For all you chumps who think the E3 builds show footage from last september.

[Spiffae]

let's just clear this up once and for all: The E3 videos (and the Steam videos) are NOT from a September 2002 build. they were the most current build at the time (May 2003)

Here is an e-mail from gabe:

- How old is the content that was shown at E3? The idea seems to be floating around that everything released so far was created shortly after the technology freeze in September 2002. Is this the case?

[Gabe Newell] When you are building a game, a lot of different pieces get touched at various times. The first time some of that was done is years ago. The last time it was touched was right before we got on the plane. I'm not sure how to answer your question.

The content shown at E3 isn't months old. It was actually what was the current build at the time.

thanks to CyberGeek for the e-mail.

 

[Lifthz]

People are dumb. It's only obvious they would show the most recent build at the time. The graphics engine that is.

 

[Mountain Man]

Actually, what he said was that some of the content was new, some of it was old. Point being, the E3 videos don't necessarily represent the final product.

 

[what]

Okay so the textures could be a year old, the maps only 5 months, the gun models could be from the month before E3, the engine could be from a 3 or 4 months before E3 so it was stable, the monsters could be from 8 months ago.

Fact of the matter is, we don't know.

 

[Lifthz]

No, the point was that the build was the most recent build at the time of E3. He wasn't referring to the final product.

However idiots go around talking crap about it was a build from last year that they showed.

 

[CommieX]

This makes sense; I always wondered why they would show such an old version of the game if a newer one was available. Well, that makes Half-Life 2 a lot less impressive, but it still rocks. I remember thinking to myself, "That looks pretty good, and it's almost a year old!"

 

[Mr.Reak]

Doesn't make it a lot less impressive at all. Even if it was a build from one year ago, it would look the same, just with more bugs. Same thing will happen with Doom III, it won't look that much different from Alpha version.

 

[Lifthz]

Doom 3 alpha was only medium settings and also of course was limited to 640x480 res.

 

[CommieX]

What I mean is that all of the little problems and blemishes I noticed in the demos I thought were there simply because it was an outdated version. This also makes me less convinced that they will make the Sept. 30 release. I used to think that if they had that much done a year ago, they sure as hell would make it but I don't know.

 

[$niper]

I think people are mistaken on their views.

Everything might have been finished in September 2002, as in, the art or the basic core components to the engine. However, it doesn't mean that when Half-Life 2 ships, it'll be this amazing piece of work totally different and improved from what was shown at E3 that's been modified heavily over a year's time. Perhaps components in the engine are updated/improved, but as Mr. Reak said, it's going to look the same.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by $niper
I think people are mistaken on their views.

Everything might have been finished in September 2002, as in, the art or the basic core components to the engine. However, it doesn't mean that when Half-Life 2 ships, it'll be this amazing piece of work totally different and improved from what was shown at E3 that's been modified heavily over a year's time. Perhaps components in the engine are updated/improved, but as Mr. Reak said, it's going to look the same.

No, I think you're mistaken on your views.

Most recent builds means it's the most up to date, it has been improved/tweaked recently. At E3, what they showed was the most recent build of the game for that time. It wasn't last updated since last year.

 

[SirMcNugget]

I thought all this was obvious And Im glad im not so picky that I notice things that are wrong. All I see is what is amazing.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by SirMcNugget
I thought all this was obvious And Im glad im not so picky that I notice things that are wrong. All I see is what is amazing.

If everyone in the world was like that, then there would be no improvement in anything. We'd still be living in caves or whatever used to happen hundreds of thousands of years ago.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Plus all these bugs will be fixed. You don't honestly think it will be shipped out like that?

 

[CommieX]

What makes you so sure? And if they are all going to be fixed, then I wouldn't be surprised to see a delay.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Oh yes, we were working five years in a secret on the most anticipated game of the year and now we will release it with all kind of bugs, so people would complain some more and flame us with useless e-mails.

 

[Feath]

What bugs? I didn't see any significant bugs.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Come on Feath, weren't you here when we nitpicked all the videos to death?

 

[LoneDeranger]

LOL!

You guys thought the vids were from Sept 2002?? I didn't know that.

The demo (players movement) was probably recorded a while back but the videos were rendered only recently. Duh, why would Valve show us an old build when they could just run it on the new one? What did you think they were doing when they said they were "creating the videos"?

 

[CommieX]

Originally posted by LoneDeranger
LOL!

You guys thought the vids were from Sept 2002?? I didn't know that.

The demo (players movement) was probably recorded a while back but the videos were rendered only recently. Duh, why would Valve show us an old build when they could just run it on the new one? What did you think they were doing when they said they were "creating the videos"?

Well, I have read numerous times that the demos were made around last september, but I guess that's not the case.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by CommieX
Well, I have read numerous times that the demos were made around last september, but I guess that's not the case.

They were made around September. The demos not the videos! It's too very differnt things. A demo is a recorded set of actions and is rendered every time (in real time) by the game engine. Thats why it might turn out a bit different every time (as seen in tunnels).

Valve recorded the demos a year ago, but renderd them only recently.

 

[subs]

if they are the newest build why are crowbar animatoins still old??? CAUSE its still not updated build, old or new.

 

[subs]

and why are all the place holder decals still in a "NEW BUILD"....odd dont you tink?

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by subs
and why are all the place holder decals still in a "NEW BUILD"....odd dont you tink?

You expected them to fix all the problems in 1.5 months after e3?

EDIT: BTW, the only major problems in the vids are placeholder art, crowbar, and shadow errors in a few places.

Crowbar + placeholders will take them like 2-3 days at most to fix. Since the shadow problem is not widespread, Valve said they may or may not fix it for the final build.

 

[CommieX]

What do you mean not widespread? It seems like if there is an object on top of something, it casts a shadow through that object. Like the stuff on the table in traptown, and the scanner on the table in Kleiner's lab. But this really doesn't bother me, what bothers me is the clipping, especially in traptown, where the combine soldier goes through the container.

 

[Lifthz]

Yeah, the clipping is bad in Traptown. It's like Splinter Cell.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Yeah but only it only occurs in in model-on-top-of-model situations. And I think fixing the clipping in their #1 priority.

 

[Lifthz]

Really? I saw a dead combie's foot go through another Combine's foot in one screen. Probably a previos build though..

 

[CyberGeek]

Wow... I didn't expect a whole thread to revolve around a single question in a mostly silly e-mail of mine. Anywho, it seems to me that a good deal of the visual problems people have been pointing out aren't that hard to fix. Take the blood sprites on the zombies in the docks video for instance. Blood sprites are relatively simple, an artist could realistically crank out new ones the day before the game goes gold. Crowbar animations also wouldn't take long. Swinging a crowbar in first-person view is about as simple as an animation can get. The chunky lightmaps would be easy for a level designer to fix assuming Hammer let's you pick a lightmap scale within the texture application window thingy.

I think the September 2002 technology freeze was just that, a stopping point in which no more new features would be added. After that point it would be just content creation and bug fixes. At the technology freeze there would likely still be a large amount of placeholder art and bugs. To file a version away then to be shown at E3 wouldn't make much sense. A good amount of the content would already be finished, but it would make sense to keep working on it and then display the most recent stable build of the game at E3.

The reason I had asked was because people seemed to be under the impression that Valve decided shortly after the technology freeze to file away what they had to be shown at E3. After that was filed away absolutely no alterations would be made. That way what we were shown was months out of date. That is what seems to not be the case.

So now I try to sum it up in three sentences. Obviously, like Gabe Newell said, some of the stuff shown at E3 was years old. However, even though it was old, it wasn't out-of-date. Everything shown was the most recent version of whatever was shown.

 

[adio2001]

Well to me, the game looked just fine from the videos. I see no need for you guys to give this game an incredible hype that not even Jesus could live up to. Try to focus on what you are getting, not what you aren't.

 

[Wesisapie]

agreed. the hype monster has already become way too big.

 

[subs]

Originally posted by LoneDeranger
You expected them to fix all the problems in 1.5 months after e3?

EDIT: BTW, the only major problems in the vids are placeholder art, crowbar, and shadow errors in a few places.

Crowbar + placeholders will take them like 2-3 days at most to fix. Since the shadow problem is not widespread, Valve said they may or may not fix it for the final build.

but GABE said in an e-mail a few weeks after e3 that the CROWBAR had been fixed.

 

[subs]

Originally posted by adio2001
Well to me, the game looked just fine from the videos. I see no need for you guys to give this game an incredible hype that not even Jesus could live up to. Try to focus on what you are getting, not what you aren't.

yah i feel the say way here. But i just find gabe's statements odd. And the videos are EXACTLY what "ill be gettin". I plan on playing 1-3 choices above the resolutoin on the binks with full AF and atleast 4x fsaa.

 

[Apos]

Sigh.

Most recent builds means it's the most up to date, it has been improved/tweaked recently. At E3, what they showed was the most recent build of the game for that time. It wasn't last updated since last year.

Nothing was said about a "most recent build."

The way development process works is that you have several engine builds going at once: usually one solid stable one to test gameplay and so forth on, and other experimental ones to test out new tweaks. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between new content and new engine builds.

We know that the press was shown a build that was 8 months old. We know that what we saw at e3 included things, like the crowbar, that they had only just started putting in. That's pretty much all we've ever known, and Gabe's statement tells us nothing more than we already knew.

What also must have confused people is that Valve had a major feature freeze last September. That is, anything major in the way of new technology that wasn't ready yet, or wouldn't be workable on current systems, was shunted off to future development, away from them worrying too much about it getting into HL2. This doesn't mean that they stopped working on the engine: they stopped adding major new features.

 

[Apos]

but GABE said in an e-mail a few weeks after e3 that the CROWBAR had been fixed.

Yes: the bink videos are EXACTLY what was shown at e3, even down to being recorded on the same build. We know this because things they had talked about already having changed around are still in the vids exactly the same: even the demo interpolation which Gabe said they had totally rewritten.

They are also exactly the same sequences, to the inch. The only difference I've been able to find is that in the tunnels vid, the combine on fire does not fall down the pit: he just falls over and burns. And even this could either have been a different showing of that sequence than in the gamespot vid (the gamespot recording was supposedly live play), or simply one of those physics randomness things they've been talking about.

Gabe has also said that the demos: the actual play sequences, were recorded a ways back. This, however, tells us nothing about the builds or the work that they might show: one of the features Gabe was crowing about was how older demos were compatible with new builds.

 

[Styloid]

I think we might have oversimplified Gabe's answer. It sounds more like what Apos said. They have different builds for different reasons. Likely, they had an E3 build that was stable with fewer problems for public showing but lacked newer but unpolished features.

 

[Chris D]

3) The build of V-Source that has produced the BINK videos - how old is it,
and how much graphically will it differ from the released version?

That was from E3 timeframe. There are a lot of visual effects getting
finalized post-E3.

It doesn't matter when the demo files were recorded, the fact of the matter is the build of the engine they were recorded on is the only thing that should be in debate here. And to finish that debate the engine we're seeing on the BINK videos is a few months old from E3 and this version of the engine would have been last edited minutes before they got on the plane as they said.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

I REALLY wish you lot would stop bitching. Valve will do everything they can to make the game great. They know about the things we do. They will fix what they can. We cant control what they do, so lets just let them do their job. ok?



Personaly I would rather have the game have excelent graphics (like in the vids) and a finished absolutely amazing game story and it play well
than absolutely amazing graphics with a unfinished game thats less fun.






My personal opinion there

 

[The Mullinator]

Originally posted by $niper
I think people are mistaken on their views.

Everything might have been finished in September 2002, as in, the art or the basic core components to the engine. However, it doesn't mean that when Half-Life 2 ships, it'll be this amazing piece of work totally different and improved from what was shown at E3 that's been modified heavily over a year's time. Perhaps components in the engine are updated/improved, but as Mr. Reak said, it's going to look the same.

I don't really think too many people had the idea that the game will be completely different from what they saw at E3. People were talking about little things when they said that they saw problems in the E3 videos, you know stuff like "Whats with the combine soldiers? Their AI sucks" or "The texture on that plank of wood isn't aligned properly." Those are the things that people were talking about, not a completely new looking game.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by Apos
Sigh.



Nothing was said about a "most recent build."

The way development process works is that you have several engine builds going at once: usually one solid stable one to test gameplay and so forth on, and other experimental ones to test out new tweaks. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between new content and new engine builds.

We know that the press was shown a build that was 8 months old. We know that what we saw at e3 included things, like the crowbar, that they had only just started putting in. That's pretty much all we've ever known, and Gabe's statement tells us nothing more than we already knew.

What also must have confused people is that Valve had a major feature freeze last September. That is, anything major in the way of new technology that wasn't ready yet, or wouldn't be workable on current systems, was shunted off to future development, away from them worrying too much about it getting into HL2. This doesn't mean that they stopped working on the engine: they stopped adding major new features.

We both know what most recent build means. I dunno why you're trying to break it down to a more detailed level for no reason... as if the testing/experimental build is something they will show to the public...

The build was not 8 months old. The building of the engine is on-going, and the last time they updated/tweaked the engine was days before E3, not months.

Oh, and i'm talking about graphics, you know that right? Not the gameplay recording.