📷 Original Texture Source Photography from Half-Life 1

Source photos by Karen Laur

[karenlaur]

I got chased out of Costco TWICE getting those food photos, lol.

[CameronWasmund]

imagine working freight at some grocery store and someone comes in and takes a picture of the potatos you stocked and puts them in one of the greatest video games ever made and that one box is seen by millions of people.

[MarphitimusBlackimus]

It's also worth noting that most, if not all, of Karen Laur's photo references were taken in and around the Seattle, Washington area, near where Valve's offices were, and several locations and landmarks can be identified today. For example, the canal photos seen at 4:24 through 4:35 were taken at Ballard Locks, a popular tourist attraction in the city.

On a side note, the Half-Life Wikia/Fandom you show at 0:07 was abandoned almost a decade ago and hasn't been maintained in that time. The entirety of the wiki's staff, myself included, created and moved over to the Combine OverWiki, a fully community-owned and run wiki free of advertisements and the rest of the obnoxious pop-ups and embedded videos you see there.

[famalam]

Honestly the most interesting of all hl trivia. Seeing the real world images of what’s burned into my memory playing hl as a kid was strangely beautiful. Also reminded me of an earlier time of 90s computer encyclopedias for some reason. It’s new & nostalgic at the same time. Wonderful stuff

[lucaswinstonismyname]

The olden days where you could take low-res photos around town, plaster parts of them all over your game, and people would praise how good the graphics look.

[Becerraproductionhaus]

It's so surreal seeing all these HL assets existing in the real world

[Clazzette]

the fact bugs are used for textures in this game, this legit gave me a scare.

and dude, this was actually informative content. thanks for showing us these!

[TheEngieTF]

I wish they would use that famous "Cobble stone" texture at least once

[xx]

Daaaamn crazy seeing those red container textures original source, theyre used all over GoldSrc engine games

[pinguyNT]

It is incredible the level of realism that valve has wanted to include, despite the limitations of that era have been very good at innovating graphics and not only in textures even in AI.

[maikatideibaskapanaumrqlatupa]

You become so used to seeing some of these textures that they look out of place when you see them surrounded by other objects irl.

[TheEngieTF]

Man, I thought the desert skyboxes were only pixelated art. But no, it's actually a real place. Just like the Windows XP background

[fridaycaliforniaa]

Imagine being one of the persons whose objects were randomly used as textures for the best game ever...

« _Hey, look son, this was one of my crates, back when I worked at this old depot, 30 years ago_ »

[Dalekcomments]

It's so surreal seeing this. I never honestly thought the textures in Half-Life were real, they seemed too perfect to be real. I thought all of them were photoshopped. To think some of the doors and big machinery were train doors of all things! Thank you Karen for your amazing pictures and work.

[JettJamesGD]

Some of these textures, specifically the doors, are so iconic that I don’t see them as “real-world photos used for half-life”, I see them more as “half-life textures in real life”.

That probably made no sense but maybe you get what I mean

[IamBatdman]

4:17 3_2216.BMP is used as a ceiling texture in Surface Tension. And 3_2219.BMP is used in Unforeseen Consequences.

[FenNick]

At around 5-6 years old, this game was my first memorable encounter of rusted metal and often with flakes of paint coming off it. I have had a fascination for it ever since. Nice to see the origins.

[gash]

the xen levels' skyboxes always looked very similar to microscopic imaging of cells and other micro-organisms to me. and now I see that those images were also used, so my hunch was kinda correct, good to know I guess.

[four-en-tee]

damn, i can't believe there's cheez-itz in Half Life

Fucking love this game

[MrNiba]

The wall texture at 3:30 is actually from P000598 (shown at 4:08)