Half-Life 2: Fakefactory - Cinematic Mod 2013 PC | RePack ULTIMATE BE | Alpha 16

Cinematic Mod 2013

This version is still in development! It's released as a public alpha, meant for testing purposes.







CM 2013 alpha 16:

- New (reworked) Sampaio model -> almost final
- New Mossman model -> almost final
- New (reworked) Lima model -> very work in process
- Updated Sirena model. If you use this model, please select the new V3000 variants in the character pimper.
- Reworked human rebels. If you use the HD humans, please re-select them in the character pimper
- Fixed a huge amount of map errors (valve bugs and CM bugs)
- Fixed crash bug when shooting at crane in map d2_coast_04
- New configurator setting "Large VRAM mode":
Try this setting if your GPU has more than 2.5 GB vram. It will force managed textures into GPU memory and allow DirectX to upload texture infos on level load, eliminating most stuttering. DO NOT USE WITH LESS THAN 2.5 GB VRAM.

Important notes

This is a graphical / music total conversion. It looks and sounds very different compared to vanilla HL2.
It's free, so don't complain: If you don't like the mod, you can delete it and play something else.
To play this mod, you must own Half Life 2 + Episode 1 + Episode 2 fully installed and unlocked! (= started at least once) You cannot play without Episode 2 content!
Remember to activate "High Quality" graphic settings in the options dialog. Especially the model setting must be at "High" or you'll get facial animation errors with HD models.
You must enable HDR, when using the dynamic shadow enhanced maps. (Looks very weird and unnatural in LDR)
If you are using HD characters, please re-initiate them with the new character pimper after updating the CM!
Foreign language users: Please reinitialize your preferred language with the configurator.
Purpose of this mod

Unified Engine; play the game (HL2 / EP1 / EP2) with the latest Orangebox engine / Advanced HDR / Dynamic Shadows
Enhance the old HL2 maps with HDR, blooming, color-correction, new props, dynamic shadows
Eliminate all blurry / Low-res textures with new Hi-res textures and/or Hi-res-Detail-Overlays
Give the HL2 trilogy a more stressed, darker and uncomfortable look
Enhance the soundtrack with a semi-dynamic new Hollywood-style music
Add optional HD characters
Add more replay-value
History

Click to show.

Hardware requirements

DX9 capable graphics hardware with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)
3 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
Software requirements

Fully installed Steam client. You can't start the mod without Steam running.
Fully installed and unlocked HL2 / EP1 / EP2. Make sure, you have started those games in the past.
Source SDK (SDK, Base, Base 2007) installed (you can get them in Steam | Tools).
Installation instructions

Download and unpack the RAR archive. You will get a setup.exe with some subfolders. Do not unpack the archive in the subfolder. Just run setup.exe and follow the onscreen-instructions.

The mod has to be installed into the "common" folder inside the Steam directory structure. The installer will try to direct you to the right point. During installation the setup will migrate some VPK files from your half-life 2 installation into the mod directory.

Please assure the complete download of Half-Life 2 and its episodes, before trying to install the mod. Start HL2, EP1 and EP2 at least one time.

The installation will take a while.

Oculus Rift support (untested)

Add "-vr" to the commandline of the Shortcuts in your CM2013 startmenu folder. (The final version will contain additional shortcuts.)

Starting the mod

Allways start your STEAM. The mod can start without steam running, but this will give you a lot of trouble (ingame-problems, resetting steam language settings). The final version will check for a running steam when starting. Use the shortcuts in the CM2013 startmenu folder for starting the mod.

About savegames

In this version almost all maps are updated. This will give you problems with savegames for sure. I'm sorry about that, but you have to start again with the actual chapter. This is, because VALVE stores several entity-states with entity-id into the savegames. Each map-update is invalidating the id-table, which leads to stability problems or strange effects when loading a savegame with old map-entities into the new maps.

Microstutter and heapsize

If you encounter microstuttering ingame (animations), try the heapsize command. Add -heapsize {bytes} to the shortcuts, i.e.: Shortcut: Cinematic Mod EP2 Target: …launcher.exe" -heapsize 512000.

Never set the heapsize above [your installed RAM amount / 3] or 512MB

setup.exe and virus warning

Setup uses a tool called SetACL for setting write permissions to the mods screenshots / cfg / save directories. Some antivirus software could warn about possible malware. This is a false positive.

Technical info

This mod's binaries are modified for memory allocation beyond 2 GB. To prevent Steam from overwriting this binaries with its own copies on each start, the mod is using a little launcher, that reroutes Steam's original binaries to > NIL.

Start this mod only with the shortcuts in your start menu (that were created during installation)!

Sound drops or crackling

If sound crackles occures, you can fix this by setting the snd_mixahead value in the autoexec's of CM's subdirectories. You will find the autoexec.cfg in the following directories:

FAKEFACTORY_CM2013hl2cfg
FAKEFACTORY_CM2013episodiccfg
FAKEFACTORY_CM2013ep2cfg
Try different value like snd_mixahead "0.2" or snd_mixahead "0.4" for increasing the buffered time of soundsamples. This will fix crackling or dropouts, but can lead to slightly asynchronous or delayed sounds.

Dynamic Shadows Note

The dynamic shadows were achieved with the placement of env_projectedtexture entities. Env_projectedtexture entities are omni-directional lightsources without falloff. This entity type is very costly and must be used sparingly and only in the most appropriate areas, where the normal static shadow would break the principle of optics too obviously.

For performance reasons I chose a limit of 3 simultaneous active env_projectedtextures in the players view cone. To avoid some of the numerous bugs with env_projectedtextures (like flickering overlays, light-bleeding through walls or just crashes) I had to place several lightsources different in the maps.

Env_projectedtexture entities are totally unsuitable as a replacement for parallel illumination such as sunlight. For a more accurate sun shadow I used area-triggered shadow_controllers with different angles in addition to the projected textures.

All these together is not the perfect solution, but much better than the old static lighting.

Attention: You must enable HDR, when using the dynamic shadow enhanced maps. (Looks very weird and unnatural in LDR)

Recources and credits

Click to show.

Donations

Development of the Cinematic Mod has taken 5+ years of my life, a vast amount of coffee and 18000+ dollars for software and resources.

It will stay free for all, but you are welcome to donate a free amount for further development via paypal. If you want to donate, please take a look at the Who is FakeFactory? page. You can choose the amount of your donation yourself.