Photos from City 17 (56K Beware)

[jasonh1234]

Well Valve has said that the idea for the look and location of the Eastern European City 17 came from from one of their staff members who is Romanian.

So assuming they're going off the capital city of Romania (Bucharest)

Here are some Pre-Combine invasion shots I took on of "City 17" while on Vacation. In case anyone is interested.

 

[jasonh1234]

 

[jasonh1234]

 

[jasonh1234]

 

[jhero]

Whoa, nice pictures! It'd be sweet if HL3 looked liked that!

 

[Cedric]

after a long loading time (56k :E) i finally loaded all the shots and i think you might be right, a couple of those shots look similar to the HL2 level. so i suppose maybe valve did base some of city 17 on it?

 

[Vitalogy]

Originally posted by jasonh1234

Thats a sweet picture. A lot of the ones did remind me of the HL2 level, so I think this may be correct.

 

[khaki]

Yeah, it looks like VALVe was inspired from the surroundings. Especially from this shot.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by khaki
Yeah, it looks like VALVe was inspired from the surroundings. Especially from this shot.

LOL I actually got scared when I saw that. Maybe I need some sleep

 

[simmo]

good work Khaki, looks like the car is going straight for it! oh no!

 

[Sat]

Originally posted by jhero
Whoa, nice pictures! It'd be sweet if HL3 looked liked that!

But i hope it will looks like that heh !
HL3 is coming in 4 or 5 years, so imagine what computers will be able to do.
I really think it will looks like on this photos with just a little less details.

 

[Cedric]

lol , nice editing khaki! its weird how it kinda fits in after seeing the HL2 screenshots.

 

[righte0us]

rofl nice editing :E

 

[dk_bot]

wow lovley pics thats a nice country, i love the editing too i was like wtf???

i hear new or better quality hl2 media out soon

 

[pinkerton]

creepy

 

[Lifthz]

I thought you were gunna show me some in-game pics man.

 

[jhero]

Hehe, me 2...

 

[Frost]

Wonderful shots! They could have used you as a location scout and texture finder I registered just to comment! I hope you had a good vacation, those pictures are amazing when held next to ones from Half-Life 2... just great!

 

[jasonh1234]

Originally posted by Frost
Wonderful shots! They could have used you as a location scout and texture finder I registered just to comment! I hope you had a good vacation, those pictures are amazing when held next to ones from Half-Life 2... just great!

Actually I took a lot of photos for the sole use of making textures from. The great thing about all the photo taking I did was that when my camera filled up I just popped my memory card into my laptop, moved all the files over, popped the card back in my camera, and started shooting again. 2 sets of rechargable batteries too. I must have took 2 GB of Photos between Istanbul and London. That was in 2001.

It's a completely different planet over there in Europe.

Romania is nice but it's EXTREMELY run down. The pictures above don't really show it but to best describe it I'd say it looks like the capital city was completely abandoned for 40 years and people just moved back to inhabit it about 2 years ago. The air quality is worse than LA, there is barely any city maintainence (full on trees are growing through the sidewalks in some places) The city is full of communist built buildings which all look the same and are massive. Many entire neighborhoods were never finished because they ran out of money, so there are blocks and blocks of massive partially finished buildings that no-one has touched in over 20 years. It's a very poor country but they all get by pretty good.
The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)
The Romanian girls all love anyone that can speak English. American, Canadian, British, Australian, whatever. You speak English and you're the man over there. Plus you can roll like a king with the exchange rate.

Check out the hottie I met my first night in Romania at a club.

Then I met her girlfriend. :E

Damn that was fun! :smoking:

In the summer everyone heads to Costinesh.(sp) (Beach town on the black Sea.) That's party central in Romania during the summer.

Oh and here's Dracula's Castle if anyone was interested. I spent a full moon night in an inn right next to it. Didn't even know it was there until the next morning.

The highlight of the trip was definately Istanbul though. That city was great. Met a couple more girls there.

Can't wait to go again. :bounce:

 

[FalconNinja]

Wow!I must say!Ummm where is this place because I wanna goto Europe but do you have a location or directions??????.

 

[jhero]

NIce Jason! :thumbs:

 

[xtekian]

1337 69 posts! nice going jasonh1234

 

[Peks]

damn those chix r fine

 

[LoneDeranger]

The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)

Yep, stray dogs are a big problem in former Soviet republics, especially in smaller cities. They probably outnumber normal dogs by at least 3:1. I remember when I was a kid we used to run away from them and hide on fences/trees. One guy got bitten and had to go to the hospital.

At one point it got so bad they had the army drive around and shoot them around 4:00 AM. Not pretty.

BTW, those are some hot girls you got there!

 

[Newton]

Customs Officer : "Do you have anything to declair?"
Jason1234 : "Just this......"

Originally posted by jasonh1234

They are deffinately 2 high quality specimens of hottness.

I must make my way over to europe again.....

 

[JunkieXL]

did you get some? :naughty:

 

[Jagermeister]

Nice pics, jason :afro: :thumbs:

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by jasonh1234
Actually I took a lot of photos for the sole use of making textures from. The great thing about all the photo taking I did was that when my camera filled up I just popped my memory card into my laptop, moved all the files over, popped the card back in my camera, and started shooting again. 2 sets of rechargable batteries too. I must have took 2 GB of Photos between Istanbul and London. That was in 2001.

It's a completely different planet over there in Europe.

Romania is nice but it's EXTREMELY run down. The pictures above don't really show it but to best describe it I'd say it looks like the capital city was completely abandoned for 40 years and people just moved back to inhabit it about 2 years ago. The air quality is worse than LA, there is barely any city maintainence (full on trees are growing through the sidewalks in some places) The city is full of communist built buildings which all look the same and are massive. Many entire neighborhoods were never finished because they ran out of money, so there are blocks and blocks of massive partially finished buildings that no-one has touched in over 20 years. It's a very poor country but they all get by pretty good.
The biggest problem the city faces is stray dogs. They're everywhere and have turned semi wild. They travel in packs for defence and it's not at all out of place to see a pack of 15 dogs strolling down the middle of a street. Most people want to get rid of them because they're a hazard to motorists and pedestrians but there's no budget or resources to do anything so nothing gets done. I saw a dead dog lying on the road once and 2 days later passed by the same spot and it was still there but with tires tracks across it. (Ugh)
The Romanian girls all love anyone that can speak English. American, Canadian, British, Australian, whatever. You speak English and you're the man over there. Plus you can roll like a king with the exchange rate.

Check out the hottie I met my first night in Romania at a club.

Then I met her girlfriend. :E

Damn that was fun! :smoking:

In the summer everyone heads to Costinesh.(sp) (Beach town on the black Sea.) That's party central in Romania during the summer.

Oh and here's Dracula's Castle if anyone was interested. I spent a full moon night in an inn right next to it. Didn't even know it was there until the next morning.

The highlight of the trip was definately Istanbul though. That city was great. Met a couple more girls there.

Can't wait to go again. :bounce:

Good stuff man. I hope you got what you wanted.

 

[Frost]

Well now I KNOW you had fun there! You took pictures of those girls just for textures and model references too right? LOL Very cool stuff and thanks for telling us more about your trip. I've never left the states, I'm only 19 but I can't wait to visit the world. I might have to check out Romania first now too

 

[BWMASTER]

*edited*

I have been to Romania.

The black sea is the best, only the water is salty when it gets in ur mouth.

Whats really fun is that some pretty ladies dont want a tan line around their breasts and what I'm getting at here is...........

 

[BWMASTER]

I also want to point out that the last BIG building in your pictures there is the second largest in land area in the World, next to the Pentagon in USA.:bounce:

 

[teobg]

I think Gabe made a mistake in that interview:

"Viktor Antonov - Art Director/Conceptual Designer
Viktor has been a conceptual designer for the videogame industry since 1996. He first joined Valve from Xatrix Entertainment where his responsibilities included designing environments, lighting and atmosphere on projects such as Kingpin. He holds a transportation design degree from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has also designed for commercials, animation and film in the USA and Europe. Viktor was born and spent his childhood in Sofia, Bulgaria after which he has been living in Paris France, Montreaux Switzerland, Los Angeles and Seattle."

The above info is from their website. So it's safe to say that the idea for the look and location of the Eastern European City 17 came from Victor Antonov who is BULGARIAN - born and raised in Sofia, BULGARIA.

Ted

 

[jasonh1234]

Whoa.

 

[FiVe7]

Definately resemblance! Valve has done a great job capturing the city.

 

[csmighty]

whhhhhhooooooo....god damn, those are damn fine romanians

 

[Delicious Bass]

nice, the city looks a lot like city 17

 

[Wsh]

teobg, almost, yes. Only that it isn't about Viktor Antonov afaik

 

[teobg]

Originally posted by Wsh
teobg, almost, yes. Only that it isn't about Viktor Antonov afaik

I dare to differ! Here is the interview in which Gabe's talking about Viktor and him been a Romanian:

"HomeLAN - There are any number of directions you could have taken the story of Half-Life 2. Why did you decide to take the story to a fictional Eastern European city?


Gabe Newell - Within the story, there are reasons why you are in City 17. Outside of what is happening in the story, two factors influenced our inclusion of City 17 - the first was that Viktor Antonov grew up in Romania and without really intending to he got a bunch of the artists excited about an art direction that drew heavily on eastern European source material, and the second was that thematically present day eastern Europe exists at a really interesting crossroad between the past and the future which resonates with what goes on in Half-Life 2."

Gabe has obviously made a mistake.

Ted

 

[GOoch]

jasonh1234


Good god youve done some good work here m8 any chance of you setting up some sort of thing were we can view some of the other pics m8.
mostley with the lovley women in them

 

[Rigamix]