Joshua's blog: "Gaming News"

Stalker Complete 2009

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Website:
http://artistpavel.blogspot.com/2009/04/stalker-complete-2009.html

Excerpt:
STALKER Complete 2009
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This mod has been created with a thought of bringing the beautiful and immersive game of STALKER from the last generation era, when it was created to an up-to-date experience you'd expect from games you play in 2009. I did not try to include every single mod out there that changes the game beyond recognition, that was not the point. The following list is the carefully chosen essential collection of most advanced and aesthetically pleasant modifications, created by talented concept artists and programmers in the past 2 years. These are meant to technically and artistically enhance the game without compromising the original feel and atmosphere developers meant you to see. You'll notice every single detail has been retouched and has a polished feel to it.

This is ideal for first time players or people who have beaten the game when it first came out and now are coming back to replay it on new rig with higher resolution and better graphics.

Summary:
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List of merged and modified mods:

- Panoramic Mod 2.1 + S.W.O 2.2 + Vivid Sunsets 0.7:
visually beautiful creative merge of 3 different graphics & weather mods created by several artists, including myself, large view distance, horizons, proper sun travel according to location, enhanced HDR, wet surfaces, morning due, multiple weather cycles, darker nights, moonlight, different types of storms from fast to slow, stars constellation, water animation and many more implementations, all by staying within the mood of the game.

- SkyGRAPHICS-MOD v2.0 RC4.1:
this mod introduces advanced shader technology known as Parallax Occlusion Mapping seen in Crysis and very recent games, creating close-to-life illusion of true relief, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Sun Shafts (optional) and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO), which creates an enormous difference in the way the game looks (mod has been fine tuned from it's default state to avoid excessive rock relief and contrast)

- Photorealistic Zone 1.0 (aka Argus Texture Pack)
this is a 6 months of reworking every texture in the game by Argus, special attention has been paid to preserving the original look of materials while textures have been replaced with equivalent higher quality photographs with manual bump editing and partial use of original files, heavily optimized to reduce performance drop.

- Photorealistic Zone: Living Creatures:
now creatures with open wounds have soaking wet flesh showing through, it’s almost disturbing. Adds bump details on most uniforms, wrinkles, etc.

- Vehicles Retexture Pack
selected vehicles now look extra rusty and abandoned but only the ones that been parked there for 20 years.

- Zone Reclamation Project 1.05 (aka ZRP 1.05) :
adds numerous bug fixes, creates dynamic camp fires that act as a source of light, removes head bobbling, mutes annoying characters - "Get out of here Stalker", adds ability to save level game, to repair weapons, change quest time, and many other settings you can control yourself, see ReadMe.txt for details.

- ABC Sleeping Bag:
it’s always in your inventory, lets you sleep in the game.

- Particle Enhancement 3.0:
this mod enhances many of the particle effects in Stalker, sparkles, anomalies, smoke, explosions, etc.

- Ragdoll Mod 1.3:
adds natural death and hit physics, kills will no longer cause corpse ragdoll to fly backwards.

- Bulbs Soc (aka Lampochki Soc):
now you can shoot the bulbs and the lights will go out!

- Argus Add-ons:
new quality Google Earth type map updated with Clear Sky locations, halogen flashlight, gloves, knife with signs of sharpenning (very cool).

- AI Pack 10005:
adds the following set of abilities to NPCs: removing bodies from camp sites, throwing grenades, changing armor, healing other NPC's.

- Hades Real Gore Mod 1.0:
textures to simulate real blood and gore, wet blood look, bits of guts, bullet sprays, all done classy without exaggeration.

- Sound Overhaul 1.07 RC2:
replaces most weapon sounds, anomalies, equipment clatter, footsteps, nightlife, bullet fly-by sounds and more with quality equivalents.
Most sounds are properly OGG-commented to prevent any issues.

- Harmonica Mod:
NPC's can randomly play harmonica between guitar sessions.

- Authentic Music:
adds a few acoustic guitar songs in authentic language in the mix, but not too many.

- Asphalt 2.0:
quality asphalt texture.

- Medkits:
quality medkit textures.

- Chernobyl TV 1.1:
smooth TV animation, actual footage about Chernobyl.

- NWT 0.6.1:
quality weapon textures.

- TS Nades:
quality grenade textures.

- Elite Nightvision 1.1:
black & white nightvision based on the psy_antenna postprocess effect.
This one really makes you see in the dark.

- Stalker Forever HD Foodndrinks 1.0:
authentic vodka and energy drink skins, food textures stay original.

- Normal Accuracy Plus 1.0:
the set of tweaked weapons configs that slightly increases your chances of hitting the target without ruining the game's original award-winning ballistic system.

- Rules of Engagement 0.1:
removes the ability for NPC's to notice you at unrealistically large distances, 500m and up.

- 1154HUD 1.2:
a clean and minimalist hud from early game development as oppose to final ornate style hud. I retouched it to fit game style a bit.

- Freeplay:
after you beat the game with "good" ending, you'll get the dialog that will let you continue the game in freeplay mod, allowing creatures and NPCs migrate freely, it will be a living and breathing zone with A-Life, unscripted events and no quests (not fully tested).

- many smaller fixes not included in the list. If you notice older mod versions, there's a reason for that, they either have been modified beyond their versions or the new versions brought unnecessary changes and incompatibilities.

Screenshots included in the pack.

Patch 1.1:
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- added Sleeping Bag to inventory
- added updated textures from Photorealistic Zone: Living Creatures 0.60
- added updates from ZRP 1.05 R11
- minor UI, HUD, and dialog changes
- minor weather tweak
- includes patch 1.0

Patch 1.0:
- added selected textures from Photorealistic Zone: Living Creatures 0.51
- retouched HUD to fit game style
- fixed game crush due to missing vehicle texture
- fixed icons in the inventory representing wrong items
- added authentic vodka and energy drink description
- minor shader optimization