2 BRAND NEW Orange Box Videos!

[Born]

I've found these videos on HLFallout.net, so all credit goes to them.

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/270616 - This video is essentially Norwegian, but the journalist can also speak English (thank god). Notice that he is a massive fanboy of VALVe The main highlight of the video is EP2, but I think there is some Portal in there too. There are NO story-spoilers in the video; except a quick view of the portal storm and the only other spoiler is the cable puzzle (but you can just skip that).

http://www.pcgames.de/aid,608272/Unser_Vid...e_Box_*UPDATE*/ - This, again, is a very nice video. The language, I think, (no english at all) is dutch/german. There are 3 videos; EP2, TF2 and Portal - all new footage.

I have to congratulate VALVe, once again, for their superiority and quality of games. Just look at Episode Two - the whole model and environment textures, and generally everything, look f*cking breathtaking. I remember some way back people were saying "Man, Source really looks outdated now. They totally need to upgrade the visuals; higher-res textures, more detail etc" - well, your wish has come true. Seriously, I'm looking at a total overhaul of visuals and textures alike; the result is glorious. Oh, and just look at those Hunters. I'm also noticing the new effects of the revamped particle system. Small clouds of smoke realistically dissipate into the air and chunks of debris fly around as the Hunters' plasma darts relentlessly pound into the small room above Gordon and Alyx's heads. The intense atmosphere created here really blew me away. Brilliant. I also love Alyx's animation of climbing into the muscle car; instead of walking all the way round to the passenger seat, she casually climbs up onto the exposed engine and pulls herself through the windscreen, before finally settling in her seat. Things like this are what makes VALVe's games so goddamn unique. Just looking at TF2 and Portal is a marvel. I'm liking the class-selection system of TF2 - the unique animations of the different classes really brings out their personalities. My personal favourite is the cigarette-smoking Spy Portal just makes my mind buzz tbh. Oh, and the last thing - I'm glad VALVe delayed the Orange Box, I hope you guys are too!

 

[Rapstah]

The second one is German, and they both demonstrate the area of the wire puzzle.

 

[Born]

The second one is German, and they both demonstrate the area of the wire puzzle.

And your point is?

 

[Asknoone]

Looks fantastic. Also, the wire puzzle is hardly brain tasking, so I don't see people having too much trouble. But I can see how some people might not want it spoiled.

It only comes up half the screen for me.

 

[Tomu]

Cool even though I seen the video before the German one actually gives you a chance to listen to some of what Alyx is saying and it seems like white forest is going to have the same fate like black mesa east unless this time the rebels are going to be more prepared for the battle.

 

[Born]

Man, now that I've seen this footage, I'm yearning for more! Now I want to see some more underground antlion scenes...

 

[Tomu]

Ya we have seen the hunter in action so far now all I want to see is the antlion worker in some kind of gameplay video then I can wait until October.

 

[Asuka]

Not really new footage. We saw this before. Still CRAZY AND I WANT!

 

[Godron]

The first one only played me ads

The second one played me three very interesting quarters before stopping for some reason. I heard something about [the g-man's?] relation to Alyx, and Speyrer said the Hunters were "one of the main new enemies" we'd be facing. Good to know Valve haven't spoiled everything

 

[Silarn]

Oh man. The people that say Source is dated make me laugh so hard. I can only assume they don't understand how Source is designed to work and have failed to notice the numerous improvements that have already been made to it - much less what I expect is coming with Ep 2.

If anything, 'Source 2' will simply be another upgraded version of Source, as the engine is inherently modular. We've already gotten HDR, we know that post-processing effects are possible even if most of them are too graphic-intensive to release at the moment, they improve character animations (including facial animations) with every new game, it's pretty obvious that the engine has been tweaked to do lusher outdoor areas much better than previously, they've finally implemented dynamic lighting, and unless things have changed in the past year it's going to be one of the first engines to fully support multi-core processors.

Heck, part of the visual umph are simply the art assets rather than the engine. It's not as if the engine is limited to the texture sizes and poly-counts that were present in HL2. Source will only ever be as out-dated as Valve lets it be.

 

[losttheskyagain]

Niiiice. I'm still giggling at "Dough," though. Heh.

Is it October yet?

 

[magiolle]

No 66 days till EP2 comes out (and a bit less till I get my new PC .. but when I get it, I'll first play HL2 and EP1 again, with Fakefactory!)

 

[Born]

The first one only played me ads

The second one played me three very interesting quarters before stopping for some reason. I heard something about [the g-man's?] relation to Alyx, and Speyrer said the Hunters were "one of the main new enemies" we'd be facing. Good to know Valve haven't spoiled everything

Very good to hear! I take it that you can understand German then? Oh, and you have to wait for the ads to finish in the first video, before the real thing actually comes up

Oh man. The people that say Source is dated make me laugh so hard. I can only assume they don't understand how Source is designed to work and have failed to notice the numerous improvements that have already been made to it - much less what I expect is coming with Ep 2.

If anything, 'Source 2' will simply be another upgraded version of Source, as the engine is inherently modular. We've already gotten HDR, we know that post-processing effects are possible even if most of them are too graphic-intensive to release at the moment, they improve character animations (including facial animations) with every new game, it's pretty obvious that the engine has been tweaked to do lusher outdoor areas much better than previously, they've finally implemented dynamic lighting, and unless things have changed in the past year it's going to be one of the first engines to fully support multi-core processors.

Heck, part of the visual umph are simply the art assets rather than the engine. It's not as if the engine is limited to the texture sizes and poly-counts that were present in HL2. Source will only ever be as out-dated as Valve lets it be.

Yeah, I totally agree. It also pisses me off when I hear people saying stuff like "Haha Source looks like crap now." I can bet you any money that these are the people who have played Half-Life 2 at it's release date, and were totally awed by the visuals. I'm certain. A few years down the line, however, they see something like Crysis, and suddenly, Half-Life 2 becomes a thing of the past. They completely change their tone and mock Half-Life 2. Don't get me wrong, Crysis will be great, but Crysis's storyline utterly fails in comparison to Half-Life 2. You watch them b*stards crawl back when VALVe unleashes their unstoppable magic.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Funnily, they spell Doug's name Dough

 

[Born]

Funnily, they spell Doug's name Dough

Hehe, please don't start... the guys over at HLFallout.net were taking the piss in almost every post. Let's not drift too far away into off-topic discussion Although, I did laugh quite hard at swansong's quote: "Dough boy!" I don't know why, it just makes me laugh when I think of Doug's head being made out of dough. It's plausible Seriously though, I'm so badly drooling over the Orange Box. After seeing this new footage, I'm a very happy child And I've just downloaded and watched the HD Left 4 Dead footage... just watch it, WATCH IT NOW. I think my head is going to explode. Seriously.

 

[Godron]

Very good to hear! I take it that you can understand German then? Oh, and you have to wait for the ads to finish in the first video, before the real thing actually comes up

I did. They play. Then it stops. I refresh. It plays the adverts. Then it stops.

Yeah, I totally agree. It also pisses me off when I hear people saying stuff like "Haha Source looks like crap now." I can bet you any money that these are the people who have played Half-Life 2 at it's release date, and were totally awed by the visuals. I'm certain. A few years down the line, however, they see something like Crysis, and suddenly, Half-Life 2 becomes a thing of the past. They completely change their tone and mock Half-Life 2. Don't get me wrong, Crysis will be great, but Crysis's storyline utterly fails in comparison to Half-Life 2. You watch them b*stards crawl back when VALVe unleashes their unstoppable magic.

OK, I just looked at Crysis for the first time, and it looks awesome. What does Source have now, graphically, that Crysis doesn't (serious question)?

EDIT: Ah. The first trailer now works.

 

[Born]

Yeah, Crysis most likely does have every graphical aspect of Half-Life 2. I'm not questioning that. But what I am saying is that if VALVe were to build a whole new engine/massive upgrade of Source, I bet you that they would kick Crytek's ass.

 

[soulslicer]

cryengine 2.0 is well far more superior as firstly its pure dx10, (thus higher efficiency, higher polygons and textures), supports many shader and graphic effects like the smoke ripples when a plant or leaf goes over sun ect. and probably supports larger environments. and the physics engine is kickass.

however for valve, it has always been abt the gameplay as far as i am concerned.

wow, ep2 releases on the exact day my year end exams end..

 

[Xendance]

He said that it will be released in Europe on October 12th!!

I thought it was October 9th!! Damn, few more days.

 

[Narvi]

Swedish persons, transcript, please.

 

[Godron]

cryengine 2.0 is well far more superior as firstly its pure dx10, (thus higher efficiency, higher polygons and textures), supports many shader and graphic effects like the smoke ripples when a plant or leaf goes over sun ect. and probably supports larger environments. and the physics engine is kickass.

I read that Valve are supporting DX10 with Ep2, and working on hybrid threading as well. Apparently they plan on achieving efficient hybrid threading about two years before other companies. Would DX10 require a massive over-haul of the Source engine?

 

[Silarn]

CryENGINE 2 may be natively built to support DX10, but there is no way in hell it is a pure DX10 game. A huge portion of the player base would be nullified. That means fewer sales (or angry customers) and fewer profits.

Yes, Valve is adding support for DX10 with the release of Ep2. Because the engine is modular, this also means they can have a unique code path for each DX engine. I trust they'll implement it well; not simply tacking support on the side.

In addition, I wouldn't be flaunting DX10 yet since we've seen nothing but poorer performance from it, thus far. I'm not saying this will be the case forever, but currently, handling is far from streamlined. There are also very few effects that only DX10 can do - it just lets creators do it easier. (The thing you described about the heat waves? Yeah, that's possible with DX9.)

Inferior or not, the point is that Source is highly upgradeable. I doubt it will be terribly far behind the curve for long.

 

[Narvi]

DX10 is still rather immature. Wait until proper cards and driver support come out, you should see a performance boost.

 

[Giwusk]

No, Episode Two is not a DirectX 10 game, however, it does support it.

 

[Silarn]

What is that supposed to mean? "It's not DX10 but it's DX10?" By that logic, nothing is DX10. Was the engine initially built to support it? No, but that means nothing. Even in the new engines, they have to write code to support older DX versions so technically they aren't pure DX10 either. As I said, that would be a very bad move.

I'm not bashing DX10 entirely, just its current performance - which is far from stellar. To quote myself, "I'm not saying this will be the case forever, but currently, handling is far from streamlined."

Don't get me wrong - I'm not attacking the merits of the CryENGINE2. I'm simply defending Source's ability to adapt, improve, and expand. People have this idea that once an engine is released, it is forever limited to that initial featureset. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but Source is designed to adapt and improve as much as Valve wants it to.

Think about it. At HL2's release, the engine was single-threaded like any other engine, but Source is adaptable enough that they've been able to tweak practically every function of the engine in order to give it full multi-threading support. That's a pretty big change.

 

[Born]

What is that supposed to mean? "It's not DX10 but it's DX10?" By that logic, nothing is DX10. Was the engine initially built to support it? No, but that means nothing. Even in the new engines, they have to write code to support older DX versions so technically they aren't pure DX10 either. As I said, that would be a very bad move.

I'm not bashing DX10 entirely, just its current performance - which is far from stellar. To quote myself, "I'm not saying this will be the case forever, but currently, handling is far from streamlined."

Don't get me wrong - I'm not attacking the merits of the CryENGINE2. I'm simply defending Source's ability to adapt, improve, and expand. People have this idea that once an engine is released, it is forever limited to that initial featureset. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but Source is designed to adapt and improve as much as Valve wants it to.

Think about it. At HL2's release, the engine was single-threaded like any other engine, but Source is adaptable enough that they've been able to tweak practically every function of the engine in order to give it full multi-threading support. That's a pretty big change.

Listen to this wise man.

 

[Schmeller]

Who cares about this anyway? Episode 2 will still look great on a high end rig and the Xbox 360 also. I dont know about you but i would rather fight Hunters than stare at a big leaf that happens to move when i walk into it.

 

[Giwusk]

What is that supposed to mean? "It's not DX10 but it's DX10?" By that logic, nothing is DX10. Was the engine initially built to support it? No, but that means nothing. Even in the new engines, they have to write code to support older DX versions so technically they aren't pure DX10 either. As I said, that would be a very bad move.

I'm not bashing DX10 entirely, just its current performance - which is far from stellar. To quote myself, "I'm not saying this will be the case forever, but currently, handling is far from streamlined."

Don't get me wrong - I'm not attacking the merits of the CryENGINE2. I'm simply defending Source's ability to adapt, improve, and expand. People have this idea that once an engine is released, it is forever limited to that initial featureset. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but Source is designed to adapt and improve as much as Valve wants it to.

Think about it. At HL2's release, the engine was single-threaded like any other engine, but Source is adaptable enough that they've been able to tweak practically every function of the engine in order to give it full multi-threading support. That's a pretty big change.

Great point! You seem to understand the situation greatly, but do not judge DirectX? 10 so hastily because we have only but merely tasted DirectX? 10. For example, only a handful of video games have grasped upon it while some have merely tasted DirectX? 10. Sorry if this sound a tad confusing, but the main point behind my post is that a few gaming corporations have fully optimized their products using DirectX? 10, while some adjust to using small aspects of it, while using a lower version (i.e. DirectX? 9). For example, Crysis uses DirectX? 10 to built their game with additions sought through using this brand new engine, which brings about concepts, which were not possible with DirectX? 9 and below.

I am glad I am not the only one that defends Valve's Source engine. It simply put that the Source engine is "fully-upgradeable" and we will not be seeing the end of the engine for quite some time. True, most do not realize that the Source engine can be improved upon with each upcoming release, which happens to be why each release is an episode. The main goal behind that was to gather feedback and improve upon their next project.

Also, do remember that Crysis is bound to be similar to regards to the Source engine, in which it is "fully-upgradeable."

Again, DirectX? 10 has merely been brought to light, give it some time to be understood.

Yes, but the same logic applies to any current-existing project, which is bound to have an engine, which is fully-upgradeable.