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 in the released Half-Life 0.52 Alpha. They sport similar textures as the previous model, including a white lab coat, a gray shirt, blue pants, and a blue and purple tie, all with stains on them. The first head submodel, dubbed Walter, has big cartoonish glasses, a permanently scared expression, and is bald except for hair on the sides of his head. The Einstein has neutral expression and is based off of the real life scientist Albert Einstein. The Egon scientist has ginger hair and a permanently shocked expression. He was based off of “Egon Spengler” from “The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon. Both Einstein and Egon have different color skin than the body. Despite what it may look like, 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. 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: Sci2/Concept Art

The mesh found in the Max files

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. The version in the concept art has round pitch-black glasses, a blue 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 we have multiple screenshots of the zombie version. This scientist was the Sci2 scientist, due to slicks textures being referred to as sci2 and this model appearing in any animation marked as sci2 in the max files. 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. The mesh for this variant was finally found in the 2024 HL1 MaxFile Leak.

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  Chuck Jones's concept art for the Scientist

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  The back view of the mesh found in the Max 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 as well as a few screenshots. The render is from Chuck Jones, as it matches his style and he made the model (insert email here). The whole body has been overhauled with and now has a blue shirt, black gloves, a red & blue striped tie, and the glasses now have the detail of the scientist’s eyes being visible. Retail's Deathmatch Highpoly Submodel of the scientist is based off of this model, along with it's textures. This model used "SCI2" animations, as even the retail model still uses them (though they were reanimated), and still has the alpha (SCI2) pose on most animations. This model was featured in a Black Mesa advertisement seen in the final game. The scientist appears to be broader, being a bit more top heavy with darker shading. His textures were used for the Zombie in the retail game. This scientist has all 4 head submodels now, though their textures were quite different. Luther appears to be darker and a bit redder. Einstein's face from this era (an alpha face hybrid) was seen after the removal of the gloves, on a pre-release screenshot, where he's laying dead on a table. Slick has an appearence only on one screenshot, laying dead near an Alien Grunt.

An earlier mesh for the Slick variant of this scientist has been found as of Tuesday, October 4th 2022, in the revision history for the Multiplayer Scientist model. However, only the first version (referred to by community as "mini-SDK") has it, due to valve cleaning up the max files for the later release. The ingame model for this variant with all head variants was found in the 2024 HL1 MaxFile Leak on April 9th 2024. Neither the SDK or the Maxfile leak contained the textures. Interestingly, the Walter version of this model that has been found is not the version used in game, and is presumably the one used for the promotional render.

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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

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  The promotional mesh for this scientist, with the player skeleton.

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 and walking. They appear to use many things from the SCI2 scientist, including old UVs, some of the textures and animations (for example: flinch and unused panic animations). All their faces were 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.