Freeman's mod (was: Source Engine no limits???)

[FreemanHL2]

Source Engine no limits???

Yesterday i sent an e-mail to rick about the poly counts and texture res the source engine can support. I got this e-mail back... From what i read you are really only limited by your hardware, wich means we can almost create anything on souirce... I'm a really happy MOD maker! :E

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 07:16:24 -0700
From: "Rick Ellis" <[email protected]>


Hello...

Yes we'll be releasing exporters with the SDK. There's no real "set" number of polys and rez for the engine as the physics and AI calculations take a fair chunk of time as well so your framerate really depends on the world's complexity in the area around the player. You will obviously get away with higher poly counts and rez in lower complexity areas (i.e. little AI and physics) whereas you'd get a lower framerate in more complex areas. We tuned HL2 to run on various machines at given framerates, not at given poly counts. This is the best way of doing it.

I'm assuming you mean "baked in lighting" and the answer is yes.

Rick
Valve



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:38 AM
To: Rick Ellis


Hey Rick! Just a few questions...

Will you be releasing exporters for maya and 3dsmax with HL2? Will these be avaliable with the first release of the sdk?

PS: What is the max texture resolution and poly count the source engine is capable of processing at any one time? O and deos the SOURCE engine support TEXTURED LIGHTING???

Thanks for your time.

What do you think???

 

[Be-vishead]

I'm not sure if it's true but I also heard source suppose unlimited players. You can daisy chain servers to work together and support more players. I'm not sure if this is true.

 

[chimpmunk]

SOURCE is GOD!

 

[FreemanHL2]

I don't really see what other engine can compete with SOURCE??? Can anyone even think of a competing engine?

 

[Dr. A]

*cough*unreal 3*cough* :E

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

Doom 3? Lol, sorry it's unhealthy to be so synical.

 

[Spugmaster]

Yes - it will be interesting to see STALKER running. From the videos I have seen it may give source a run for its money. This is the only current generation engine that I think will be close to source. U3 engine is still too far away...

 

[Dr. A]

Yes - it will be interesting to see STALKER running. From the videos I have seen it may give source a run for its money. This is the only current generation engine that I think will be close to source. U3 engine is still too far away...

The weather & day/night cycle in the STALKER engine was amazing

and yeah U3 is too far away, will probably require a Cray computer to run with max effects... ;(

 

[Revisedsoul]

i coudl be wrong but didnt valve say that they built souce so that it could easly adapt newer technology?

and if so then it could evolve into something greater the u3

 

[FreemanHL2]

EXACTLY... Source deosn't look as good NOW, but under the hood it is capable of rendering MORE than unreal 3! It really deosn't have many technological boundries...

Anyway I am creating a MOD with BETTER graphics than unreal 3, and it will run on source... Yes you will need about 1gb of RAM and atleast a 9800pro, but i am already deep into production. I am only an intermediate modeler so don't expect production quality, but the technology I have implemented so far is... breathtaking. Especially the baked in lighting that really creates an awesome atmosphere... Expect EVERTHING to be physically reactive!

 

[FreemanHL2]

O yeah and it's going to have FULLY REFLECTUVE MIRRORS, just for you critics who are upset about the REFLECTIONS in Half-Life2.

 

[Ragnarokk]

I am doubting your abilities.

 

[Ahnteis]

Comparing to an engine that won't be out for 2 years (U3) is silly.

 

[ruin]

Having the ability to render with an unlimited polycount and texture res isn't anything fancy. Older engines could also do that, it's about matching the polycount and texture res with what you can get away with and have current hardware run ok on.

 

[Finger]

I would pay more attention to making a FUN mod first. But, on the other hand, I'm sure trying to outdo Unreal3 will be a pretty good learning experience for ya... so knock yourself out, Freeman.

 

[WaryWolf]

like others have said, it's not really a question of poly counts. the unreal 3 engine supports soft and fuzzy shadowing by default - does source? there's always going to be a better engine, especially since hl2 has been in production for at least 2 years and is just about to be released.

 

[FreemanHL2]

I am planning on making my MOD fun... Basically I want to be able to destroy everything, that sounds like fun to me! O and ofcourse you can shoot things too! lol. It's fun alround.

Anyway older engines cannot support higher poly counts, or we would all be making half-life MODS with characters similar those in Medal Of honour... But we can't because the engine gives us limitations.

 

[UnmarkedOne]

O yeah and it's going to have FULLY REFLECTUVE MIRRORS, just for you critics who are upset about the REFLECTIONS in Half-Life2.

It's been stated by Valve that the HL2 single-player portion won't feature any surfaces that are capable of reflecting Gordon, but they also said it would be cake to drop a real mirror into a level/mod of your own.

-UnmarkedOne

 

[FreemanHL2]

like others have said, it's not really a question of poly counts. the unreal 3 engine supports soft and fuzzy shadowing by default - does source? there's always going to be a better engine, especially since hl2 has been in production for at least 2 years and is just about to be released.

It may come as a shock to you but HL2 has actually been in production for nearly 6 years now...

It would be good to know if source supports penumbras for shadows... I know any graphics card can render shadows with penumbras reletively fast. If MAYA can use high quality rendering real-time with detailed shadows then why the **** can't we implement that into our game engines?

PS: I am going to post screens of my MOD so far... for the critics... :cheers:

 

[bobthecombineguy]

I wanted to ask something, I looked and did not find a real answer, and this seems as good a place as any to ask: i'm getting a standard copy of hl2 retail, but would LOVE to get half-life: source, but I don't want to spend $90 bucks on the collectors edition, is this possible? Sorry for the n00bish qestion.

 

[raoulduke]

PS: I am going to post screens of my MOD so far... for the critics... :cheers:

Please do, I'm anxious! Let me know when / if they are online!

 

[Yogibbear]

PS: I am going to post screens of my MOD so far... for the critics... :cheers:

OooooooooOOOOOOoooooo.......

I want screens, now!......

Oh, can your mod let your throw your gun on the ground, then shoot it or throw a grenade into it, and then that gun explodes!.....

Also can you create a level sort of like those endless loop video things (for anyone who's into contemporary art...like one i saw at the pompadue center.....) and like its a race around the map setting off all these events until if one person gets it wrong they die!!!!!! and the whole level collapses.....or changes.....like those level changes in virtual fighter 4 except only 10million timesbetter???

 

[FreemanHL2]

HOLY SHIT!!! I just watched the Unreal 3 demonstrations again... AMAZING! The main difference between source and Unreal is Unreal 3's Normal mapping technology that makes a low poly model appear as though it is infact a highpoly model. So source can push more raw power around than unreal 3, but unreal 3 makes it LOOK as though it is better because of the data it stores in its bump and texture mapping.

However the texture detail is IMMENSE... Wich means this game is going to need atleast 1 to 1.5Gb of RAM to run... My MOD is going very well, but i am extremely restricted with the kind of texture resolution i am using. As it is my 512mb of DDR 400mhz RAM can't process the scene without multiple entities disappearing, I am in need of a serious upgrade! and you aree to if you want to run unreal 3!

 

[FreemanHL2]

OooooooooOOOOOOoooooo.......

I want screens, now!......

Oh, can your mod let your throw your gun on the ground, then shoot it or throw a grenade into it, and then that gun explodes!.....

Also can you create a level sort of like those endless loop video things (for anyone who's into contemporary art...like one i saw at the pompadue center.....) and like its a race around the map setting off all these events until if one person gets it wrong they die!!!!!! and the whole level collapses.....or changes.....like those level changes in virtual fighter 4 except only 10million timesbetter???

Yes i can! but first you are going to have to translate all of that into english so that i can read it properly... what language are you typing in anyway? i think i've seen it somewere... o yeah! i remember this 7 year old kid writting something like that!

O and by the way... you are making me VERY nervous. Here i am deciding to create my first MOD for HL2, working on my own, and all of you are anticipating screens already! I've only been on it for 2 weeks... and ofcourse i'm still at school...

But who cares because it's looking awesome, I have but one single doubt! Will it look that good on source??? The answer is no! Modern 3d rendering utilitese take about 2min to render a frame, half-life needs to render about 60 every second! This means the engine is going to cut corners to get that extra fps. What can I say guys, UNREAL 3 is going to need one BIG ASS machine...

 

[Yogibbear]

Yes i can! but first you are going to have to translate all of that into english so that i can read it properly... what language are you typing in anyway? i think i've seen it somewere... o yeah! i remember this 7 year old kid writting something like that!

O and by the way... you are making me VERY nervous. Here i am deciding to create my first MOD for HL2, working on my own, and all of you are anticipating screens already! I've only been on it for 2 weeks... and ofcourse i'm still at school...

But who cares because it's looking awesome, I have but one single doubt! Will it look that good on source??? The answer is no! Modern 3d rendering utilitese take about 2min to render a frame, half-life needs to render about 60 every second! This means the engine is going to cut corners to get that extra fps. What can I say guys, UNREAL 3 is going to need one BIG ASS machine...

Yes, i know, i can''t speak english very well......hm.... damn stupid being born in a non-english country like Australia....(*cough*)......

Oooo....your mod sounds cool. Don't be nervous, i've already gone out and bought my pre-purchase slip that's valid until 2018......

Also....any mod that you try to make, and develop yourself is a pretty skillful job, seeming as though you are doing it by yourself, and have no one to bounce ideas/get help from....

So good luck to you! :cheers:

 

[FreemanHL2]

I only need coders to finish the mod off, I am going to model and map the lot. But thats not a big deal because it isn't that big... if it was any bigger than it wouldn't run. Actually it's really only 1 big map.

Basically it is a deserted mantion modeled down to every last detail... including exterior and outdoors. It is more of an interactive tech demo than any REAL mod. But you can still shoot zombies, play deathmatch and benchmark your computer on the map. I just want to destroy the building with my pumpaction shotgun!

 

[Yogibbear]

I just want to destroy the building with my pumpaction shotgun!

So do i......so do i....... :cheers:

Go the shotgun!!!!

 

[ruin]

The main difference between the Source and U3 engines are that U3 supports real time shadows that can diffuse based on distance while Source uses lightmaps and cheap shadows for models which has a number of limitations. There are also other more minor things U3 has that Source doesn't such as light transmission. At the moment, the source engine can not visually stand up to U3 comparitively no matter how many polygons and high res textures you stick down it.

And I'm sure U3 could push just as many polygons and high res textures as Source. And yes olders engines can do the same. Such as the Quake 3 engine which is still being used in new release games. The difference for engines now is the ability to render realistic material effects which the new Q3 engined games have updated the engine to do some of that.

Freeman, first you say "If MAYA can use high quality rendering real-time..." but then say "Modern 3d rendering utilitese take about 2min to render a frame" a few posts later, obviously contradicting yourself.

 

[koopa]

I'm finding it hard to see any real difference between the Source engine and (say) MOHAA or any modern Q3 variant. Source has a better physics engine, that's about it. I'm not knocking Source, but I don't understand why everyone foams at the mouth about what seems to be already a dated engine.

 

[FreemanHL2]

not at all... If maya can render shadows real-time with penumbras then so should modern engines. HOWEVER modern 3d utilitese do take 2min to render because they are processing raytraced lighting/shadows and extremely high anti-aliasing samples wich aren't the same as real-time gaming engines.

I was clearly talking about 2 different subjects. One being shadows, the other being render time in 3d uitilitese.

 

[FreemanHL2]

I'm finding it hard to see any real difference between the Source engine and (say) MOHAA or any modern Q3 variant. Source has a better physics engine, that's about it. I'm not knocking Source, but I don't understand why everyone foams at the mouth about what seems to be already a dated engine.

You are wrong. When creating models for half-life or quake 2 the max texture resolution is 256x256 pixels. Now i have the ability to create a model with 2048x2048 pixels. Source is obviously more advanced. Here is some of the new technology that source has to offer over previous engines.


Renderer

- Version 2.0 (and below) shaders, bump mapping, LOD on models and world
- Author shaders with HLSL
- Cube and environment mapping
- Dynamic lights, vertex lighting and light maps, many light types including flickering, pulsing etc.
- High-Dynamic Range lighting
- Water with refraction and fresnel effects
- Advanced particle system that can emit sprites or models
- Projected shadows allow for a large number of characters per scene
- Occluder entities for visibility blocking
- Indoor/Outdoor environments
. Deformable terrain
. 3D skyboxes extend the horizon and add parallax on distant objects
. Dynamically rendered organics (grass, trees etc)
- Subdivision surfaces, diffuse & specular bump maps
- Real-time radiosity lighting
- Effects include but are not limited to: particles, beams, volumetric smoke, sparks, blood, environmental effects like fog and rain
- Scalability
. Dx6-Dx9 hardware supported


Materials System

- Instead of traditional textures, Source defines sets of materials that specify what the object is made from and the texture used for that object. A material specifies how an object will fracture when broken, what it will sound like when broken or dragged across another surface, and what that object’s mass and buoyancy are. This system is much more flexible than other texture only based systems.
- Materials can interact with objects or NPCs such as mud or ice for vehicles to slide/lose traction on.


Multiplayer Network Code

- Time and gamer tested by millions of gamers around the world
- Support for both LAN based multiplayer and Internet based multiplayer games
- Prediction analysis for interpolating collision/hit detection
- Optimizations for high-latency, high-packet loss 56k connections



Advanced Characters

- Detailed and believable characters
- Realistic eyes
. Focus on player/object, not simply parallel views
. Proper eye “bulge” for realistic eye reflections
- Simulated musculature provides outstanding emotions, speech and body language
- Language independent speech, characters can naturally speak in many languages
- Skeletal/bone system for animation
- Layered animation system can synthesize complex animations out of several pieces


Physics

- More responsive world with realistic interactions
- Sounds & graphics follow from physics
- AI characters can interact with physically simulated objects
- Ropes/cables, machines, constraint systems, ragdoll physics
- Can be controlled by level design
- Kinematic animated bone followers
- Custom procedural physics controllers
- Vehicles
. Wheels slip and skid
. Realistic suspensions with springs on each wheel
. Realistic leaning during acceleration/deceleration and turning
. Individually tunable parameters such as horsepower, gearing, max speed, shift speed,
tire material, tire friction, spring tension/dampening etc.
. Multiple players in a vehicle in multiplayer
. Hovercraft support for cheaper simulation


Advanced AI

- I/O system allowing level designers to control AI
- Sophisticated navigation: characters that run, fly, jump, crouch, climb stairs and ladders, and burrow underground
- AI senses things using sight, sound, smell
- AI relationships determine friend/foe status of other entities
- Battle AI allows squads of AI characters to operate together, know when to advance, retreat, lay cover fire, etc.



Sound

- 5.1 surround sound, 4 speaker surround
- High-quality 3D spatialization
- Custom software DSP
- Automatic DSP based on environmental geometry
- ADPCM decompression
- 16-bit 44KHz, stereo wave data with all features
- MP3 decompression (requires Miles license)
- Support for audio streaming on any wave
- Real-time wave file stitching
- Pre-authored Doppler effect encoded waves
- Pre-authored distance variant encoded waves


UI

- Server browser - Displays all active game servers and allows a player to choose which one to participate on. Players can filter and sort server lists in order to speed up the display and selection of a server.
- Friends instant messenger - Allows players to message each other both in and out of the game as well as join friends in existing games. No more confusion about what server your friends are on, you can easily join with this feature.
- VGUI – Valve’s custom GUI interface mimics most of the windows controls but is rendered using the Source engine for both in game and out of game uniform UI display. VGUI is platform independent and is Unicode compliant for ease of localization


Programming

- All code written in C/C++ using Visual Studio 6.0. Easily and quickly derive new entities from existing base classes.
- Internal context sensitive performance monitoring system
- Graphics performance measurement tools built into the engine
- Modular code design (via DLL’s) allows swapping out of core components for easy upgrading or code replacement
- Dx9 shaders all written in HLSL


Tools
- Faceposer
. Facial expression tool used to craft speech and emotions
- Valve Hammer Editor
. WYSIWYG World editor
. Create world brushes
. Terrain editor
. Place detailed world models and AI NPCs
. Set navigation points/paths for NPCs
. Place triggers, clip brushes, logic etc.
. Allows level designer to hook up I/O between entities to control AI within the game|
- Half-Life Model Viewer
. Full model previewer
. Rotate models in any direction
. Setup hit boxes
. View physics hull
. View normals
. Wireframe, shaded or textured view modes
- Studiomdl
. Model compiler
- Vbsp, Vrad, Vvis, VMPI
. Map compilation tools (bsp, lighting and visibility)
. VMPI – distributed compilation tool allowing level compiles to be
spread across many pc’s greatly reducing compile times
- Exporters
. XSI, Max and Maya .smd exporters for exporting 3D models

 

[ruin]

Maya IS a modern 3d utility which renders raytraced shadows. And anti-aliasing is pretty much the same.

 

[koopa]

You are wrong. When creating models for half-life or quake 2 the max texture resolution is 256x256 pixels.

I probably should have made it clearer - I meant the updated Q3 engines, not the original.

- Version 2.0 (and below) shaders, bump mapping, LOD on models and world
- Dynamic lights, vertex lighting and light maps, many light types including flickering, pulsing etc.

V2 shaders are hardly a 'new feature'. Model/world LOD has been standard even in games for >5 years. Similar applies for most of the rest of your stuff. I mean, come on, it's bragging about having a particle system for goodness sake! I'll grant you the HDR and maybe the water effects

Materials System

A fancy name for a very old idea. I'll grant that the physics in Source is good on this.

Multiplayer Network Code
- Prediction analysis for interpolating collision/hit detection
- Optimizations for high-latency, high-packet loss 56k connections

Again... is any of this new? 'Prediction analysis for interpolating collision/hit detection' is a hell of a fancy way of saying 'we interpolate character positions to deal with latency problems. Quakeworld did this stuff!

- Realistic eyes
. Focus on player/object, not simply parallel views
. Proper eye “bulge” for realistic eye reflections

Ok, another hit for you.

- Simulated musculature provides outstanding emotions, speech and body language

I suspect mostly BS. It's hard to seperate marketing talk 'IT SIMULATES 96 FACE MUSCLES USING QUANTUM SUBSTITUTION' from what's really going here. I took some stick before for saying that the AI stuff was obviously staged despite what Valve were saying, and whaddya know, I was right

- Sophisticated navigation: characters that run, fly, jump, crouch, climb stairs and ladders, and burrow underground
- AI senses things using sight, sound, smell
- AI relationships determine friend/foe status of other entities
- Battle AI allows squads of AI characters to operate together, know when to advance, retreat, lay cover fire, etc.

I bet you $5 it's a huge state machine with a few vis calculations and waypoints like the rest are.

Ok, I gave up here because I can feel forum readers stabbing themselves in the face to avoid the pain of reading any more. But most of that list you posted (if you really study it) is pretty standard stuff. As far as I can see HL2 has a good toolset, face stuff, HDR, and good physics. The only thing it has that other games really don't is the facial animation - FarCry was doing almost all this stuff a year ago. I'm not having a go at the engine, I just don't understand the fanboy image. There's very little Source will do that XRay/Unreal/etc won't do just as well for you.

 

[Yogibbear]

There's very little Source will do that XRay/Unreal/etc won't do just as well for you.

that very little = the essence of Hafe-life and why we love it sooo much

sorry to be lame.. but short of writing a 10000 word essay the only way to describe that very little is to say that there aren't enough words, and we can't say enough to encapsulate why we love half-life.

:cheers:

 

[koopa]

sorry to be lame.. but short of writing a 10000 word essay the only way to describe that very little is to say that there aren't enough words, and we can't say enough to encapsulate why we love half-life.

I love it too or I wouldn't be here! I just think the engine is going to be 'good' rather than 'OMG SOURCE RULES!'.

 

[FreemanHL2]

Yogibbear you really are a die-hard fanboy! Koopa, you are an idot. All you did was list all of the source engine features and tell us that valve are lying! SOURCE deos support facial animation, it deos support advanced AI, all you can do is tell us that valve are lying. :flame:

I have rendered a scene from my MOD. It is rendered in MAYA, it will look different in SOURCE. However I don't give a **** what anyone says, SOURCE will support all effects, all models, and all textures seen in this render. Which means that my MOD will be EXACTLY the same as this image, only it will APPEAR to have a different style of render than this image.

This image only shows some minor bump and lighting effects. I can't say it looks that much better than FarCry... yet! :naughty:

PS: Forget the stupid can, it was a test model. I rendered that scene for a closer look at the wall.

 

[Yogibbear]

Yogibbear you really are a die-hard fanboy! Koopa, you are an idot.

Shhhh.....they're not meant to know *cough*

 

[koopa]

Yogibbear you really are a die-hard fanboy! Koopa, you are an idot. All you did was list all of the source engine features and tell us that valve are lying! SOURCE deos support facial animation, it deos support advanced AI, all you can do is tell us that valve are lying. :flame:

Ok, take some deep breaths and calm down. I didn't say source didn't support facial animation - I acknowledge that it's good and I'm looking forward to seeing it in action. I do question how much better it is than the existing technology though. Valve employ just as much marketing as any other company. All I'm saying is that you should be careful what you believe.

On the AI front: Based on what I've seen so far I doubt it's any better than anyone else is doing. Not to say it's bad, but posting a breathless list made up by marketing executives doesn't prove anything at all.

I have rendered a scene from my MOD. It is rendered in MAYA, it will look different in SOURCE. However I don't give a **** what anyone says, SOURCE will support all effects, all models, and all textures seen in this render. Which means that my MOD will be EXACTLY the same as this image, only it will APPEAR to have a different style of render than this image.

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing with me about. All I'm saying is that you could do your render in any of the other engines too. It wouldn't look any worse or better. It's not like you couldn't have made this before because the technology wasn't ready or anything.

 

[FreemanHL2]

There is one thing I find extremely disturbing... It took them nearly 6 years to make HL2! I mean this game rules, it has over 20 hours of gameplay, it has awesome graphics, the engine is extremely advanced, the animation is incredable. BUT why did it take them 6 years? I think this game could have been managed in just 3 years. Thats just my opinion anyway.

 

[Edcrab]

They did make the engine from scratch, apparently. That might explain a fair bit in itself.