Black Mesa Security Guard (Evolution)

The Black Mesa Security Guard, also known as Barney (not to be confused with Barney Calhoun) are friendly entities found throughout almost the entirety of Half-Life. They are the quintessential partner to the player throughout the game, and are one of the only friendly forces you face. The Security Guard went through several different looks throughout Half-Life's development, changing both posture and faces before ending up with the man we all know and love.

Version 1: Chuck Jones Concept Art

The potential earliest appearance of the Security Guard is within Chuck Jones's concept art for the Panthereye. His design is quite odd, as he is shown donning a pair of thick lens glasses and a much more elderly appearance, something that no modeled version of the character ever had. This makes it very easy to overlook and assume he is a scientist. however the overturned security guard helmet near the hind legs of the creature is all the proof needed. He also appears to be reaching for an AR-15 styled rifle, a weapon also wielded by early iterations of the Human Grunt. Due to this last factor it is possible this is an early version of the HECU Grunt commonly referred to as the "green soldier". This section is mostly speculation however; If information to disprove this concept comes along, this section will be removed.

Version 2: Pre 0.52 Alpha

The earliest in game image of the security guard appeared in a PC Gamer article from July 1997; predating the 0.52 build by two months. This design shares many design traits with the 0.52 version of the model, including a white helmet with the letters "MP" on the front (an abbreviation for Military Police), a bug-eyed, frightened expression, and a hunched posture. Many traits consistent with later models, such as a black vest and blue pants and trousers, were established with this version. Judging from the few images available of this model, it had many rigging issues and was clearly unfinished at this point of development.

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  A clearly staged image showing an early Gordon (Ivan the Space Biker) and an MP.

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  Taking on a Panthereye

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  Ditto, on its source page

Version 3: 0.52 Alpha

Don Knott's character of Barney Fife has been cited by Marc Laidlaw as the inspiration and namesake for the Security Guard.

The version commonly referred to as Bbbbarney, The first one, MP, or famously Freeze, is shown in most if not all of early 1997 media of Half-Life, including the 0.52 press build. The model is named barney.mdl, and is the first known time the name Barney is used in relation to the character. The origins of this name can be traced back to the character of Barney Fife (played by Don Knotts) from The Andy Griffith Show, which this model has a similar appearance of. His face texture and animations differ slightly from the previous version - his face is much less sunken in and has an open mouth, and while still having a hunched appearance, his animations and rigging appear to be improved as well. This model was later cleaned up and recycled as a multiplayer model for Half-Life's 25th Anniversary Update.

Original intentions

Originally, Half-Life had no companion entities within it - Barney originally was a low tier enemy within Half-Life. However, this all changed when Valve developer Steve Bond wanted to test out enemy squad behavior. Using Gordon as a leader he linked him to several MPs who were forced to follow the player and not immediately attack. He unexpectedly created the first companion character in Half-Life. This revelation caused a massive shift in thought within Valve leading to the first restart in Half-Life's development, and by the 0.52 alpha, Barney was an ally that could follow the player around and attack when provoked.

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  One of your former military cronies has you in his sights.

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  An MP inside the blast pit silo

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  A magazine scan of the silo from the 0.52 build

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  The MP being dragged to hell

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Version 4: Wide Eyes

This version arrived in roughly between the 0.52 alpha (September 8, 1997) and the Preliminary Findings advertisement disk (October 16, 1997). On the Preliminary Findings disk is an interview with Ken Birdwell which features a video of a group of security guards sporting the same features as this version attacking an alien grunt. His most noticeable feature outside of his face is his helmet which changed from being white with a blue stripe, to being black with a blue stripe. The body textures on this model would be used for the next two renditions of the character, most notably the pants and chest. The model was reskinned into the Construction Worker entity, which was later scrapped.

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  An image featuring the full black and blue helmet.

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Version 5: Entityguide Ted

Infamously dubbed "Ted Barney", this version of the security officer model was based off former Valve employee Ted Backman. Not only is this shown by the model sporting Ted's infamous facial hair, a goatee and patch, but also by some textures using the prefix “TED”. This one still has many features from the wide-eyed ted, including similar body textures and general model shape, except for the head. Many theories exist however, suggesting this security office model was a inside joke for Valve employees, but this is contradicted by how much Ted would continue to appear as a character model in Valve games, namely in Half-Life 2 as a Citizen. Differences from the previous version include, a more detailed vest, darker jeans, taller boots and a more polished face texture.

This is the earliest version of the Ted family of Security Guards. He made his only appearance in the Half-Life Entity Guide that was released on October 29th 1998, one month before the release of Half-Life. While the "Ted" model had been replaced at the time of the guide's release, the guide uses a variety of early models as example images of the many things you can use in your maps. There are two images seen for the security guard, the one highlighted here is the only known image of this version of the Ted model. The only difference being that the eyes on the model are beady and black, no white to be seen. The textures are also quite compressed, even for a Half-Life model.

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Version 5.5: Zombiefight Ted

Between the last version and this version, Ted received a few notable changes. Notably, his vest texture was desaturated and darkened, his jeans were saturated and darkened, his shoes were given more shine, his sleeves were given more prominent shading, the blue stripe on his helmet was desaturated, the whites of his eyes are more visible, the gun texture is darker and sharper, the upper leg geometry was altered to allow for better rigging, and overall the texture resolution was improved.

Version 6: Final Ted

This final version of Ted Barney is very similar to the last one, however his face received a comprehensive overhaul, giving it more detail and making him look more human. Something worth noting is that at one point, a beardless version of variant of Ted existed, however it is only featured on a poster in Black Mesa. This model has no other major differences besides his missing goatee.

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Version 6.5: Slick face

This version was found in the 2024 HL1 MaxFile Leak, it is a high detailed sculpt that appears to be a mixture of the Ted Family and the retail style.The head is a copy of the Slick face. This is around the time when they had built a new Scientist model, and probably wanted to improve the Security guard model as well. This version would then be further refined, creating the Weird Face variant.

Version 7: Weird Face

Another overlooked version of the security guard that is incredibly close to his final revision. This guard only appears in 2 screenshots. This is the first appearance of the final body and helmet of the guard. The most noticeable difference being the face texture, which is labelled BX_Face1.bmp, but was overwritten by the final face texture in the Half-Life SDK. The boot UV is also different, while the pants have the same mesh as the later multiplayer model, suggesting it was created slightly after this version. The pants have a similar UV to the final model on this earlier mesh, which prevents a UV error on this version skewing the holster's strap. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT the Slick or G-Man face texture. however this was around the time Valve was referencing Slick's face for several NPCs, so it's very possible that Slick was used to at least create a base for the guard's texture. (G-Man has Slick's eyebrows and eyes leftover on the bottom left corner of his face texture, and Luther has almost identical facial proportions.)

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Version 8: The Final

And now we reach the guard featured in the retail release of Half-Life.

This guard’s animations appear to be redone, displaying a more confident and realistic posture compared to the hunch that all previous versions had. Additionally, the face texture would reach its final form as an older, placid looking man with stubbly facial hair. The rest of the textures have changed greatly, as well. As with Weird Face, the top of the vest was moved down to display the tie (now black instead of red), the card was updated for the new head, a Black Mesa logo was added on the front of the vest (with the Lambda on the back removed) and the overall palette of the character had been brightened and saturated a little a little compared to previous models. The “MP” band on the left arm and the blue stripe on the helmet have both been removed entirely.

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  The early Blue Shift console background from the Dreamcast port.

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  The early Blue Shift loading screen from the Dreamcast port.

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Version 8.5: The Multiplayer Model

This variant was likely created in between the prior two variants.

Unlike the singleplayer model, the preview shows a model with no shirt colored patch on the torso where the arm connects to the body, the arms also have a smooth texture rather than wrinkles, the face is different from retail also showing an asymmetric brightness with thinner lips. The Black Mesa logo is more octagonal than circular, however this can be chalked up due to the paintover done to the texture to make it fit the palette limit.

The head of the LQ mesh is exactly like the retail singleplayer model, with one difference being streaks on the neck texture due to a UV misalignment. The top strap of the bullet vest is flat much like the Ted and HQ versions rather than having extra model detail. The lower part on the legs skewed by the UV map, the holster strap on the right leg is shown to be straight as. This model's boots have a different UV map to the singleplayer and HQ meshes. The head of the HQ mesh has a UV map that skews his eyebrows into an arch, but unlike the singleplayer model. Additionally, the vest has it's shoulder strap geometry like singleplayer and a very similar boot UV. The rest of the HQ mesh is pretty faithful to the singleplayer model.

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  Submodel 1

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  Submodel 2