HL2 is set to take advantages and features of the dx 9 , and to be playable on older cpu and tech.
This process only takes time . They need to find the right balance that will satisfy all their fans.
Source wasn't designed to include all and only dx 9 fancy stuff , of course some other engines will have better tech in certain aspects.
Valve had to take compremises , and I think they balanced the game wonderfully . HL2 looks, gfx wise, awesome to me (better than other engines , IMO) but still able to be playable on older cpu's.
Graphics always evolve and improve , you have to decide what to include at a certain moment that will suit the company's goals . It's not like Source will remain the same as years go bye .
Besides , making the game itself , the gameplay , how all the content comes together to create a good GAME - that's what takes most of the work , and that's what sperates good/bad games from excellent game , not some gfx feature that wasn't included because it didn't fit the company's ideas for the game at a certain time.
This process only takes time . They need to find the right balance that will satisfy all their fans.
Source wasn't designed to include all and only dx 9 fancy stuff , of course some other engines will have better tech in certain aspects.
Valve had to take compremises , and I think they balanced the game wonderfully . HL2 looks, gfx wise, awesome to me (better than other engines , IMO) but still able to be playable on older cpu's.
Graphics always evolve and improve , you have to decide what to include at a certain moment that will suit the company's goals . It's not like Source will remain the same as years go bye .
Besides , making the game itself , the gameplay , how all the content comes together to create a good GAME - that's what takes most of the work , and that's what sperates good/bad games from excellent game , not some gfx feature that wasn't included because it didn't fit the company's ideas for the game at a certain time.
Not every one sees it as a good thing, some see it as ugly. To each their own as to how it looks. What I appreciate about it is that it is actually closer to how light works in the real world. And with better hardware and development we will be much closer to real looking 3D environments. There are obviously limitations of the technology now, just like there are limitations of the non-dynamic lit games. But It is a taste of what is to come.jameth said:
UltimaGecko
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billbo said:
Well, by that definition everything is already done.
Doom 3 has dynamic lighting - been done before.
Doom 3 has AI - been done before.
Doom 3 has enemies - been done before.
etc.
[the only completely revolutionary thing I can think of is per-pixel hit detection]
If you want a reason why improving on previous designs has taken so long...well then, take into account that the engine is purported to scale to an immensely large range of computers (instead of just top of the line computer like many games).
What do you want it to be able to do?
It seems the only thing that will be worth 6 years to you will be an engine that draws a real-world quality image in realtime at as of yet unattained resolutions like 8000x6000.
How about directly controlled player interaction with in-game physics? Sure, everyone and their mom has rag-doll physics, and boxes that bounce around, but who lets you pick them up and use them effectively in a realistic way? [and if you say Deus Ex 2, I'll throw one of their low gravity boxes at you...]
Just listen to the E3 2003 video...they'll tell you some reasons why the engine is so special (Add to that a more intriguing storyline than Doom 3, while being in production about the same length). I think there was something about realisticlly calculated water refraction based on surrounding level geometry with Fresnel effects or something - if you want something purely original.
[edit] Perhaps I forgot to mention the whole 'ease of modding' thing, which few/no other companies besides Valve are so dedicated to doing (name one game with as many mods as Half-Life (Quake might come close, but that's about it). Despite that, HL2 is designed from the ground up to be modification fiendly.
HL2's facial animation system is revolutionary by that definition. I think everyone is underestimating how important that will be in the game experience. Talk about more realistic lighting interactions, how about believable, emoting, dynamic NPCs who draw from a huge palette of emotions as they delivery well synched lines.... :smoking:
What game has the Unified lighting model that Doom 3 has? Be carefull, don't fall for that "Dynamic Lighting" marketing jargon that many games throw around. And ffs, stop dragging the story into it, it was a discussion about TECHNOLOGY. You still haven't shown me one original thing in Half-Life 2. :EUltimaGecko said:
Also, those making claims about what is taking it so long... any links or sources to back it up? I haven't seen any and thus why should I believe it.
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billbo said:
The same applies to everything you've said. There's no big conspiracy as to why it's taken 6 years. It just has. There's nothing to disbelieve. Development started after HL, and it's winding up now. What is there to dispute? Just because you can't see any reason why it's taken so long, doesn't mean that it hasn't, or that they're hiding something.
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lol @ this thread...
People dont seriously believe that valve have purhaps withheld the game from us for a few years do they.....?! :rolling:
People dont seriously believe that valve have purhaps withheld the game from us for a few years do they.....?! :rolling:
marksmanHL2 :)
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hmmm, purhaps I am missinterpriting the thread..
But arnt you all argueing about whether HL2 actually took 6 years to make?!
hmmm, are you saying that they didnt start 6 years ago?
That too seems a little silly to me... why would they lie... and why wouldnt it take 6 years....
Sorry if I am making no sence btw. I am ill atm. I feel dizzy just sitting here...
I might go back to bed in a minute...
But arnt you all argueing about whether HL2 actually took 6 years to make?!
hmmm, are you saying that they didnt start 6 years ago?
That too seems a little silly to me... why would they lie... and why wouldnt it take 6 years....
Sorry if I am making no sence btw. I am ill atm. I feel dizzy just sitting here...
I might go back to bed in a minute...
Are you saying that I claimed they are hiding something? I just said that I haven't even seen a quote that anyone at valve even said it took that long. Please don't put words in my mouth, because that's what it appears that you are doing to me.PiMuRho said:
KagePrototype
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I swear to god, all this waiting is making people paranoid. Seriously, why are you even debating this? It took six years. That's all -- they've been spending six years on this project, making sure it is as good as it can be. It's that simple people.
Oh, but no, some guy thinks they didn't spend six years on it and that they might have lied to us! :O Conspiracy?!/1 Valve lied to us again?!?/OMG. Let's take a reality check -- why would Valve lie about something like development time? It's just ridiculous. To bolster their reputation? I doubt it -- they would have gained a lot more respect if they said they had only spent 2 years on it, making them look a lot more talented. But of course, they didn't. Because there's no point.
Just like this thread, funnily enough.
Oh, but no, some guy thinks they didn't spend six years on it and that they might have lied to us! :O Conspiracy?!/1 Valve lied to us again?!?/OMG. Let's take a reality check -- why would Valve lie about something like development time? It's just ridiculous. To bolster their reputation? I doubt it -- they would have gained a lot more respect if they said they had only spent 2 years on it, making them look a lot more talented. But of course, they didn't. Because there's no point.
Just like this thread, funnily enough.
Mechagodzilla
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This thread is dumb for the aforementioned reasons.
End of thread.
End of thread.
marksmanHL2 :)
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KagePrototype said:
Heheh, what he said.... :rolling:
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billbo said:
your obviously talking to smart for some people or ... ur talking shit now.
I've seen ur posts just get ...... picky and.... no point to them.
how about u shut up and just .. go sit in a corner with ur head bowed while u think of something proper to say.
If things from the previous engines worked fine..... why fix it? .... I'm sure thats what the mean from blueprints. .......obviously starting from scratch is gonna mean taking the good things from games already gone by?
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Does anyone else think that they worked exclusively on TF2 for a long time and then decided one day, "okay, lets just stop fooling ourselves and get started on HL2 now, that's what everyone wants anyway."? That's what I think happened.
I mean, they were releasing screens and movies of TF2 until one day everything myseteriously stopped and Valve was shut to the outside world...
I mean, they were releasing screens and movies of TF2 until one day everything myseteriously stopped and Valve was shut to the outside world...
EVIL
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?? how the **** did this thread became a doom3 vs source engine discussion
anyway.. HL²'s development started right after they finished HL right? It takes atleast Six month's to design and write a design dock for a complex game as HL². after they know what they need they start to collect research material to build the engine.. this building takes a long year. In dec 2002 they started building the content, so its almost 2,5 year of building the actual game, and thats not so bloody long. The doom3 engine was finished in 2000 so they have been making content for the past 4 years
Building and engine from scratch takes atleast 1 year. Building a "hybrid" engine takes alot longer, and that is what source is.
anyway.. HL²'s development started right after they finished HL right? It takes atleast Six month's to design and write a design dock for a complex game as HL². after they know what they need they start to collect research material to build the engine.. this building takes a long year. In dec 2002 they started building the content, so its almost 2,5 year of building the actual game, and thats not so bloody long. The doom3 engine was finished in 2000 so they have been making content for the past 4 years
Building and engine from scratch takes atleast 1 year. Building a "hybrid" engine takes alot longer, and that is what source is.
I always thought that they stopped revealing info on TF2 because they were going to put it on Source, and showing people TF2 on Source would blow the big entrance made by HL2.
Not to mention that while liscensing the Havok engine would have been faster than building their own physics engine, they made HUGE changes to it and added all sorts of things, which certainly demands a reasonable chunk of development time. They also wrote their own shaders (which can take a LOT of time if they're complex) and are supposably still making last minute optimisations (and obviously playtesting) to the engine.
Not to mention that while liscensing the Havok engine would have been faster than building their own physics engine, they made HUGE changes to it and added all sorts of things, which certainly demands a reasonable chunk of development time. They also wrote their own shaders (which can take a LOT of time if they're complex) and are supposably still making last minute optimisations (and obviously playtesting) to the engine.
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UltimaGecko said:
Using Zoner's Half-Life Tools, or any newer ones, it is possible to make entities opaque, thus blocking light. These compile tools are used by pretty much all of the mapping and modding community. The problem remains that the shadows are lightmaps, and thus they are static. This option is bad idea on any entity that moves.
As for level making being annoying: I've found Half-Life to be one of the most enjoyable engines to map for, for many reasons. The community, the challenges, the ease and the possibilities. It's always satisfying to make the engine do something it was never meant to. And it's a bit more flexible than you might think.
Interestingly enough, most of the parts that make it "annoying" are due to the BSP system and will remain when mapping for HL2. I don't consider this a problem though, since I'm used to it.
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No. I'm not saying that. I'm not putting words in your mouth either. You say you can't believe that it's taken them 6 years. People are refuting that. You're choosing to ignore them unless they provide valid quotes or links.
Tell you what, let's play turnabout. You provide valid quotes or links that prove it hasn't taken 6 years.
billbo is trying to distinguish between games and engines which feature various degrees of dynamic lighting and D3 which has a completely unified light and shadowing system for all surfaces. This is a valid distinction, and D3 is certainly the current pinnacle of that technology path, however, he's really pushing his credibility when he uses words like 'completely different' or 'revoluntionary' in contrast to previous unified lighting technology which was 'gimmicky' or 'fake'.CB | Para said:
In reality brute force unified renderering is one way of skinning a cat (not necessarily the smartest) and it has various levels of implementation. D3's lighting is just a natural extension of where that approach leads...
PiMuRho said:
I don't have to, the people that are claiming it did have the burden of proof. I said I don't believe it because I have seen absolutely no evidence that it is true, none. Allow me to provide an example of the error in your logic:
Someone claims that Santa Claus is real and exists, I say I don't believe it. Would I be expected to prove that He didn't exist? That would be absurd. Those that are making the claims are the one with the burden of proof. Does anyone have any? Certainly no one has provided it. None.
The unified lighting model is just lightmaps calculated in real-time.
This does have advantages, like the lighting being able to react better to bits of geometry shifting about, but also has the disadvantage that it requires craploads of CPU power. Anyone who's mapped for HL knows that the RAD stage, where the light is calculated, takes a damn long time, and this is because it's calculating all the light and shadow for the map, and it's a computer power intensive operation.
To get round the inescapable reality that real-time lighting really bites in terms of computing power, Carmack had to comprimise, keeping poly counts as low as possible to simplify the calculations, and not having the light bounce, making the lighting very harsh. If my mental reckoning is right, it's practically impossible to have proper bouncing light calculated in real-time because the computing power demands rise exponentially.
While this suits the mood of D3, it would look pretty terrible in a lot of other games, which is why they make the comprimise of lightmaps, which look far more realistic than D3-style lighting, and since they're calculated based purely on static geometry, they look just fine. Really, they're a much better simulation of how light works in real life than Doom 3, as you get light bouncing off surfaces to illuminate another surface, just like real life.
Anyways, whilst a lot of the basic ideas behind engine rendering is the same (BSP trees have been with us for a while, and since they're still the best thing to use mathematically, they will be for a long while yet) it still takes time to re-write the code that implements all of this from the ground up. The real trick is in how they architect the internal code of the engine to make it as robust, feature-rich and future-proof as possible, and I'd imagine this is the kinda area in which Valve would be doing the most work.
This does have advantages, like the lighting being able to react better to bits of geometry shifting about, but also has the disadvantage that it requires craploads of CPU power. Anyone who's mapped for HL knows that the RAD stage, where the light is calculated, takes a damn long time, and this is because it's calculating all the light and shadow for the map, and it's a computer power intensive operation.
To get round the inescapable reality that real-time lighting really bites in terms of computing power, Carmack had to comprimise, keeping poly counts as low as possible to simplify the calculations, and not having the light bounce, making the lighting very harsh. If my mental reckoning is right, it's practically impossible to have proper bouncing light calculated in real-time because the computing power demands rise exponentially.
While this suits the mood of D3, it would look pretty terrible in a lot of other games, which is why they make the comprimise of lightmaps, which look far more realistic than D3-style lighting, and since they're calculated based purely on static geometry, they look just fine. Really, they're a much better simulation of how light works in real life than Doom 3, as you get light bouncing off surfaces to illuminate another surface, just like real life.
Anyways, whilst a lot of the basic ideas behind engine rendering is the same (BSP trees have been with us for a while, and since they're still the best thing to use mathematically, they will be for a long while yet) it still takes time to re-write the code that implements all of this from the ground up. The real trick is in how they architect the internal code of the engine to make it as robust, feature-rich and future-proof as possible, and I'd imagine this is the kinda area in which Valve would be doing the most work.
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Heh, nice try.
You're fighting against inescapable logic. Valve have stated that they started HL2 straight after they finished HL (I believe the quote is in the "Info from Valve" thread somewhere. Failing that, it's in an interview). Since then, they've been working on it for 6 years.
So I ask again, what is there to dispute? I have no burden of proof because there's nothing to prove. Your Santa Claus analogy was horribly flawed.
Put up or shut up - what reason do you have for not believing that Valve have taken 6 years working on HL2? What were they doing instead? Why would they lie about it?
You're fighting against inescapable logic. Valve have stated that they started HL2 straight after they finished HL (I believe the quote is in the "Info from Valve" thread somewhere. Failing that, it's in an interview). Since then, they've been working on it for 6 years.
So I ask again, what is there to dispute? I have no burden of proof because there's nothing to prove. Your Santa Claus analogy was horribly flawed.
Put up or shut up - what reason do you have for not believing that Valve have taken 6 years working on HL2? What were they doing instead? Why would they lie about it?
Wolf said:
How am I "pushing his credibility when he uses words like 'completely different' or 'revoluntionary' in contrast to previous unified lighting technology which was 'gimmicky' or 'fake'." when I never said that. Provide a quote please. I did compare it to the type of lighting that Half-Life 2 uses, not another unified model. Get it right. If you're going to question my credibility, at least get it right. Please read my use of revolutionary, I even provide a quote from dictionary.com in an attempt to explain to the best of my ability how it applies. As far as I'm concerned you owe me an apology. Or at least "fess up".
marksmanHL2 :)
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billbo said:
lol.... your logic has the errors... not his.
You cant make comparisons with frickin santa claus!
Ahem... anyway!
Evidence eh... Well. Just look at what the valve team have done in 6 years...
Its not just halflife2 they have been working on is it!
CS, DOD, HL1 updates, TeamFortress2, Condition Zero, All the HL1 expansions (Blue shift, oposing forces), HL1 for the playstation, Steam, Powerplay thingie....
Hell, I bet answering all our emails has taken about 6 months collectively!!
PiMuRho said:
Thank you, that Is the first time I noticed anyone even say that Valve directly said that. That's all I was asking for. Was that mentioned earlier in the thread?
edit: Didn't like my analogy? How about this. When Half-Life Radio said that it would be released by valve to vivendi within a few weeks after June 12th, and vivendi would release it in the fall, did the people here believe it without evidence or call it speculation? Was it up to everyone else to prove them wrong?
Dalamari
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They have more than 12 people on their dev team ya know......
Im sure that they have most of their team working on HL2, that is why it took so long for CZ to release and why CS and DoD haven't had a major patch in over a year atleast. OpFor was a gearbox game btw.
Im sure that they have most of their team working on HL2, that is why it took so long for CZ to release and why CS and DoD haven't had a major patch in over a year atleast. OpFor was a gearbox game btw.
