HL2 lighting is too basic , dont u think?

[brink's]

lol , i just realized something from the e32k4 video check out the video from time 16:26 to 16:36 , it is the part where u control that machnie and u lift that thing and u throw it on the soldier , well look at the shadow of the magnet , u can still see it even though it is behinde that shed thing

This can be seen in every video valve has released, Npc's etc still give off shadows when they are covered by shade. The thing that worries me is that they havn't fixed this glitch yet even with the RC so close( or so we're told)

 

[brink's]

Welcome to last century. They already fixed this bug

Are you sure?
Cause its still in the Flashlight pic and that was released 2 days ago.

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

Read what Crusader said. They fixed the shadow bug when shadows go through objects and other shadows already.

 

[Crusader]

I thought they had fixed this..

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

i take that back brinks. Btw, those shadows in the flashlight pic look different to older HL2 shadows, it looks sharper or something. I tell you a game that had wicked soft shadows? Max Payne 2, I hope HL2's shadows end up lookin' similart to that.

 

[Dsty2001]

I don't know about you guys, but I think HL2 looks ALOT better than FarCry. FarCry looked WAY to cartoonish for my taste. And looking at the latest DoomIII pics, I can say the same.

 

[Big Fat Duck]

hl2 shadowing system sucks the caulk, i wish it had shadows like doom 3, or atleast an option for it so those crappy card people can turn it off if they wanted to

 

[Roland Deschain]

yeah, I loved jumping around in Max Payne 2 just to see my shadow fade or get darker and no sharp edges, heaven. But I don't really want that from HL2. Who cares about shadows when you're being horribly beaten by the best A.I. ever seen in a game.

PS: How's the A.I. in doom, pretty elementary I would think since most of the environment are pretty tight.

 

[FoB_Ed]

PS: How's the A.I. in doom, pretty elementary I would think since most of the environment are pretty tight.

hehe, well....how smart can zombies be?

Cause its still in the Flashlight pic and that was released 2 days ago.

It may have been RELEASED 2 days ago but there's no telling when the shot was actually taken.

 

[brink's]

It may have been RELEASED 2 days ago but there's no telling when the shot was actually taken.

Ya but I remember reading that they just started designing the flashlight within the last 3 weeks.

 

[qckbeam]

hl2 shadowing system sucks the caulk, i wish it had shadows like doom 3, or atleast an option for it so those crappy card people can turn it off if they wanted to

Please, shutup. You do not understand what you are talking about, so please don't complain.

These sorts of petty complaints discourage Valve, do you all realize that? When people look past all the hard work they have done, and all the amazing things they have accomplished with the source engine and Half-Life 2, and harp on the one area that isn't absolutly perfect, it just kills their morale.

Think before you post please; they do read the things written on these boards, and these sorts of unfounded complaints (you are certainly not the only one by the way, this isn't totally aimed at you) issued by people who have no idea what they are talking about are not in any way constructive. I'm not saying we should give the game total praise, but this sort of unfounded and petty criticism (and don't get me wrong, I've seen much worse in other threads) needs to stop.

 

[Crusader]

Brinks, I think you're talking about something completely different to what he's talking about (but I'm not sure)

The antlions are supposed to have darker shadows, they're closer to the surface and therefore less photos reach it. They should be sharper and smaller as they are, compared with the softer light nearby.

What the other guy is talking about is objects casting shadows through other object, which they seem to have fixed.

 

[Crusader]

Please, shutup. You do not understand what you are talking about, so please don't complain.

These sorts of petty complaints discourage Valve, do you all realize that? When people look past all the hard work they have done, and all the amazing things they have accomplished with the source engine and Half-Life 2, and harp on the one area that isn't absolutly perfect, it just kills their morale.

Think before you post please; they do read the things written on these boards, and these sorts of unfounded complaints (you are certainly not the only one by the way, this isn't totally aimed at you) issued by people who have no idea what they are talking about are not in any way constructive. I'm not saying we should give the game total praise, but this sort of unfounded and petty criticism (and don't get me wrong, I've seen much worse in other threads) needs to stop.

Hear, hear!

Life can't be much fun when all you do is complain about things. I think it's testament to HL2s greatness that all the insanely good things about it are taken for granted, and people can hardly believe (shock, horror!) that the lighting system is accessible and flexible rather than a basic brute force method.

Hmm... basic brute force... does that mean we should be having this discussion about Do.... well... nevermind

 

[Shuzer]

Well said qck. I have to agree, stop the VALVe bashing just because you don't agree with a design decision. I'm personally glad VALVe took the path they took with HL2, better performance for everyone without heavy shadow calculations. And they don't look that bad.

The game looks great, we all want it.. it's not to be compared to Doom 3, as they're both different types of games. I'm not sure why everyone is so critical of VALVe.

If anyone at VALVe is reading this.. keep this in mind: the majority of people like HL2's graphical style. The ones that don't are naturally going to be louder, but don't let that discourage you!

I want no game more than HL2 (well, maybe CS:S.. but it's the same deal ), keep up the good work :cheers:

 

[Crusader]

Everyone is critical of VALVe because after a while, not liking things that are generally accepted as awesome becomes "cool".

At least that's what I seem to be witnessing..

 

[Big Fat Duck]

I dunno im just mad, because I wanted HL2 to be the perfect game and it sorta sucks that all the shadowing system is really cheap.. I mean.. even harvest moon AWL on gamecube has better shadowing

 

[Big Fat Duck]

oh yeah I found out the term that is exactly what lighting I wanted:
Real-Time Dynamic Shadow Volumes

 

[manny_c44]

If they applied that to these expansive enviornments no one would be able to run the game. Perhaps as Rigs evolve Steam will upload this option into HL2 and you can toggle it if you want.

 

[Shuzer]

manny, if STALKER can do it, I'm sure HL2 can. Granted, STALKER will probably need more of a beast of a system to run than D3.. but still

 

[sHm0zY]

The graphics look amazing but poor lighting really takes away from the spooky parts of the game ,for example in the e32k3 video when u r fightng with those zombies there should be better lighting like doom 3 or far cry. It looks just too basic like an oridnary game from last year.

I THINK YOU'RE JEALOUS!!!

 

[Roland Deschain]

Why are people so fixed on lighting anyways. Look at the drawdistance in Doom 3. It is almost zero compared to HL2, simply because it takes so much power to calculate all the shadows (works for Doom 3 who's basic premise is small claustraphopic spaces).

 

[manny_c44]

manny, if STALKER can do it, I'm sure HL2 can. Granted, STALKER will probably need more of a beast of a system to run than D3.. but still

Are you sure it is? Because the screen shots sure as hell don't look like it.

 

[manny_c44]

This is the most recent gamespot screenshot of STALKER, it doesn't look like it has it enabled.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/screens.html?page=419

 

[Shuzer]

You may be right, come to think of it.. I don't recall seeing any shadows while they were outdoors in STALKER

 

[Roland Deschain]

Even if FarCry I can't remember noticing (much less admiring) the shadows while I was outside.

 

[Shuzer]

FarCry used a single light source (ie. the sun) to position shadows while outdoors. The same method HL2 uses. It was dynamic indoors.

 

[Roland Deschain]

HL2 will be so good, you'll finish it 3 times before saying to yourself:
"Wait a second, I didn't even notice the shadows in HL2, that's how good the gameplay was. Let me play it through again just to critique the shadows and lighting." (which is of course another excuse to play the game again.

 

[Styloid]

I think you guys are overestimating your own brain's ability to take in information. It can't do a hundred things at once and noticing proper shadowing (if it's not your/the game designers' primary focus) is not a big deal because you brain actually 'fills in the gaps' on missing information. What I am trying to say that if you are worried that a lack of shadows will take away from you gameplay experiece: if Valve deliver on having one amazing scene after another, you'll feel fine.

Valve have decided that shadowing is not something they want to focus on for HL2 and that resources should be spent on other places like AI and physics (the recommended requirements for HL2 are still pretty high). I certainly found it impressive visually to see how the apartments were furnished (and messed up) with lots of actual objects rather than the sparse, unnatural objects of most other games.

If you are worried that Valve will lose the tech race, you are probably right because Valve never saw technology as a race but just wanted to build the game they wanted. I'm sure, though, that, since we know Source can have real-time shadows modded in, either a mod team or Valve themselves will add it in sooner or later when it becomes something that totally adds to the game rather than the give-and-take relationship that we see now.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Who cares about technology. Look at FarCry, cutting edge everything (and used wisely), but in the end the game just doesn't add up, most likely because they spend so much time on the graphics and technology. I'd rather see Valve perfect the face rather than introduce shadows that will only slow down the gameplay.

 

[Sparta]

Who cares about technology.

I wouldn't want to play HL2 with the graphics of the original.
Graphics will always come into it, no matter what you think. It all has to do with immersion.

anyway I'm not worried about HL2 graphically. The flashlight pic is nuts, the only thing wrong with it is that the flashlight doesnt cast shadows like FarCry or Deus Ex 2 or Doom 3. But i don't care. Right now, Dynamic Shadows haven't impressed me at all, because they make everything either look too cartoony, or they take away from the atmosphere instead of adding to it (However i gotta say the that shadowing system in SCT was quite good, best i've seen so far)

the only thing good about Far Cry's use of Dynamic Shadows was that there were shadows on the gun, thats it. Other then that, all the other shadows look blocky and too precise, too hard. It made it feel like i was playing a cartoon, like some wacked out G.I. JOE comic.

Until engine's become advanced as UE3, is when i'll start caring about shadows in games (With an exception to Doom 3, because of the unified lighting system, so it looks WAY better then Far Cry or DX:IW)

As for now, the shadows are good enough for me.

 

[Citizen 1150421]

you should be ashamed at calling half life 2's lighting basic.. for one.. not many games do what it is doing in terms of realistic / gamish world meaning its not fully real but it has cartoon like exagerations such as i don;t know aliens cyborgs and such.. how ever. in order for every one to play and to get the best out of lighting and experience they are doing an EXCELLENT job... DOOM 3 lighting is intense.. but however probably it will be more hard on your comp that far cry ever was. i could be wrong but it looks to be so.

 

[Mr Neutron]

Understand that Doom3 really is a first--a truely unified lighting system: there are no shadows, only lights. The too hard shadows are produced by the absence of soft, fill lighting. When we talk about 'reflection' in most previous games, what we really are referring to is shininess. Normally, a surface determines the wavelength--i.e. color--that bounces off of it: e.g. a surface is blue because it makes white light that hits it turn into blue light. With a shiny surface, however, enough excess light strikes the surface such that light bounces off it into the viewers eye without changing color. That's what 'reflection' has meant for games in the past. As I understand it, HDR is a more sophisticated implementation of this effect. What games have not accounted for, including Doom3, is light 'reflecting' and striking another surface. In the real world, this is why most shadows are rarely fully black. The scattering of light through the atmosphere is also a major factor: on an overcast day, a flag-pole won't cast a shadow like it will on a clear day, no matter the sun's position in the sky.

Now, as I understand it, in games like BF:1942 and Unreal Engine 2.0, the illumination of static surfaces (1) is calculated before runtime (the result is stored as a lightmap which in-game is rendered together with the texture: for each pixel, the color is taken from the texture and the brightness taken from the lightmap), then (2) shadows cast by dynamic objects onto static ones are painted over lit surfaces, and then (3) dynamic lights are drawn by brightening over things within their assigned radius BUT THESE THEMSELVES DO NOT CAST SHADOWS...at least, this was true before Splinter Cell. The techniques for shadow-casting dynamic lights under this scheme are inefficient and produce unsatisfactory results. Hence the need for unified lighting.

So, does anyone know what's new about the HL2 approach? It seems to be similar to FarCry, which has something to do with shaders. What are these techniques?

The FarCry and HL2 flashlights look very similar to me; I think the less plasticy look of HL2 is not a fundamental difference of the lighting scheme but a better art implementation of the textures.

I'm not so sure that the Doom3 draw distance is as limited as someone above appears to assume from the screenies/vids. I think Carmack commented on this: the real limitation is number of light sources + complexity/number of objects struck by lights. There does seem to be a way of doing outdoor lighting reasonably well: I think everything in the trailers is in-engine, including the shot of a dust-storm dollying into the base at the beginning. I believe id has said there will be expansive areas (i'm guessing in Hell).

 

[lans]

Half-life 2 has so many physically stimulated objects to be picked up by the manipulator - plus so many things going around in the environment (e.g: the bugbait scene, combines/ant lions/squad = too many characters on screen). Just imagine the horror of your frame rate if everything casts shadows dynamically, if you pick them up and toss them around.

Games like Far cry and Doom 3 have an advantage of lesser items that are physically stimulated so you can't push them around and let them form their own dynamic shadows. Also, Far cry's enemies come in limited numbers and the bodies "vanish". Doom 3 has less enemies on screen at a time so they can bear with dynamic shadows.

 

[Caminante]

HL2 is a lot of open environment. I'd rather they did that right than include lighting that must be a bitch to calculate is such large environements.

Doom 3, on the other hand is mostly narrow corridors. From the get-go they had to have good shadows since it would look great is such tight quaters.

I am assuming that you have yet to play a little game by the name of "FarCry". Which by the way, it makes extensive use of Shader 2.0 in outdoor maps.

 

[Caminante]

lol.. Don't make assumptions until you have played the game

You most to hate like myself the big mayority of the HL2 community. For there are some dumbasses -or most commonly known as fanboys- in this very same boards, whom are already labeling HL2 as the best game ever.... o_0

 

[PvtRyan]

It's the topic that refuses to die! lol

But seriously, HL2's lighting and shadows are done in a way that's mean to save on performance. Source is capable of dynamic lighting and shadows. HL2 DOES feature dynamic lighting, just not dynamic shadows.

It has dynamic shadows too, undynamic would be the blobs of cs, but what it doesn't feature are dynamic shadows who are dependant on lightsources (because there is only one shadowcasting entity)

I would rather have HL2's radiosity based lightmaps in a game like this than Doom 3's harsh lighting which would totally fall out of place in HL2.

But HL2 lighting isn't too simple, it's as complex as it can get without sacrificing performance.
What's the point in having fully dynamic shadowing by every light when lights are static anyway? You won't have swinging lights in the game, because their lighting is based around lightmaps which don't change (and thus would look stupid if the light moved and the lightmap didn't).

I am assuming that you have yet to play a little game by the name of "FarCry". Which by the way, it makes extensive use of Shader 2.0 in outdoor maps.

No it doesn't, most shaders used in Far Cry are <2.0, it only uses 2.0 for very certain aspects it its lighting.

hl2 shadowing system sucks the caulk, i wish it had shadows like doom 3, or atleast an option for it so those crappy card people can turn it off if they wanted to

Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I doubt so.
And do you have any idea why Doom 3 relies so heavily on normal mapping nd not on polygons? Because complex geometry eats away performance with lighting like that.
You can't have an "option" for a shadowing system like that, it requires a totally different approach of the entire gamedesign, you can't have too many polygons in a scene, so that means lower detail characters (heavily normal mapped) and low detail environments with few physically simulated things lying around.

A lighting system like that is completely unsuitable for HL2.

 

[lans]

Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I doubt so.
And do you have any idea why Doom 3 relies so heavily on normal mapping nd not on polygons? Because complex geometry eats away performance with lighting like that.
You can't have an "option" for a shadowing system like that, it requires a totally different approach of the entire gamedesign, you can't have too many polygons in a scene, so that means lower detail characters (heavily normal mapped) and low detail environments with few physically simulated things lying around.

A lighting system like that is completely unsuitable for HL2.

Just as I suspected, I'd prefer more physically stimulated items to be tossed around than better shadowing, anyday.

 

[DevgruSeal]

I think lighting is fine.

 

[Mendasp]

What's the point in having fully dynamic shadowing by every light when lights are static anyway? You won't have swinging lights in the game, because their lighting is based around lightmaps which don't change (and thus would look stupid if the light moved and the lightmap didn't).

I'm sorry, but the game HAS moving lights... and I think that's on the Source info page... and I remember an email on the valve info thread where they say that, too.

Source engine features

 

[cenmocay]

The graphics look amazing but poor lighting really takes away from the spooky parts of the game ,for example in the e32k3 video when u r fightng with those zombies there should be better lighting like doom 3 or far cry. It looks just too basic like an oridnary game from last year.

Hey HL2 with real shadows = u need 5 ghz ati X2000

dumb thread