Proto:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl/Build 756

Build 756 is a prototype of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl compiled on June 26th, 2001. This prototype still has the sci-fi theme that Build 749 had. It seems this prototype was used mostly to test how a player-controlled helicopter works.

Editor
This prototype comes with a functioning editor. However, thanks to some hilariously incompetent programming, you need to create a virtual drive called X, copy Build 756, then run the editor. If you try to run it in any other drive besides X, it'll crash with an error because it expects the game's resources to be on drive X.

Helicopter
This prototype features a flyable helicopter. To use it, hit the 0 key. To get out, hit 9. To make the airplane fly up in the air, hold down the Space key until it goes up. The plane can be maneuvered around with the movement keys. Hold down Space to go higher and hold down C to go lower.

Note that if you get out of the plane while its in the air, you'll end up back at the landing pad where the helicopter originally was, not the ground. You can teleport back into the helicopter by hitting 0 (not the numberpad 0) again. The helicopter will stay in place until you hit the 0 key again in most cases. However, if you were spinning around when you got out of the helicopter, the helicopter will keep spinning until you hop back in and start moving.

Player model
The player model used appears to be an extremely early version of the final's Berril-5M armor. The basic shape is similar to the Berril-5M, but the details, such as the face, are completely different. The model holds a futuristic sniper rifle.

Other player model
In one level, there is a different player model cycling through it's animations. This model looks kind of like the Power Armor from Fallout, but is much darker. The texture is incomplete, as some parts of the model's body have no details. The texture for this model has the name Player1Skin.tga in the texture folder, showing that the model was meant to be used for the player.

This model is used as the player's model in Build 788.

Loading screen


Build 756 contains am ore proper loading screen compared to the nude image used in Build 749. It features some sort of alien growth.

Menu
Hitting an alt key will bring up a very primitive menu with two options. It seems to be styled off of the voice command menu in Counter-Strike. The first one will send you to another menu that has a single option that sends you back to the first menu. The second option claims it quits the game, but actually makes it crash instead of shutting down properly.

Heli test
Heli test is the default level that loads when you start up the prototype. It consists of a small landing pad with a helicopter on it and some dirt hills. For some reason, the landing pad's floor texture is a .avi movie included with Windows 98 and 2000 of someone skiing. There is no skybox. Hopping into the helicopter will let you check out the hilly area, but there's nothing there besides being able to check out the landing pad from a distance.

Test
This level is the same as Heli test, but the helicopter has been replaced with tall metal towers and the hills are gone. Strangely, if you approach some of them, you'll be warped back to where you spawned at. Occasionally, the game will crash when it tries to warp you back to the spawn point.

There is a strange-looking box near the area behind the spawn point. It has an opening that has the letters A, B, C and D in it. The exterior is orange. What this is supposed to do is unknown.

On the other side of where you spawn is a character cycling through their animations. Taking a look at the texture files show that this character is actually another player model. There is no way to interact with this character.

In order to access this level, open up startup.ltx in a word editor and change “level_load 2” to “level_load 0”. Then, save the file and start the game.

Heli
This map is almost exactly the same as Heli test, but the helicopter is flying a little bit above the landing pad when you first enter the level. You can still hop in with no problem. This map was last edited about 14 days before Heli test was, but is nearly the same as Heli test.

To load this level, open up system.ltx and scroll to the bottom. You'll see a list of levels. Find a level called “heli_test”, then delete the “_test”.

Mentioned-only levels
System.ltx lists two levels that cannot be found in the prototype; library and room103. What they were supposed to look like is unknown.

Weapons


When you first start up the prototype, you'll find that you have no weapon. There is a weapon available, but it doesn't appear by default. To make it appear, go into the user.ltx file in a word editor, look for the variable “hud_weapon off”, then change it to “hud_weapon on”. Save it and start up the game.

When you start the game, you'll see that there is a futuristic sniper rifle (the name comes from the name for the gun's texture, Sniper_Rifle1.tga) on your screen. However, the weapon has no animations and there doesn't seem to be a way to fire it.

Graphics
As with build 749, there are quite a few unused textures in the game's files.

Of note is that all of Build 749's textures, both used and unused, are still in this prototype. However, all of the used textured in Build 749 are now unused in this prototype because there is no Aztec-themed level.

Charts
There are four charts hidden in the game's files. Two of them are bar charts, while the other two are pie charts.

Monitorimage.tga


An image from someone's desktop. It seems the image is from someone on the art team, as 3DS MAX is open with a project active and a semi-obscured folder showing a list of textures can be seen. There's also a look at the person's C drive, in case you were dying to see what was on the C drive of someone working on the game, circa mid 2001.

Book textures
There are two textures for the pages of a book. Both of the textures have illegible crap in them.

Stained glass
Three textures for stained glass can be found in the prototype's files. They appear to be stained glass from churches.

earthmap.tga


A weird-looking map of Earth.

abalone.tga


This appears to be some sort of liquid-like texture. The name gives no hints as to what it is supposed to be, much less what it was meant for.

Hazmat
There are two textures for some sort of hazmat suit. Whether it was meant to be just an item or there was supposed to be an NPC wearing it is unknown.

M134 Minigun


Early-looking textures for an M134 minigun can be found in the game’s files. A M134 minigun does appear in Build 1098, but with a completely different texture.

Suite1Forest
Two parts of the in-game player model (rightmost textures on the player model sheet) can be found in the prototype's files. The front texture appears to be inverted compared to the one on the sheet that's used. Interestingly enough, the front texture was last modified on November 20th, 2000, while the back texture was last modified on December 5th, 2000. These textures are quite old, but didn't appear in build 749's files for some reason, which has equally old textures.

TemporaryTexture.tga


Texture for a strange-looking monster. This texture looks like the art team was just starting to work on it.

Wood textures
This prototype contains a lot of unused textures for different types of wood. Most of it doesn't have any specific uses listed. One, doorwood.tga., suggests that it would've been used on a door, while another, FloorWood.tga, seems it was meant as a floor texture.

ipavers.tga


A smallish texture that appears to be some sort of tile ceiling or floor.

grnd_asphalt4.tga


A large asphalt texture.

cement.tga


A small texture representing cement.

grnd_sidewalk1.tga


Textures for a sidewalk. Perhaps Stalker was meant to have urban environments at this stage of development?

galuziFabric.tga


A crappy-looking fabric texture.

Granitfc.tga


A small wall texture that looks like its made out of granite blocks.

Ceiling.tga


The texture's name states it was supposed to be for some sort of ceiling, but it looks pretty strange for a ceiling.

Camaro.tga


The name doesn’t show it, but this is actually a nifty-looking marble texture.

Chairfabric.tga


A texture for a chair. What type of chair it was meant for is impossible to determine.

Paper.tga


Texture for some sort of paper. There is a similarly-named texture in Build 749, but this one is smaller and was last modified later than the one in Build 749.

Picture1image.tga


This is a picture of a sunset.

Picture2Image.tga


Another picture form real life. This one is of some mountains.

WindowImage.tga


Guess what? This image is from a picture taken in real life! It features some clouds.

Chrome_env.tga


A texture used for chrome special effects. However, there are no chrome special effects in this prototype.

Sounds
Build 756 has every sound that Build 749 has. However, there are two new sounds that are not used in-game.

103_mp.wav
This is someone talking about computers in Ukrainian.

truckidle.wav
A sound of an idle truck. There are no trucks or cars to drive in this prototype.

Misc Files
This prototype comes packed with some extra files used for development. Most of them are unusable things such as strange setting files that can't be read by a human, a “temp” folder with junk, and a folder called “meshes” with files in an “.object” format”, but there are some interesting files. All of them are located in folder's found in the root folder, while the actual prototype is located in the “game” folder found in the root folder.

Raw models
The folder “import” has raw Lightwave format models for the helicopter and some test models.

Tech base textures
Several textures for a tech base can be found in a folder called “pictures”. Most of these are used in Build 788.

Environment map


The folder that has the unused tech base textures also has an unused environmental map graphic called “spheremap.bmp”. This is the only texture in both the ones included in the game files and “extra” textures to be a .bmp. It has no transparency effects.

$LM textures
Four textures with “$LM” in their names can be found in the folder with the tech base and unused environment map textures. Two of the textures have “LM” in them, while the other two are a solid color. It was probably for some testing.