HL3 using Source

[Spankinstein]

Given the amount of time spent creating and nearly perfecting the Source engine, will HL3 use it or a slightly modifeid version.

I'd hate to wait another 4+ years for the sequel.

I'm assuming that any expansions will use the current Source engine.

 

[Fighter]

I would say modified Source for HL3 to take in account increased power of PCs in a few years. The current version for any expansion packs.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Source is pretty perfect in all the required departments. Valve wouldn't need to make another one, just modify Source. Might get Half-Life 3 before 2006.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Modified Source will probably just be bug fixes and now they've some spare time, little improvements and optimizations. Increasing brush and entity counts (bit silly having a massive map size when you can't even fill it) They'll probably improve the netcode over time too, so the next version of Source wont I think be an actual in one go thing, just a gradual improvement over time via Steam.

 

[NB.]

Yeah it'll probably be more of a modular update type deal like with the Unreal engine builds.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Snip.....

 

[oberGeist]

more dynamic lights, casting dynamic shadows...
in HL2 we have mainly projected shadows from a distand lightsource ('sun'), but there are none from lets say lamps or muzzle flash.
all other shadows were precomputed as lightmaps, and that I must say is a little vintage for todays 3d engines. look at doom3 - there are none precomputed lightmaps, EVERY lightsource is dynamic and realtime. I know that the game was somewhat disapointing, but one cannot dis it's technological excellence.

I'm pretty sure that it's implemented in Source (or easily could be), but for now our machines are lacking in horsepower to fully make use of all it's capabilities.

also those static skyboxes should be changed, they just seem like from previous (if not first) generation of 3d engines...

so IMO - Source (maybe slightly updated) for expansion packs and
heavily modified Source for HL3.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

more dynamic lights, casting dynamic shadows...
in HL2 we have mainly projected shadows from a distand lightsource ('sun'), but there are none from lets say lamps or muzzle flash.
all other shadows were precomputed as lightmaps, and that I must say is a little vintage for todays 3d engines. look at doom3 - there are none precomputed lightmaps, EVERY lightsource is dynamic and realtime. I know that the game was somewhat disapointing, but one cannot dis it's technological excellence.

I'm pretty sure that it's implemented in Source (or easily could be), but for now our machines are lacking in horsepower to fully make use of all it's capabilities.

also those static skyboxes should be changed, they just seem like from previous (if not first) generation of 3d engines...

so IMO - Source (maybe slightly updated) for expansion packs and
heavily modified Source for HL3.

Well, D3 was good at shadows and lighting, beyond that Source kicks it's ass. I'd say only minor updates would be required for HL3, but non-static skyboxes, would be cool. The entire scene drifting into shadow suddenly? Awesome...

 

[v1p3r]

Gabe said at one point that they would continue to add new techs to source and probably use it for HL3.

 

[riles]

yeah i was going to mention the lighting too but you pretty much covered that section of the post. i was messing with the swings in the playground near the beginning of halflife 2 and i wanted to be able to make that swing wrap around poles and stuff. other than lighting, source is nearly flawless.
((((better geomod))))
it would be great to have every thing break down according to what material it is and what you shoot at it. or melt it if its ice... or burn it if the "temperature" is right. just more realism. thats all :-D

EDIT: oh yeah and wind! having a random wind effect would be cool. source is probably already completely capable of doing that though.

 

[Messermeier]

source is almost perfect concerning realism..the only thing i (more or less) missed, was dynamic shadowing.

i faintly recall a valve coder saying that it can't be done in source without rewriting it from scratch .. so maybe we'll see a completely new engine in hl3, for everyone loves dynamic shadows .. (argh!)

are there any coders among us? is it really that hard to add dynamic shadowing?

 

[JimmehH]

While there's no definite info I remember reading a few times that they'd be using Source for HL3. On the grounds that it'd be silly to spend 6 years and a whole shedload of money building one engine and then dump it and make a new one for the next game.

They'd probably have to rewrite the renderer to add dynamic shadows. Probably the maps too. A lot of work that can be avoided with clever art direction.

 

[JamesPicard_007]

I don't see what the point would be for including dynamic shadows in Source. Personally I think dynamic shadows are more of a gimmick rather than actually adding to gameplay. Static shadows still do fine and well in my opinion.

As for HL3 I'm sure we'll just see an updated Source.

 

[Bing_Oh]

I seem to recall reading an article before release that said that Source was the only engine that currently existed that could utilize the architecture for the next generation of video cards. Supposedly, both nVidia and ATI are using alot of the same guidelines for their next generation of video cards...stuff that the current video cards simply cannot do...and Valve specifically wrote code into Source that could take advantage of these capabilities when they DO become commercially available.

Assuming this is true, we have yet to see the TRUE capabilities of the Source engine.

 

[Ennui]

I hope so, I don't want to wait nearly as long for Half-Life 3....