[quote]The developer further streamlined its pipeline by decoupling the art asset and level design streams of production as well. All the art assets were prefabricated in XSI by a team of artists and placed in a huge "backlot" of props for all the cabals to use. Designed to be easily editable through a cut-and-paste style, much of this virtual backlot will be made available to mod authors. It also will house every texture map and model used in the game, including such ready-made pieces of scenery as power stations, airplane hangars, and brick buildings, complete with a lower floor, a roof, and an expandable mid-section. It also will contain similar information for generic items, such as barrels, desks, chairs, tables, debris, and vehicles.
Half-Life 2's level designers used the new Hammer world construction tool to place objects, edit the terrain, and control the AI.
Valve's world-creation Hammer tool set also features a proprietary materials system that endows these objects with the physical properties of their applied textures, including weight, density, and sound. For example, applying a brick texture to a rectangular object will automatically make it behave like a brick of that exact size; it will sink if dropped in water, explode if shot, and so forth. Objects also will acquire the friction and collision properties of their textures. Therefore, if a chair is mapped with a wood texture, it will not only float like wood and sound like wood, but, if scraped against a wall, also splinter like wood.[/quote]
It seems like they used hammer (worldcraft) to piece together models made with XSI. I guess they wanted the advantages of a game specific editor with the improved development capabilities of a full modelling program. Best of both worlds
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