I don't think there will be any "real" mirrors in HL2

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Big Fat Duck

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From playing the CS:S beta, you can see that all reflections are reflection maps that only change when you go from room to room.. That means it is a faked reflection from only one viewpoint that changes axis but not dynamic.

Im talking about the stuff on the bottles and on the scopes

:(

HL2 is seriously dated IMO... even Sims 2 has realtime mirrors
 
that may be true, but here's another argument: Who cares? I just want the game to be released!
 
there are real reflections. just look at the water effects and shading like that. of course there will be mirrors, they just didnt want to take a performance hit just for putting a litle reflective scope on the sniper.
 
mannyfresh027 said:
there are real reflections. just look at the water effects and shading like that. of course there will be mirrors, they just didnt want to take a performance hit just for putting a litle reflective scope on the sniper.
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What he said.
 
All a mirror is is a brush with a camera in the dead center of one side with the surface of that side displaying what the camera sees. So yes there could be mirrors, but there's still the 'not-going-to-see-yourself-ingame' thing with VALVe, so no for HL2. All you're seeing in CS:Source is a way to have small reflections without sucking up processes by not doing it real-time.
 
if you remember, half life 3 will be built on the source engine. They are going to release the game then patch the crap out of it till it owns doom3, and then laugh at everyone.

its not a limit of the engine its a design choice. look at splinter cell, it uses unreal tech but has the best shadows i have seen until i played doom3. but unreal has crappy faked shadows.
 
You never saw gordan in the last HL game. . . .why is it such a big deal.
 
mannyfresh027 said:
splinter cell shadows were added onto unreal engine and coded specifically for SC
Click to expand...

thats the point... THEY CAN ADD CRAP...
 
heres the problem with real mirrors, its not just a reflection, most mirrors in games are only used in small rooms as a mirror is actually rendering everything twice...its not just reflecting....well thats how it is in the Unreal engine anyway....
 
It would be cool if they had mirrors in CS:S or any other MP game. Indoors fighting would be really cool if you'd have to think about not letting someone see your reflection in a window...
 
meninblck said:
heres the problem with real mirrors, its not just a reflection, most mirrors in games are only used in small rooms as a mirror is actually rendering everything twice...its not just reflecting....well thats how it is in the Unreal engine anyway....
Click to expand...
So, if you put two mirrors infront of eachother with an object between them, the game would slow to a halt because of an infinite rendering process?
 
you can't have real reflective mirrors in a game, theres no such technology thats even conceivable.

its not a reflection, even in doom 3. its just the opposite of what ever world your in being show with a shader over the top to make it look like glass.

heck even Mario 64 had it (minus the shaders) so I doubt HL2 dodn't have it because the engine isn't stront enough (see also 'the world is not enough on the N64' and 'evil genuis')

the models your seeing aren't being displayed flatley on a surface their actualy behind it.
 
Bigcheese said:
if you remember, half life 3 will be built on the source engine. They are going to release the game then patch the crap out of it till it owns doom3, and then laugh at everyone.

its not a limit of the engine its a design choice. look at splinter cell, it uses unreal tech but has the best shadows i have seen until i played doom3. but unreal has crappy faked shadows.
Click to expand...

"crappy faked shadows", are you talking about lightmaps? HL2 uses these too. I think a mix of Lightmap + Dynamic is better than fully dynamic (at least until comps can handle it better).
 
well in the video stress test they have all those diff surfaces they have to have a mirror.
jesus even Painkiller had a mirror!
 
StardogChampion said:
"crappy faked shadows", are you talking about lightmaps? HL2 uses these too. I think a mix of Lightmap + Dynamic is better than fully dynamic (at least until comps can handle it better).
Click to expand...

I agree with that, something like Stalker has. I happen to like lightmaps, sure they're static, but at least they can display radiosity.
 
They do have the ability to simulate mirrors, but because of valves obsession with immersion that borders on insanity they wont have any ingame, otherwise youd feel like gorden was a vampire, with everyone else reflecting and you not.

Same goes for the Vehicals. Nothing takes you out of the game more than no hands on steering wheels or bike handlebars. You can see his hands on the guns, why not on bikes? GG ghost steering.
 
urseus said:
Same goes for the Vehicals. Nothing takes you out of the game more than no hands on steering wheels or bike handlebars. You can see his hands on the guns, why not on bikes? GG ghost steering.
Click to expand...

You know, I never saw why people cared that there were no hands on the steering wheel until I read your post. Good point. :) :cheers:
 
Remember the tech demo with the camera and 9 screens on the wall?

After watching that, you wouldn't think mirrors would affect performance much at all.
 
not sure if you could do this but if, like the suggestion before, you had a camera connected to a flat surface, you may be able to have the camera move based on the players movement ie, if the player is looking at the surface at a 30 degree angle the camera would be pointed -30 degrees to create the illusion of reflection. You could probably mod it in, but if Valve has made the decision not to see the player in the game then meh not fussed.
 
.... Didn't Duke Nukem 3d have mirrors?... I'm fairly certain HL2 will have mirrors...
 
I don't think HL² will have mirrors and I don't see why it would need them. What dose Gordon need to fix his hair, wash some blood off his face? May as well add useable toilets then.
 
unreal has crapy fake shadows. they are just projectors like in CSS, source is using the same tech as unreal for shadows.

BTW in the www.hackerz.tc mod we have dynamic shadows in the unreal engine. its quite easy to do.

so as i said its not a limitation of the engine its a desyine(sp?) choice, same with mirrors.
 
Biozeminade said:
Remember the tech demo with the camera and 9 screens on the wall? After watching that, you wouldn't think mirrors would affect performance much at all.
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Theres no evidence there on how it affects preformance. However, that does make it obvious that mirrors would be easy to do.

It would be simple enough to have a low poly area with mirrors, like a bathroom, just to experience seeing yourself as Gordon,..

-Viper- said:
but there's still the 'not-going-to-see-yourself-ingame' thing with VALVe, so no for HL2.
Click to expand...
This is, I think, the real reason we will not see mirrors in HL2. However, the precident was set at a time when this technology was not as advanced. I do believe VALVe is concerned primarily about suspending disbelief, holding on to the illusion that you are Gordon Freeman, and thinks that seeing Gordon in game would be enough for some to think "Hey, thats not me". But personally, I think seeing myself as Gordon Freeman would only enhance the illusion.
 
Bigcheese said:
unreal has crapy fake shadows. they are just projectors like in CSS, source is using the same tech as unreal for shadows.

BTW in the www.hackerz.tc mod we have dynamic shadows in the unreal engine. its quite easy to do.
Click to expand...

Somehow I doubt you managed to get proper dynamic shadows into the Unreal engine. Do you have any screenies/proof? Then i'll believe you.
 
valve have already confirmed that all the reflections are done with static cubemaps. the level designer decides where to place the cubemaps, and the engine picks the closest/best one when rendering reflections. there is a good paper on ATIs developer site by Ken Birdwell about how they do it all.

if u watch any of the binks and pay attention to the weapon model u'll see that the reflections suddenly jump from one scene to another.

that said, they cuold easily implement real mirrors using the same render-to-texture process that does the camera views (like in the E3 2003 tech demo)

but they won't, cos they don't want u to see urself.
 
Big Fat Duck said:
From playing the CS:S beta, you can see that all reflections are reflection maps that only change when you go from room to room.. That means it is a faked reflection from only one viewpoint that changes axis but not dynamic.

Im talking about the stuff on the bottles and on the scopes

:(

HL2 is seriously dated IMO... even Sims 2 has realtime mirrors
Click to expand...

They did have real time mirrors in CS:S, but they were removed because people could cheat by looking around corners, or behind themselves.
 
Peabody McFee said:
They did have real time mirrors in CS:S, but they were removed because people could cheat by looking around corners, or behind themselves.
Click to expand...
how is that cheating? its not LYING, it is using a GAMEPLAY STRATEGY, all up in your hizzay, biatch!
 
Wesisapie said:
how is that cheating? its not LYING, it is using a GAMEPLAY STRATEGY, all up in your hizzay, biatch!
Click to expand...

Okay not cheating, but it would significanly change the gameplay of CS.

One of the situations mentioned was that you were able to look into the scope sight and see people coming up behind you.
 
StardogChampion said:
Somehow I doubt you managed to get proper dynamic shadows into the Unreal engine. Do you have any screenies/proof? Then i'll believe you.
Click to expand...

according to info at the unreal technology website, U3 engine can do 3 kinds of shadows:

-stencil shadows (a la Doom3 - these are dynamic)
-shadow map shadows (these are dynamic)
-precomputed shadow masks (these are not dynamic)

the lights are all per-pixel real-time rendered (ie dynamic)

is that info wrong?
 
Just incase the thread starter doesnt no, the dynamic reflections (moving objects reflection in realtime) for water and surfaces (not the cube mapped weapon reflections) need to be switched on, there has been a bug where it keeps resetting after u restart CSS, i dunno if its been fixed, but an autoexec file really helps.
 
Sims 2 have mirros, and you can see sprites in it no prob. It is dynamic.
 
Question:
Let’s say I make a mod. It's a room, with a camera, a TV set and the player. (Of course there’s light). If the player stands in front of the camera and looks at the TV, what will they see?
I know this won’t happen in HL2 but valve must have anticipated someone trying to do this just to see what happens.
So what would happen?
 
john41 said:
Question:
Let’s say I make a mod. It's a room, with a camera, a TV set and the player. (Of course there’s light). If the player stands in front of the camera and looks at the TV, what will they see?
I know this won’t happen in HL2 but valve must have anticipated someone trying to do this just to see what happens.
So what would happen?
Click to expand...
You'd be invisable. Theres no model for Gordon in memory unless you put one there.

I think Gordon should at least have a body.
 
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