A Tape from City 17 - A Half-Life: Alyx Short [S2FM]

•
Something simple that has been gnawing at the back of my head for a while.

With this I tried to mimic an old Hi8 camcorder look and sound as best I could. I also wanted to originally upload this in 480p; however, YouTube assigns really garbage compression to SD which made it borderline unwatchable and that's why the original 480p has been upscaled to 4K.

Voices:
Male Citizen & Drunk Russian Citizen - Csaba Szigeti
Female Citizen - Lilla Fábián

Additional assets:
Half-Life 2: Remade Assets part 1,2,3 - Project 17/HL2RA Team
Portal Megapack & HDRI Template Maps - Harry101UK

Software:
Source 2 Filmmaker
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Photoshop
Audacity

Twitter:

Artwork:

Support my work:

[JerryAndershon]

I loved the bit at the end. It's real easy to forget that a massive chunk of the Combine's military are in fact living creatures grafted with an ungodly amount of cybernetics, rather than simply being purpose built automatons.

[HistoryScope]

Almost no game does dystopia better than Half-Life and this video perfectly captures the sheer hopelessness Half-Life portrayed in its worldbuilding (e.g. reducing food supply to make people more likely to collaborate, to eventually volunteer to be surgically altered into mindless soldiers)

[CoreyLaddo]

Unbelievably well done, you have to teach me your ways!

[HarryUK]

Damn, this is fantastically done! The camera motion and sound design are so realistic, I almost forgot it was animated for a while. Great stuff!

[jakeg]

This guy gets Half-Life. This world diverged from ours sometime between 1998 and 2003. VHS tapes would still very much exist, and not just as a novelty item in your garage. Also, glad to see someone still has cigarettes. Don't think I'd last 24 hours without one in this depressing world

[QuestionableSprite]

The beginning train was really cool since we don’t get to see most of the wastelands but you’ve made them relevant in the story again

[SheathEntertainment]

Spectacular job! What most people don’t realize is because the Seven Hour War occurred in the early 2000’s around the time of the first Half Life, all of our technology is still stuck in that 1990s-2000s era.

Cameras, computers, and recording devices were never improved upon and the digital age of smart phones and high definition resolution were never invented, due to civilization collapsing in this alternate timeline under the Combine Empire.

[Flamme-Sanabi]

What I like about this is, that it is not just gameplay with some filters on it and some acting. It's a god damn animation, hell yea.

[eckojay]

At 5:02 that hunter call in the distance is really ominous. Amazing work on all fronts

[aegis]

One of the best HL animators on this platform.

[canadianblt]

Oof that callback to “Protectors, ” very nice touch. I love that you’re weaving a story between your other videos.

The attention to detail, quality of animations+sounds, level design, story telling ability through environment as opposed to dialogue… all so fitting to Half-Life. Really fantastic work

[jackwill]

I love how subtle the camcorder effects are in this shortfilm. It's really hard to recreate without making it cheesy but this was done so well that it triggered lots of memories from the early 2000s for me.

[normalperson]

Intentionally or unintentionally, I love how you included the fact the combine would split friends and family members when a person is relocated as shown by the train scene right after they were caught

[Lulzalex]

This is definitely not something simple like you said. This is revolutionary, and would've looked crap in SFM 1. This is literally a ground breaking video it's SO cool I wish I had a platform so everyone in the world could see your channel... It's gonna happen sooner or later, but I would like that you get your roses sooner than later.

[wolfclck]

Oh man! Between the whole splitting up of people so that they couldn't get attached and form relationships with one another to the usage of the dropship's classic hover noise as a reimagination of the noises that its biological side would make to the choreography of the whole thing! This right here is a labor of love that only the truest of a Half-Life aficionado could dream! Bravo! Cudos on the wasteland train sequence at the beginning, too!

[evilboy]

The story, the animation, the custom levels, I can only say time and time again. That is absolutely incredible. Ever since I've seen consequences I've not seen a single more talented HL animator than you on this or any other platform.

Incredible too is the sound design, all the little details you thought of. Like the sounds of the man holding the camera, so on so forth. Sounds of cloth moving, the muffling, all of that.

[KeksimusMaximus]

4:27 Holy shid, this is a reference to "Protectors" video. Damn, no one even cleaned that place after the shootout

[prismaux]

god... the sheer humanity present in this video. the way the recorder zooms in and moves around... the cigarette smoking, the cat, the reactions to the snark... it all feels so so real. the environments are all so beautifully rendered too.

[ootahcanadiensis]

0:17
This is probably the second time i've seen an Antlion in a S2FM animation, which i find odd. probably since animating them are a real challenge since the obvious anatomy of them, hind legs in the front and the front legs in the back.

5:02
As soon as i heard the Hunter, i began to panic a bit, before realizing there isn't a model for it *yet* in Source 2

[famousams]

Its absolutely amazing to me how you tied it into all your previous shorts as well, with the bodies now rotting from the previous one in this tape