Just a few new.... HL2 pics?

dunno why some of them are named concept, they look simply like shader/render passes to me
 
Eh? I thought they were new. Eh, guess they are 4 days old. My bad. :(
 
It works now. Are these legit pics? I have never seen them before.

*Gets paranoid and runs away*
 
Ah, they were? Where? lol. I ran through the most recent page and I didn't see a thing before posting. :(
 
Yes, they're in the .pdf version of the SoftImage/Valve shader demo from GDC.
 
Very nice, thanks

but its very clear that this is from older versions of HL2 builds. The prove is NO HDR technology is implemented in any of the models. :S
 
actually G0rgon, those are the newest pics of Half-Life 2 available. They were released last week after GDC. They feature all the newest graphics technology, and they look great. You wouldn't see HDR in a scene like that anyhow.
 
HDR is for really high-contrast scenes, isn't it? Brings out tones better, instead of giving a muddy result from too much rounding-off...?
 
Oh but if you remember the antLoin from the HDR Vid, the ant's body had HDR.

Hmmm I am confused.........
 
Brian Damage said:
HDR is for really high-contrast scenes, isn't it? Brings out tones better, instead of giving a muddy result from too much rounding-off...?
Click to expand...

quite the opposite. HDR provides lighting information that goes darker than black, and brighter than white. that way what you see on your screen looks more like a photograph... what's really bright (i.e. what's hit by the sun) can get blown out to pure white, rather than just a light color like it is in most games. have you ever noticed how bright sunny days in games never had that eye-squinting feel you got from really going outside on a sunny day? it's because a computer monitor just can't get bright enough to make you squint. HDR allows you to push things beyond the brightest a screen can show, by faking your mind into thinking something's far brighter than it is. here's how my graphics programer friend explains it:

"the computer does the image processing usually done by your eye, so it's a way of getting a greater range of informatino to the brain, without being able to literally CREATE that much information"

here are some examples.

here is a microsoft logo. it is brigh, blown out to full white.
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/Image/25.jpg

now we will use HDR to get it to go MUCH brighter.

here's a little brighter:
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/Image/26.jpg

and a LOT brighter
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/Image/27.jpg

notice that the center of the letter "M" is the exact same value of white in each image. it's just your perception of brightness that makes the third seem the brightest. HDR is fooling your mind into seeing values that aren't there.

Here's a final example. This gold coil has highlights that go beyond the screen's dynamic range. HDR provides a solution.
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/Image/20.jpg
 
G0rgon said:
Oh but if you remember the antLoin from the HDR Vid, the ant's body had HDR.
Click to expand...
No, that was normal mapping and some of the other techniques that were outlined in the GDC document.
HDR is related to lightsources (like the bloom effect).

EDIT: Spiffae beat me to it.
 
G0rgon said:
Oh but if you remember the antLoin from the HDR Vid, the ant's body had HDR.

Hmmm I am confused.........
Click to expand...

no... the ant lion didn't have HDR. the only HDR in that video was at the beginning with the light shining through the roof, and when those two gold spheres appeared in front of the player. the rest was just regular lighting, no HDR.
 
Is it light that was shinning from outside (when Gordon was looking through the window)?
How many games have that? I don’t really remember seeing it anywhere yet. Or maybe I saw this in Farcry?
 
Mr.Reak said:
Is it light that was shinning from outside (when Gordon was looking through the window)?
How many games have that? I don’t really remember seeing it anywhere yet. Or maybe I was this in Farcry?
Click to expand...

I don't believe FarCry features HDR
 
I think he was thinking about normal maps and specular highlights.
 
Mr.Reak said:
Is it light that was shinning from outside (when Gordon was looking through the window)?
How many games have that?
Click to expand...

Yep: the best example of it is when the window shows a building, but the glare is almost too blinding to see it clearly.

I don't think any current game features it.
 
Mr.Reak said:
Is it light that was shinning from outside (when Gordon was looking through the window)?
How many games have that? I don’t really remember seeing it anywhere yet. Or maybe I was this in Farcry?
Click to expand...
I've also seen similar effects in Far Cry. But I haven't seen any mention of HDR in Far Cry, so those effects are probably not HDR.
 
Arno said:
I've also seen similar effects in Far Cry. But I haven't seen any mention of HDR in Far Cry, so those effects are probably not HDR.
Click to expand...

The only thing that comes to mind is when you can shoot holes in the carrier's wall at that one part
 
no game has used HDR yet. there are ATI and nVidia demos that do, but no actual games. IT's a DX9 only feature. Far Cry, Doom 3, Stalker... all DX8
 
Spiffae said:
actually G0rgon, those are the newest pics of Half-Life 2 available. They were released last week after GDC. They feature all the newest graphics technology, and they look great.
Click to expand...

Erm, those shots are taken from the E3 tech demo, yes?

They're almost a year old already.
 
No.

And that HDR stuff looks very cool. Besides sunlight where else would it be used?
 
X-Vector said:
Erm, those shots are taken from the E3 tech demo, yes?

They're almost a year old already.
Click to expand...

no they aren't. they are small environments specifically made to show off source shaders....all new
 
Spiffae got it right... I think? (*waits for Fenric to confirm* :p)
Hadn't it also something to do that the brightness levels in LDR images is just 8-bit (256 values) and in HDR it's 32 bit?
Basically, what I think HDR does is faking the difference in brightness between the sun and a lightbulb for example. In older games, they look equally bright, but with HDR, the sun looks much brighter, altough it's just the same white as a lightbulb.

But G0rgon, I don't think you understand what HDR does (I think hardly anyone besides Fenric does...) but it has nothing to do with the antlion looking shiny and bumpy, that's just a reflection shader and a normal map.

And I've started a thread about these pictures a while back:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20171

Btw, imagine how nice the water could look when it reflects a HDR background :naughty:
 
I understand now, thx

So basicly this is the latest screenshots from valve ?
 
G0rgon said:
I understand now, thx

So basicly this is the latest screenshots from valve ?
Click to expand...

Meh, it isn't a screenshot, we don't even know if Source rendered it. It probably did though, I mean why take the extra effort and render it in a 3d package to display something Source should be able to do? Don't know if Source is capable of rendering just one render pass (lightmaps for example)
 
Well, looks like they put the facility into Source to be able to show things like that.

Hehe, would be cool to walk around with only the normal maps shown as colours, would look all weird.
 
those pix, specially the ones from the first e3 presentation look improved :\ or maybe its cuz its high res :s
 
That new map editor pic is really exciting :dork: No more carving out chunks and hollinging them out and messing with all that crap.
 
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