Scientist (Evolution)

Our favorite Black Mesa Science Team had gone through many iterations until the looked like we see them today, going from frightened, nervous wrecks to the somewhat goofy looking they are today. Let's explore how they changed over the years.

Version 1: Pre 0.52 Alpha

The first version of the scientist, found in a magazine which had Half-Life preview images, which bares familiarity to the one found in the 0.52 Alpha, the only differences being the stance and the head model, this version of the scientist is hunched over and its head model (known by fans as the Mad Scientist) has black glasses and a scar across his forehead. This model still exist in the alpha 0.52, as cine-scientist.mdl. This model is only used once in the techdemo.bsp map, where it is seen arguing with a Security Guard, only to be eaten by a Panthereye.

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Texture Gallery

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Version 2: 0.52 Alpha

The 3 Scientists present in the 0.52 Alpha

These models are found the files for the release Half-Life 0.52 Alpha and unlike Version 3, are dirtier and have more scarring, mostly on the back of their heads. "Walter's" glasses look similar to the final scientist model, "Einstein" and "Egon's" heads are not the same color as the rest of the body and despite what it may seem, these models have no moving mouth.

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Texture Gallery

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Version 3: Post-Alpha

This scientist is a reskin of the Alpha 0.52 scientist, replacing the blue pants with white ones and replacing the bloody and dirty coat textures with cleaner, brighter ones. This scientist still has some grime left over, however, as the back texture has a light remnant of a blood splat from the alpha textures. It used the idle animations from the alpha model, but had new animations for walking and running. This scientist version marks the first scientist to have skin groups for corpses. There’s code leftover for it and textures for hurt skins based on the retail textures, implying this was a feature kept for every scientist iteration after this one up until the games release, when it was cut. Something to note is that the Egon head was retextured into an early version of the Luther head for E3 1998, and appears in a few screenshots from that time. At one point, valve was experimenting with designs for this version, leading to a few screenshots featuring these scientist with lambdas on their backs.

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  Scientists getting beaten by a HECU grunt.

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  Early Luther Scientist gives CPR to a Security Guard.

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  screenshot of a dead scientist in “We’ve got hostiles”, displaying the skin for corpses

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  Ditto, datacore

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  Ditto, with Barney in the freezer in office complex

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  Dead scientist from the worldcraft entity guide

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  Ditto, typing in chair

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  screenshot of scientist buying soda with lambda design on his back.

Version 4: Concept Art

Chuck Jones's concept art for the Scientist

One of the later versions of the scientist, this concept art by Chuck Jones has clothing different from any of the scientist models before or after, resembling more of a sci-fi suit than a lab coat. This version has round pitch-black glasses, a blue and green suit, a syringe, and black gloves, both of which survived in the next version. Interestingly, we don’t have any screenshots of the model using this design, but it can be assumed to have existed due to there being a zombie version of it in multiple screenshots. This scientist was presumably the sci2 scientist, due to slicks textures being referred to as sci2 and his appearance overall resembling this version of the scientist. This scientist was around the time they implemented healing and fear AI, due to the animations for both features being named with the sci2 prefix in the 2016 leak of the scientist source files.

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  Texture from zombie version of this model, reused for the retail model.

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  Image of zombie version of this model from the worldcraft entity guide.

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  Ditto, in game

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  Ditto, dead

Version 5: Raising The Bar

This version of the scientist appeared in the Raising the Bar book. It appears to have been rendered by Chuck Jones. The whole body has been overhauled with the final body model, high-resolution textures, black gloves, a red & black striped tie, and the glasses are "transparent", revealing small eyes. Retail's Deathmatch Highpoly Submodel of the scientist uses a late mesh of this scientist. It appears that this version has less issues with the textures alignment (glasses, for example). Interestingly enough, late version already has retail looking glasses texture for the Walter scientist.

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  Scientist standing idly by in a rocket silo.

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  The Black Mesa Advertisement texture.

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  Early Alien Grunt and Scientist in Datacore

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  Model, as seen in the worldcraft entity guide

Version 6: Retail Scientist

This version of the Scientist is seen in the retail release of Half-Life. He has since lost the black gloves of the previous variant, and is less top-heavy. The eyes visible on the Glasses variant's, well, glasses, are not as prominent as they once were. These scientist have new animations with a different idle position. They appear to use many things from the sci2 scientist, including meshes, textures, and animations. All their faces got reworked and their suits have less heavy shading compared to the previous version.

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  Walter/Glasses Variant.

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  Einstein Variant.

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  Luther Variant.

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  Slick Variant.

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  Deathmatch Walter.

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  High-Quality Deathmatch Walter.