The Burton Equation News

[p]Goreagulation is a mod developed by Kralich in 2022 and has been folded into KralKom, like The Burton Equation. Now, it joins TBE on Steam![/p][p][/p][h3]GOREAGULATION HAS RELEASED ON STEAM![/h3][p]If you haven't seen it already, check out the Steam Release trailer here![/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h2]ACHIEVEMENTS[/h2][p]Seven achievements give you a reason to replay and explore Goreagulation - with all-new secrets expanding the lore of the mod.[/p][p][/p][h2]CHANGELOG[/h2][p]To put a capper on this short-but-sweet news article, below is a list of all the changes that made it into this release - big and small!
[/p][p]GENERAL:
-Fixed occurrence of HL2 loading screen flashing up for a second before it moves to the Goreagulation loading screen
-Made the main-menu loading screen a Gaussian blurred + modified still of the menu map
-Added a formal keybind for disabling/enabling the eye overlay screen effect
-Added grenade cooking
-Added support for idles and first-time draws
-Fixed disparity in Crossbow zoom in colours
-Added draw frames
-Added reload frames
-Added magazine ejection support for the Fleshmg
-Added sprinting when holding a physics object
-Added seven achievements with all relevant map-side/code support & assets
-New particle effects for explosions, fire, and impact effects (including blood)
-Updated closed captions with Meatwoman lines
-KralKom logo added to the end credits
-KralKom intro added to the intro movies
[/p][p]ASSETS:
-Made the "smaller anthive" prop colour more consistent with the other two hive props
-Made the self-illumination on the three hive models consistent and/or fixed fullbright cases
-Improved phong shading and normal mapping on the large and small hive models
-Added a Meatwoman model
-Added multiple sizings of the gortigaunt vortex for the ending room
-Fixed the infamous low-res bloody rebel bug
-Created four "Gorefittis" to be sprinkled throughout the levels
-Security bank now uses snaps of Goreagulation maps
-Added LODs for Gorebine soldiers and the Meathunters
-Citizentech props used in Gore1 have had their UVs fixed
[/p][p]MAPS: Gore1:
-Added a blood-spurt particle effect to every eye door
-Added a Meatman to the gore den
-Fixed cubemaps
-Fog density reduced
-Increased brightness scale on the projected texture at the gate puzzle you open up
-Updated art pass
-Added sprites to every light source
-Added a "man" conveyor belt to the roof of the big room
-Made a super secret hidden room for the Meatwoman's recording room
-Fixed level fadein happening on map load
-Added a new mini-secret for adding onto your SMG grenade supply
-Added relevant achievement triggers
-Introduced Gorefitti

Gore2:
-Fixed unsewn displacements in the ambush pit
-Fixed visible dev textures at the top of the ambush pit
-Added a blood-spurt particle effect to every eye door
-Added a Meatman to the gore den
-Fixed cubemaps
-Fog density reduced
-Adjusted texture rotation on the catwalk railings
-General art pass improvements
-Small optimisations
-Made a super secret hidden room for the Meatwoman's recording room
-Added a new mini secret with a small cache of gear
-Added relevant achievement triggers
-Added sprites to all light sources
-Introduced Gorefitti
-Made the unfortunate victim rebels have some variety
-Gore mine rebels now have unique animations for being "drilled" and being released from drilling

Gore3:
-Added a blood-spurt particle effect to every eye door
-Added a Meatwoman in the gore den
-Fixed cubemaps
-Fog density reduced
-Recreated Gorethedral mural entirely by hand
-Introduced Gorefitti
-General art pass improvements
-Added a mini secret with revolver and smg grenades
-Added sprites to all light sources
-Made a super secret hidden room for the Meatwoman's recording room
-Added relevant achievement triggers
-Made the head in the Gorethedral emit angry noises

Gore4:
-Replaced the pistol with a Fleshmg
-Replaced the random corpse in the gore den with a Meatman
-Fixed cubemaps
-Improved displacement alpha painting on a few displacements
-Added moving gortigaunt vortexes to the "bad ending" platforms
-Added meatwomen and meatmen to the hallway before the Eye as a foreboding of what's to come
-Fog density reduced
-General art pass improvements
-Made a super secret hidden room for the Meatwoman's recording room
-Added relevant achievement triggers
-Improved FPS in the final room a bit (30~ish to 50~ish)
-Added sprites to all light sources
-Added more autosaves

Gore5a:
-Fixed cubemaps
-Additional art passing in the stairwell
-Added sprites to all light sources
-Added relevant achievement triggers

Gore5b:
-Fixed cubemaps
-Additional art pass throughout
-Added sprites to all light sources
-Added relevant achievement triggers

Gore_Good_BG
-Made consistent with improvements to Gore5b
-Fixed cubemaps

Gore_Bad_BG
-Fixed cubemaps

Gore_BG
-Fixed cubemaps[/p][hr][/hr][p]And that's a wrap! Additional updates could land in the future - Steam makes that all too easy. For now, enjoy the definitive release of Goreagulation![/p]

[p]Hey everyone! I didn't expect to be back here (and maybe you didn't expect it either), but the 1.3 patch for TBE is now out! The focus of this patch is introducing 11 achievements into the game, rewarding progression and also rewarding finding all instances of the two recurring "hidden object" events in the mod. Other minor fixes and tweaks were made seeing as I had to modify almost every map for the achievement triggers anyway. Without further ado, let's break it down![/p][h2]Achievements[/h2][p]For another Sourcemod I'm releasing on Steam soon, Goreagulation (which is getting a big overhaul for the occasion), I decided a big opportunity was to learn how to code and integrate achievements. There's a lot that goes into this and it's pretty terribly documented, but I eventually got a set working for that mod. Although there's a lot involved, it's all fairly simple stuff, and I remembered one of the main requests I got for TBE even from the people who enjoyed it as-is was achievements. So, I added three sets of achievements:[/p]

• [p]One for each era completed (achieved when hitting the "credits" map for a given chapter)[/p]
• [p]One for each boss enemy defeated (achieved when the enemy is either dead or the encounter is finished)[/p]
• [p]One for finding all occurrences of the G-Woman and Beloryann (who both appear in every era)[/p]

[p]That means 11 achievements all in all! There's not any "kill x enemies with x gun" or other more specific achievements as these are quite a bit more involved on the coding side and I'm only just getting to grips with this system. I'm not against adding additional achievements in future when or if I figure that out, though for now both TBE and Goreagulation will just use stuff like the above. I've tried to test them as best I'm able, but if you run into any issues unlocking an achievement, go ahead and let me know on the Steam discussions.[/p][h2]20s Improvements[/h2][p] [/p][p]The bulk of the changes here were focused around rebalancing the Fabreen fight in Noir, which historically gets a bit of flak for the difficulty spike. Fabreen himself had his health reduced by about a quarter whilst the number of health pickups was increased by about 50%. Meanwhile, there was a persistent issue dating back to the 2018 versions of this map that used the "map fade in" feature in HL2; turns out this fade-in fires every time you reload a save (and was responsible for even more deaths from people already struggling), so this has also now been solved.[/p][h2]Terminus Improvements[/h2][p] [/p][p]Two small changes here - again, Fabreen's health was nerfed in the final fight for the same reasons as Noir. I noticed skybox fog was setup but not enabled in t_d4 (the strider map), so I fixed that too; and, lastly, there was a pervasive issue with cubemaps in t_d5b (the final map of the mod) which prevented me from building them without a map corruption. I've since worked out this is because maps with "light giving textures" (e.g. light003) applied to a big brush face seem to freak out cubemap building. I built the cubemaps in a version of the map without this lighting, then baked those cubemaps into the BSP separately. The result is working cubemaps without sacrificing the intent for the under-floor lighting.[/p][h2]KralKom[/h2][p]The last change worth mentioning is that The Burton Equation is being retroactively folded into KralKom, a name/label I'm using for the Source mods I release on Steam. I'm not generally a fan of mod teams having names because most mod teams fail to make one mod, let alone multiple that are different enough to warrant branding that ties them all together. However, I made The Burton Equation with a group of alumni very similar to who contributed to parts of Goreagulation, and those same folks will also be contributing to my next project. These contributors differ a bit from project to project but there's a lot of similar names involved and I expect there always will be (and a lot of them are from RTBR as well). Rather than continue to only effectively credit myself on the actual Steam page, we agreed on a conglomerate of Kralich & Kompany, shortened to KralKom, to group together all of these disparate projects. Goreagulation's Steam release will also be folded into KralKom retroactively; our next project will be the first original production under the new group. This takes the form of an edit to the Steam page, a new intro graphic (a temp one whilst we conceptualise something more final for the future), and a logo in the ending credits.[/p][hr][/hr][p]And that's all! I had thought about saying, again, that 1.3 was the "final planned updated for TBE", and it is, at least as much as 1.2 was. I do generally believe in moving on to greener pastures and doing something new with what you've learned instead of polishing the same thing, but being on Steam makes it really easy to ship updates like this and I can't guarantee I'll resist the pull to make other edits in future. For now though, that's all she wrote - I hope you enjoy the achievement hunting, and keep an eye on the KralKom page for more mods coming soon![/p]

[p]There have been completely baseless accusations of AI use in the creation of TBE's comics, and after seeing it on-and-off for the last year I've decided to make a be-all-end-all post addressing it. Right out the gate, here's proof that my chats with the artist go all the way back to 2020, which is a year before even the extremely dodgy and rudimentary DALLE Mini was publicly accessible. These chat logs continue to still be prior to the onset of modern generative AI, and certainly anything capable of producing coherent comics like those seen in the mod: https://imgur.com/a/E7kgKy0[/p][p]
In refuting these accusations out of respect for the artist, Adam Rogers - a professor of graphic art who I deliberately challenged to address multiple art styles, palettes, themes, and ideas, and who volunteered dozens of hours of his time to making the comics in this mod - I have grown really frustrated at the tendency for people to accuse any art from an unusual source as being AI generated. Yeah, it's pretty rare for HL2 mods to have actual comics art in them...that was the point! I think it should also be noted that Steam requires a disclaimer about AI generated content. There's no disclaimer because it wasn't used.

It has been especially frustrating that some people have had the audacity to request proof it isn't AI generated whilst having zero proof of their own that it was. This entitled and uninformed view is despicable - modders like myself and creators like Adam work for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours on products that are entirely free. That doesn't make mods immune from legitimate, good-faith criticism. It does mean you should do the barest minimum of research before accusing something that is a pure labour of love of taking shortcuts on one of its key selling points.

If you don't like the comics, that's fine, and up to you. I acknowledge the criticism that the artwork is inconsistent in direction sometimes - that's on me, to be clear, not Adam. This was my first rodeo doing anything like storyboarding and managing comic creation with a professional, and I feel extremely fortunate for the opportunity. Adam followed everything I asked basically to the letter, and never produced a result I wasn't happy with. The art style inconsistency is deliberate, as part of the whole "time travelling and changing the vibe each time" core conceit of the mod, but again, I acknowledge now with five years of hindsight there could've been better ways to get that across to Adam.

What I can't accept is baseless accusations that Adam did not sweat for dozens of hours to make a one-of-a-kind set of comic pieces of TBE. He deserves better, every person who helped make this mod happens deserves better, and you, those accusing creators of not doing that work for a product you received for free and with zero evidence, should try harder.[/p]

A stream is being hosted for The Burton Equation over on the Raising The Bar Redux YouTube channel! Check it out here for details and Q&A: https://youtu.be/zrbGH2MHtuM

Hey folks - the 1.2 patch for The Burton Equation, the final planned patch, is now out. It features a small bevy of game-side changes, with more emphasis on meta additions like open-sourced code, an example addon for modding the mod, and older branches made available on Steam for people to try.

First, we'll go into the open-sourcing and branches added on Steam.

[h2]Open Sourced Code[/h2]



The code for The Burton Equation is now public on github, at this link: https://github.com/Kralich/the-burton-equation-mapbase

This means you can now look at how features like the powerups or different weapon mechanics were done. You can use this code in your own mods, or even use it when making a mod of some kind for TBE. Just be sure to credit all of the programmers in the credits for TBE (so 1upD, Blixibon, arbabf, and Barcode Scanner).

[h2]Steam Branches[/h2]



In addition to the code, many older builds of the mod have now been made available on Steam; one build for each year of development, plus a build for the 1.0 release of the mod. This was at the request of a few individuals specifically interested in cataloguing the development history of the mod. These can be accessed on Steam, via "properties", then "betas", and selecting the build you'd like from the dropdown list.

[h2]Example Addon - Black USP[/h2]



There's been a handful of people expressing interest in modding TBE, and although I enabled file/addon posting, people still seemed confused on how to upload addons and where. I created this quick sample addon so the section will now show on the main page and as an example for others. If you like how it looks, you can download it here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-burton-equation/addons/tbe-example-addon-black-usp

That concludes all of the modding/meta additions to TBE; now for the actual game additions.

[h2]Item Glows[/h2]


In the release, health vials and most ammo pickups glowed to help with visibility in some chapters and also add to the arcadey vibe of the mod. In this release, the health kit was given glows as well, and the explosives added to many chapters were also given a special glow-type.

[h2]Physics Kicking[/h2]

Since the player doesn't have a gravity gun, physics-based combat mainly boiled down to explosives and other map-based events. With this code change, the kick will now propel held props at the same physics force as if it were on the ground. It's not a true "gravity gun", but can be used to great effect with certain props.

[h2]Charge Punch[/h2]

Melee combat is not necessarily the main way to kill enemies, but I feel the punch-punch-kick combo is a pretty fun one to land now and then, and have always felt a lot of the fun in TBE is trying to use the tools available to kill enemies in different ways than just shooting them. You can now charge up a "super punch" which does more damage than the kick, with the alt-fire button; so, a kick and a charge melee will now dispatch most enemies (or, softening them up with a pistol or other environmental damage first). It also has a similar amount of physics force as the kick, for punching dudes off of buildings or down flights of stairs.

And that's all for the 1.2 patch. Thanks everyone who followed the mod's history, who has provided feedback, any interest, and of course everyone who contributed to making the mod happen. If you do anything interesting with the mod's code, assets, maps, and etc, please feel free to get in touch with me on Discord with the username kralich.