and snap-to-target while driving vehicles.

If using toggle crouch, pressing sprint will now make the player stand.

Legacy joystick settings have been removed from the Mouse settings menu.

Gameplay

Reduced chances of birds getting stuck in the world.

Fixed Combine crouching behavior during door assault scene.

Fixed Combine not firing in some cases during the finale.

Game sounds and music now pause while the game is paused.

Fix crash that can occur if the player gets too far ahead of the helicopter in canals.

Fixed Dr. Breen not looking at the camera in certain broadcasts.

Fixed smooth friction sounds not playing.

General Map Updates

Full HDR lighting and tonemapping pass across every map in Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.

Increased lightmap resolution in most maps.

Adjusted rendering distances across the game so details and objects remain visible much further away.

Removed Far-Z clip plane from most maps.

Increased window and door fade distances.

Improved lighting and world detail inconsistencies during many map transitions.

Tuned fog and skyboxes for every map with water on the horizon for better horizon blending.

Replaced instances of simple reflective water with fully reflective water in nearly every map.

Fixed many instances of floating props across the game.

Sewed up holes, aligned textures, and fixed seams on many displacements throughout the game.

Swapped some distant trees out for higher detail models.

Enabled shadows on many static props that were missing them.

Added glow sprites to all lights that were missing them.

Fixed lightmapping for many large static prop structures.

Added simple rooftop geometry to background buildings that were missing them.

Added background displacement geometry to areas which are now exposed by removed the clipping plane.

Specific Map Updates

The introduction sequence has been adjusted to closely match the original sequence, including fixing specular highlights on the G-Man's eyes.

Fixed various texture seams on train station wall

All fences now properly cast shadows.

Fixed issues with level transitions setting fog values improperly.

Removed emissive value from base of lighting prop which was glowing in strange places.

Fixed a bug with Eli's idle animations during the teleport sequence.

Fixed lightmapping of train cars in Red Letter Day and Route Kanal.

Fixed a rendering bug in Route Kanal where world geometry would pop in and out of view when looking down the tracks.

Aligned pipe and canal wall textures in a few areas to reduce seams and misalignment in Route Kanal.

Added and adjusted canal wall brushes where level geometry was conspicuously missing.

Adjusted brightness and falloff of ambient lights in darker sections of the canals.

Added small grates as dim light sources of ambient light in a few places in the canals.

Fixed an issue where the splash for Manhack Matt's jump into the water would be out of sync.

Fixed a bug where the large brick smokestacks were popping in and out depending on the player's position in Water Hazard.

Added missing cables to utility poles in various canal maps.

Fixed lighting and shadows on the dock and electric tower outside of Black Mesa East.

Added displacements and water plane to 3D skybox near the dam entrance to replace simple brush cliff face.

Fixed the lighting on the rocks and props in and around the Ravenholm graveyard.

Fixed players being able to trap themselves in the graveyard by closing the gate after Gregori would open it.

Added radial fog to all coast maps in the Highway 17 chapter.

Removed area portals from many of the smaller structures along Highway 17.

Fixed a crash that would occur if you parked the buggy in certain areas before entering the bridge level.

Fixed a bug where Vortigaunts could fall through the world.

Added simple 3D skybox representation of the next map visible from the top of the lighthouse in Sandtraps.

Fixed lighting issues during the basement flare sequence in Nova Prospekt.

Added additional geometry to various windows throughout the levels to cast more detailed shadows in Nova Prospekt.

Fixed a bug in teleport sequence in Entanglement ending too early leaving Gordon and Alyx standing around while the teleporter reached its destination.

Fixed the catwalk explosion detonating at the wrong time in Anticitizen One.

Fixed the building dome having no polygons on the outstide in Follow Freeman.

Fixed the ship visibly flying through the building dome in Follow Freeman.

Fixed Barney being left behind during a level transition or nagging the player too early to "roll a grenade" in Follow Freeman.

Improved resolution of portal render texture during finale.

Added soundscape to all menu background maps

Darkened parts of the skyboxes that fall behind Half-Life 2 logo to help with text legibility.

Added geometry to menu background maps for Ultrawide support.

Added smoke to the Ravenholm and Follow Freeman background maps.

Fixed a bug where you could hear the player's bones break in the Citadel menu background map.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Fixes

Fixed player model selection in the options menu.

Fixed slam not being able to be detonated if you were too close to a wall

Fixed view bob with the SMG equipped.

Fixed using the Gravity Gun to yo-yo grenades, sometimes causing the server to disconnect or crash.

Fixed missing sound effects for the Gravity Gun.

Fixed characters playing a missing animation when switching weapons while jumping and moving.

Fix weapons being invisible when being given another weapon of the same class.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Maps

Increased player spawn point count in many maps.

Fixed prop placement in maps that would allow players to escape the world.

Fixed floating props in dm_runoff.

Fixed the area portal on the blast door in dm_runoff causing the world to no longer render when the door was shut.

Added geometry to many maps where the player could see outside of bounds.

Fixed several areas where the player could see out of the world.

Moved the blue barrels in dm_resistance that you could pick up with the Gravity Gun through the chainlink doors.

Other

Improved quality of the Valve intro movie when launching the game.

Fixed playback of the the post-credits movie at the end of Episode One and the intro movie at the start of Episode Two.

The achievements for Episode One and Two have been added to Half-Life 2. When launching the game it will attempt to read data from installed standalone Episodes to re-grant those duplicated achievements.

Hammer: Show detail sprite preview on non-displacement surfaces.

Hammer: Fixed bug where orphaned entities added additional data on each map load.

Hammer: Fixed the ability to render cubemaps.

Hammer: Increased many limits for BSP data. Models 1024 -> 2048, Brushes 8192 -> 16384, TexInfo 12288 -> 16384, TexData 2048 -> 8096, DispInfo 2048 -> 8096.

Added save_transition_music convar that allows streaming music to continue to play in between level transitions.

Localization files updated.

Miscellaneous security fixes.

Notes

The previous version of the game has been archived to a publicly visible Beta branch named "steam_legacy", with the description "Pre-20th Anniversary Build." If a mod or feature is behaving in an unexpected way, you may need to run this archived build until the issue is resolved in the default build.

With the Episodes and Lost Coast now contained within Half-Life 2 itself, we'll be reducing the visibility of the standalone versions on the Steam Store. The old standalone applications will remain available to ensure community projects that rely on them still function properly but they will now appear within the Tools menu on your Steam Library.

WALLPAPERS

Celebrate 20 years of Half-life 2 by decorating your desktop and mobile phone.

HALF-LIFE 2 SOUNDTRACKS

[synths-and-sensibility]

New toy! New toy! Somebody in the local modular community moved their Korg OpSix to a desktop configuration and didn't have any use for the keyboard, so score for me!

I gotta poke at it, but I'm 99% sure I'm going to have to make my own controller. It is interesting because this does not look like enough cables for 37 keys with velocity, so I'm guessing there's a shift register (or two) integrated in there?

The upper portion isn't super deep, so I don't know how well it will fit any modules (eurorack or otherwise, but it does have a ton of convenient holes for various jacks, so we'll see what I can come up with. Obviously keyboard driven gates and CVs, but I'll probably do some other sequencey stuff in there.