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Early 1998 Classic HEV Suit

Here's the red suit for you HL1 beta enthusiasts, enjoy :)
For all you orange suit likers, here's the original: https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3382787966

Between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Gordon Freeman's armour went through a notable renevation, courtesy of Doctor Isaac Kleiner. The armor's control panels were removed (chest and dorsals of the hand), more fabric was introduced (joints and much of the torso), and many of the armor's metal plates were replaced with carbon fiber replacements (biceps and forearms). While many of these changes made the suit much more iconic (and subjectively a little easier on the eyes), it's not my preferred look for the suit. So I'm bringing it back to 1998 ...mostly.

Of course since the arms are just retextured, I've had to take a few liberties. My texture was inspired by the leaked high resolution HL1 arm textures, Black Mesa's textures, and weirdly, the red 2001 HEV suit from Half-Life 2's earlier development. Is it perfect? God no. But I think it works well enough for the purposes of my mod.

The suit was also another matter entirely. For a while I considered redoing the HL2 suit and calling it a day, but that was too time consuming for me. So I decided to decompile the PS2 HEV suit, and retexture & partially remesh it. It took some work but hey, it fits in my opinion.

For a while, I deliberated on including the handguards. I eventually decided against it for one major simple reason; the arms are just retextures and as it stands, the default Half-Life 2 UV maps do not play well to metal handguards on otherwise regular leather gloves.

All textures were made by myself. Feel free to use in any mods or skinpacks of your own, but please credit me if you do so, since sources are included. Inspirations in order:

Early HL1 Screenshots: Suit colouration
Dhabih Eng's art: Shading on midsection metal
Hi-res HL1 arm texture: General texturing style, color palette
HL2 beta arm texture: Shape of Forearm indent
Black Mesa: Styling of forearms

Ivan's suit IS being worked on. Don't hold your breath though. It'll be done in 50 years.