Info received from Valve ONLY - NO questions/discussion

To: [email protected]
Sent: 8/4/2003 3:17 AM
Subject: Half-life² and steam without internet connection

Hi Mr Newell,

Ok here's my question: I've read somewhere steam will be the back-end of HL2, whether you buy it Retail or acquire it via Steam. What if you
don't have an internet connection or (for whatever reason) steam is
down? or what if my pc has problems with the steam software or i refuse
to install steam?

Thanks a million and "you'll have my 50 bucks when the game ships"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steam replaces the existing Half-Life 1 authentication, update, server
browsing, ... components. If you don't mind not playing multiplayer or
getting updates, then not having an internet connection is fine.
 
Subject: HL2 leaks?

Hi Gabe

While reading thru the forums, a question popped into my head about the
secrecy behind HL2.

Did you guys have any "close calls" where something was accidentally
leaked or came close to being leaked? And if there was something, how
did you cover it up and make it look "innocent?"

Thanks for your time
from 2 of your most dedicated fans
DocRock & babykitkat
(ps. we met playing Half-Life and are now married :))

Not really. Occasionally an executive at one of our partners would say
Half-Life 2 in an investor meeting, but that was about it.

Robin and Maggie Walker met in #quake.
 
Question:
I thought that you were probably getting a bit annoyed by answering all these HL2 questions about modelling etc. so I thought up a new one that I'm almost positive hasn't been asked:

What would it take to make you stop Valve from finishing HL2 and just quit the whole thing?


Answer: a meteor would have to hit our office while we were all there
 
#1) If one person grabs a dumpster with the manipulator gun, and then another friend jumps inside the dumpster.. and the gun operator then chucks it 100 yards will the person inside have the ride of their life?

Gabe:1) That's the kind of goofing around that always ends up with somebody crying.

#2) I collect game toys for my desk, can we PLEASE PLEASE have a Gordon Freeman, G-Man, D.O.G. and Alex figurine set? :O

Gabe:2) As soon as I get mine.

#3) Is there a weight limit to what the manipulator can pick up? I hope to see cans, cars and enemies all able to be picked up.

Gabe:3) Yes, although it changes through the game as it gets upgraded.
 
Gabe's answer (thanks) about how they solved the AA problems on ATi and nVidia cards:
We aren't using the same technique on ATI and NVIDIA hardware to avoid the long standing artifacts occuring when you anti-alias games that use lightmaps.
Click to expand...
 
Here's a recent interview from the Italian gaming site VIC:

http://www.gamescenter.sm/spec.php?id_r=33&pag=1

A couple points of interest:

VIC: Did you solve the problems with FSAA, especially on GeForce FX cards?

Gabe Newell: Just to clear things up, the "problem" was that initially HL-2 looked like any other game the uses lightmaps (e.g.. Quake 3, Elite Force II, ...) with anti-aliasing enabled. We have come up with ways around this.

VIC: Can you finally confirm that the release date will be 9/30 to put an end to all the rumors of the last few days?

Gabe Newell: No comment. (Editorial comment: Damn it, Gabe, just answer the question already!)
 
Question:
Are you using the "via Pixel Shaders" method with nVidia hardware, to fix the AA issues?
Could you confirm that ATi have fixed the AA using Centroid sampling?

Gabe's answer:
That's correct.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Billy Gates [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 6:37 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Quick q's

Hi Gabe, it's been confirmed that CS2 has been in development, and it's been rumored that the CS team has been working with Valve on an "unknown" project for quite sometime now. Will the CS team be pumping out a mod using the Source engine? And will it be released with HL2?

Gabe: Yes, and no comment.

TF2 has been left to the spiders and flies for all we know, can you finally confirm that TF2 will be released in Source with HL2?

Gabe: TF2 is being done in source, and will be released as a stand-alone product. TF2 is not the included MP.

Thanks for your time...if you ever even answer my email....that is....
 
-----Original Message-----
From: ****************
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 5:26 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Quick question about HL2 and the droste effect (link to picture included)


Hi Mr. Newell,

I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival of HL2, and after reading many interviews, previews, forum discussions and fan-sites, there's just one stupid question left on my mind. I hope it's something you haven't already supplied an answer to in interviews or other e-mails that have been publicized on halflife2.net. Ok here goes:

In the technology part of the E3 demo, we see a camera being held (upside down) with the manipulator device, and being pointed at G-man. I replayed this part 3 times to make sure, but I can't really make it out: When the camera is pointed at the tv-screens, all they show is white static, although through the player's eyes they show the image coming from the camera. Simple logic dictates that the Droste effect (don't know the real scientific name, but I've included a link to a picture that shows the original effect: http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/images/droste.jpg ) should occur, e.g. the screens showing footage of the screens showing footage of the screens showing footage of the screens showing footage ad infinitum. Of course this would probably require a lot of resources, but is this the reason for the screens being white from the camera's view? Or is it simply because the screens that are being shown on the screens aren't receiving the data "sent" by the camera?

Thanks for your time, and thanks to all at Valve for making the game.



Best regards,
*******

Reply received from [email protected] : Actually it does work that way. For some reason Gary made a change shortly before E3 that turned this off, but it's back on now.
 
1. The first HL had a great Techno soundtrack, but it rarely played or only started up during certain moments (maybe this was a problem with my CD-rom but I don't think so because the PS2 version is similar). Will HL2 have a similar soundtrack and will it be subdued or more pronounced than the first?
[Gabe Newell] There's more music. There are a lot of short themes. The music and soundscapes are a lot more integrated. Kelly Bailey did the original and is doing it again.

2. What is your favorite non-action game ever?
[Gabe Newell] Mario 64.

3. If I were to full install the game, would the CD ever be accessed aside from start-up copyright protection? My CD-rom sounds like a blender with a towel wrapped around it, so I was hoping the whole thing could be installed.
[Gabe Newell] That's correct.

4. If I bought the game off of Steam to combat this loud CD-rom problem, would I be able to install multiple times if my computer crashed or if I bought a new one?
[Gabe Newell] You can run Steam from anywhere. You can reinstall it whenever you want. You can go over to your friend's house and play it there. You can play it on vacation in a Mongolian cybercafe. The restriction is that you can only have one instance active at a time.

5. I know you are not really thinking about anything but wrapping up HL-2, but do you feel Valve will always be involved in a HL project or do you hope the company will stem out into different genre's?....if anyone can bring back the point-and-click adventure its Valve!
[Gabe Newell] Let's get HL-2 done ...
 
yes, they were



From:[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:10 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Boxart?


Hi, I was wondering if the HL2 boxart will be the same as the boxs you had
on display at E3? BTW, you rock!
 
Other software companies, like ID software, 3D Realms and Epic were probably shaking in their boots when they saw the E3 trailer. This has to be a great feeling for you guys?

Right now we just worry about shipping and living up to the communities expectations.


You have answered a lot of questions on the technical aspects of Half life 2, but one of the most important aspects is the playability factor. Half Life 1 and subsequently, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Deathmatch Classic and Ricochet had superb playability. Are you confident Half Life 2 will "play as well"?

HL-2 is a significantly better game in terms of pure gameplay.


What games are you playing yourself at the moment?

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Gamecube Zelda, CS with bots


In your opinion , what is the top 5 games of all time?

Mario 64, Doom, Command & Conquer, Sim City, Civilization
 
To: [email protected]
Subject: Couple of questions


Hi,

Firstly, I was wondering with the ability to display VGUI elements in the
world, is it possible to have, say, a live radar display on a wall? Also, is
it possible to attach cameras to vehicles and then display them on the same
kind of thing?

Yes and yes on the VGUI questions.
 
From: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 4:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Half-Life2 preorder


Hi!
I'm a big fan of Half-Life and am definately preordering Half-Life2.
I read on the halflife2.net forum that there are going to be t-shirts if you preordered the game.
Do you know what places would have this offer or other simialar things, or is that something that won't be known until closer to the release.
Thanks for your time and the great games.

Hi,
We'll be releasing more info on all of this soon.
Cheers

It's interesting that he said soon instead of no comment or closer to release.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: DOOManiac
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 11:53 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Steam validation in place of CD checking possible w/ retail hl2?

Hi there again Mr. Newell, just got a very quick question for you if you don't mind killing some time in between compiles. :)

I am extraordinarily lazy when it comes to games, and usually by the time I dig a CD out for the game my urge to play it has already shifted to something else. Thus, there's very very few games I actually bother to put the CD in for. :p In fact, putting the CD in is the #1 reason why I stopped playing stuff like UT2003 (I think its quite ridiculious to put a CD in to play online, especially for a quick twitch game like UT).

I was wondering, for the lazy bastards like me, will HL2 be able to run without putting a CD in even for Single Player as long as we can log onto Steam just fine? Even w/ the retail bought copy?

Thanks for your time!

correct
 
a half-life 2 question:

the whole concept of having VGUI2 elements manifested as an object in the
game world interests me. would it be possible to have a network of security
cameras you could access, turn on/off, etc, using a menu in the world?

if so, would you be looking at a small menu on a computer screen in the
world, or would it be more like deus ex, where the menu pops up and covers
your entire screen? or are both of these possible?

thanks for your time.

yes


both are possible. we usually have screens physically present in the world
(not PCs), but that's purely stylistic and not a technical constraint
 
Begin Steam chat:
SaiboT says:
Hello there, can I ask you a real quick question?
Erik Johnson says:
Sure.
SaiboT says:
If I buy HL2 on Steam, will there be a way for me to get the CD(s), box, manual etc. too?
Erik Johnson says:
Not if you purchase via Steam, it'll just be a 'digital distribution'. But a number of people have asked this. Why do you ask?
SaiboT says:
Because I like to have the CDs and box to add to my collection to have some tangible evidence that I own the game you know?
Erik Johnson says:
Yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks.
SaiboT says:
Thank you for answering my question.
Erik Johnson says:
You bet. I'll think about your concerns, maybe there is something we can do there.
SaiboT says:
Thanks again.
End Steam chat
That's cool that I actually talked to one of the infamous HL2 devs. So from what Erik said, lots of people want to be able to get the CD(s) etc. when buying off Steam, and maybe we might get our wish. That's what I call customer service!
 
!) How easy will the hl2 level editor be compared to the unrealed?

2)Recently it was said that you will be showing hl2 at the ECTS will you be
releasing any new footage or info at the event?

3)What do u think of
this:http://www.planethalflife.com/half-life2/delaymovie/ :p

1) I haven't used UnrealEd, so I can't compare them.

2) No.

3) I think it's hilarious.
 
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Couple of questions.


Hey Gabe,
I'm very aware that your busy at the moment but if
you could find some time at all I'd appreciate it very
much. I just have a couple of questions I'v been
wondering about.

1) Will you be making any big announcements at the
upcoming ECTS in Europe?

No.

2) There was a piece of concept art in a PC Gamer
issue that was named "Teleport". I am yet to see this
image on any website. Is this concept still being
included in the game? And if so, does it play a big
role?

We'll be releasing all of the art on Steam.

3) At the moment are you done with the major content
of the game and just making some last minute finishing
touches or is there still some way to go?

Finishing up.

Again, I'd appreciate your time and I admire your hard
work with getting this game done on time. You would
make everyones day if you got it out the door on the
September 30th release date, did I say day? I meant
year :) Thank you and good luck!

- Ben
 
-----Original Message-----
From: James [mailto:______]
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 8:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: One quick question


Hiya Gabe. I know that all of you's guys at Valve are really busy with HL2, but I was wondering if you could answer me a quick question?
I'm not sure if lots of people have asked this before or not, but I was wondering what graphics card you would personally recommend for HL2? I am torn between the two newest cards, the 9800 Pro and the FX 5900. So if you were me, which card would you go with, and if you want to elaborate on your answer that would be great!
Thanks.

9800 Pro. It's faster and has better image quality.
 
Are the E3 demos actual segments from the final game, or are they mock-ups made specifically for marketing purposes?

They are from the game.
 
Roach says:
Hi mr Johnson, got time for a quick question on HL2?
Roach says:
u must hate when this happens :)
Roach says:
Ok i'm going to be rude and just type in my question, i understand you're a very busy man so i'd be extremely happy if you would honour my question with an answer
Erik Johnson says:
Fire away, I'll try.
Roach says:
It was said that the faces of some NPC'S are less detailed because those particular NPC'S aren't that important, ie they don't talk as much as Alyx for instance, so they are less detailed to save some processing power. People have recently commented that the 'white coat militia' in the Barricade video have less detailed faces than other NPC's like Barney. Is this a misconception?
Roach says:
(Damn I suck at formulating my question. Forgive me, English isn't my first language hehe)
Erik Johnson says:
That is a misconception. All of the faces will have the same art quality/level.
Roach says:
Ah great. Thanks. Not too much trouble with the power outages in USA I hope?
Erik Johnson says:
Not over here on the West coast.
Roach says:
Good :) Thanks for answering my question, I'm going to leave you be now, perhaps if I think of some more questions that are worth asking, we'll talk some more. Thanks for you time, appreciate it.

Edit: added last reply
 
Watch our UPS gracefully shut down everything. Get the daily back-up tape
if for some reason we lost a server running RAID and the backup server that
mirrors it. If the office burns down we get the weekly off-site backup
tapes and lose a week.

The people are irreplacable, not the bits.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Winn [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 11:06 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: what would you of done gabe?


If the power outage hit all of the north western coast and you guys were all

working one day and everything just went out and you guys lostttt
everything...honestly what would you do. Go crazy and kill everyone? Commit
suicide? Start over? etc...lol i gotta hear this.
 
tokin says:
hey john
johnc_home says:
hi
tokin says:
can you answer a quick question?
johnc_home says:
do you have it set so it notifies you when i come online? does that still work?
tokin says:
yes, but it notifies me whenever anyone comes on
tokin says:
doesn't work for you?
johnc_home says:
oh you just have the sound play
tokin says:
yeah
johnc_home says:
ok what's your question
tokin says:
lol, you i tired of me messaging you so much?
tokin says:
lol that wasn't the question
tokin says:
Well Gabe keeps saying no comment towards the release, is he just tired of saying Sept. 30th or do you guys really have to work on HL2 more?
johnc_home says:
sure

johnc_home has gone offline.
Message could not be delivered.

johnc_home has gone offline.
Message could not be delivered.
tokin says:
steam messing up?
johnc_home says:
no why
tokin says:
oh, well you just said "sure" and signed off
johnc_home says:
i'm developing, i have to start and stop steam constantly while i'm writing code
tokin says:
Oh. Well is HL2 delayed? Or can you not answer that? The word "sure" doesn't really clarify anything.
tokin says:
sorry about that
johnc_home says:
i'm not sure what you're saying

johnc_home has gone offline.
Message could not be delivered.

quite strange....i think he was trying to mess with me.
 
I decided to put all "mid-end nightmares" to sleep and asked Gabe following:

Hi, I thought you may help me spend (or not spend) some money ;-). I have a P4 2.0 with 512 MB RAM and Radeon 9600 Pro. Is there any point of upgrading for HL-2 ? Will I have playable (30-40) framerates in 1024*768 max detail on that rig ? Would be cool if help me out, I have some tough purchases ahead of me !

Actually that's P4 1.8 o/c'ed to 2.0, but that's not making much different. And here's Mr. Gabe Freeman :E himself:

Your system will be fine at 30-40 FPS at 1024x768.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Deeming [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 7:59 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Settlement
------------------------------

In a recent interview with ID Software:

"Willits said that the physics engine for Doom III is a unique id Software
engine and is not a licensed engine like other games have. Willits described

a Doom III test map where 100 boxes are stacked up and one shot can bring
the entire stack down. Willits claimed such a scene would bring other game
physics engines down to their knees."

Some people, not including myself TBH, think that this is a direct/indirect
dig at Valve. What are your feelings on the above comment? It might just
settle a dispute on the forums.

Chris_D
___________________________

Gabe:Tim is a good guy. I haven't spoken to him about what they are doing for
physics, so I don't know what the test case is that he's referring to.

I am looking forward to Doom III and will buy it, as will pretty much
everybody here at Valve.

I'm copying Tim so he can comment if he wants to.
 
Now i can be in this thread also!

-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik Alfredsson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2003 8:48 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Hello!


You can never guess what ive got for ya! More Questions!

Here we go:

Does source have the feature to make cloths and hair move realistic to the wind/moment?
[Gabe Newell]
Yes. They are CPU intensive, so you really need to want to have them at the expense of other things (e.g. lots of creatures).

Are things like crowbars, swords etc "physilized"? Meaning, will they act like a real object when you swing it instead of an animation?
[Gabe Newell]
Correct.

Does/will Hammer support "3d snapping" (i.e., when toggled on, you cannot drag brushes through each other: allowing you to move objects around in a room in the editor as if they were solid)? This makes populating a map with static objects ten times easier: you can just drag one brush directly up against another and not worry about overlap or a tiny space between them.
[Gabe Newell]
Chris is the king of Hammer answers (this and many others) so I've left it for him and CC'd him.

Thanks a million!

/Henrik Alfredsson
CEO, Game Designer
Eclipse Games


The email from chris about the 3d snapping:

Hi Henrik,

I think you've sent me the question about 3D snapping a little while ago. I
mentioned it to the Hammer programmer, and he said it sounded like a cool
idea, and that he'd look into it. No promises, but maybe we'll see it in
Hammer, in the future. :)

Chris.

I got that question from this board for the IRC chat with valve but i didnt get the time asking it so i emailed them. Thanks for the question :)
 
Me:
Ok, I'm not acting dumb or anything, this is a real question.
Were you and your friends at Valve under the influence of drugs, alcohol or anything else at any time when you made up some of the creatures, scenes in Half-Life 1?
The reason why I'm asking this is that one of my friends and I were disgussing Terminator 3 and we came to the agreement that the directors/writers of that film must have been on drugs when they made some of those scenes. Or for an example in Star Wars, George Lucas must have...well, been high or something when he made up those aliens for the films. And the same goes for the names for the characters:
George in 1973 back when he was writing the script for A New Hope:
"Give me some of that wacko-tabaco...chebacco?...CHEWBACCA!!"
I'm serious...

Gabe:
It's hard enough to do this straight. The only drug consumed with any regularity around here is caffeine. Most people at Valve who smoked have even given up that. Not really sure why that would be.
 
Hi,

Yes, we will be supporting spray decals - they will be stored as raw .VTF
files and support color, animation, etc.

Chris.

-----Original Message-----
From: ***@*****[mailto:****@*********]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:25 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Spray question


is there sprays in halflife 2, and if so does it support color sprays?

i think color sprays in hl1 were an accident someone in the community found
 
You should be right around 30 FPS if you run with fairly high detail levels.
To get 30 FPS with a 5600 you'll probably have to turn off high dynamic
range lighting and character bump mapping (this will be done for you
automatically or you can tweak it).

We were planning on releasing some movies showing various anti-aliasing
modes.

-----Original Message-----
From: chris chris [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 9:45 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: PLEASE answer this question :)


Hey Gabe, just a few quick questions:
-Will i get minimum 30fps, with a 512 ddr ram, amd athlon
xp2700+,GeForceFX5600
-And heres my idea :) it would be awsome if you guys could take a screenshot of the same thing 3 times except one with no AA, one with 2xAA, and one with 4xAA..

TY for ur time man hope u can respond!
 
-----Original Message-----
From: James [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 12:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: A quickie


I know you are really busy with HL2 among other things, but I was wondering if you could answer me one quick question? A yes or no answer will more than suffice.

Is this true? http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?subsectionid=161&articleid=65749&pagetype=2

Thanks a lot for replying, thanks anyway if you don't. =)

Gabe: I don't know where they get that date.
 
Yeah now I can finally also post in the famous valve info thread!
Ok these are 2 questions that were topic of the one or other thread here on hl2.net....

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 5:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: 2 short questions

Hi Gabe.

Ok I'll be quick, who knows how long those compiles can take...

http://www.hl2central.net/screenshots/hl2_concept/scanner_input1.jpg <- screenshot or concept art?

and http://www.halflife2.net/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=74560 <- the Easter Egg you once mentioned (not that its inverted, but the name "Kirchmer", the mirror-inversion seems to be... a bug? ;-) )?

Ok thanks for your time! And good luck with the further development of HL2 :)

Cheers,
Thomas

From: Gabe Newell <[email protected]>
To:
Cc: Eric Kirchmer <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: 2 short questions

concept art

that was Eric. Not the easter egg.
Click to expand...

well, it seems like we still didn't find the Easter Egg... and I was so sure :x
 
Here is the PCGamer interview with Gabe Newell on the mod tools in the October 2003 issue.

EDIT: I have reposted this interview because I noticed some mistakes I introduced when copying the interview, here it is with those mistakes corrected. The mistakes were very minor, one in which I forgot to type the last part of the last sentence.
Mods, can you delete my old post, I forgot one can't delete a previous post on this forum.


PC GAMER: You're opening the doors to mod teams a month before HL 2 ships. What criteria do modders need to meet to get this full hands-on treatment with the Valve team?

GABE NEWELL: More than anything, we pay attention to what has the attention of the community. If people are talking about a mod, if there's a lot of activity on the various Half-Life websites, then we try to give more attention to the mod team creating that enthusiasm. Part of what mod teams will have to do to get access to the SDK is show up at a workshop here in Seattle. That'll prabably cut down the number a fair amount.

-----------------------------

PCG: With a whole new technology behind HL 2, will teams that worked on HL mods have to start from scratch for HL 2 mods? Any similarities in the tools?

GN: We've worked on this quite a bit -- to simplify the migration from Half-Life to Half-Life 2. We've converted a bunch of content ourselves from the original, and in a lot of cases you'll be able to load, say, an existing map into Hammer [the name of Source's level editor] and then save it out and compile.

-----------------------------

PCG: How deep do the tools go? Can you create your own models, as well as build levels and such?

GN: It depends on the task. Face Poser is the best tool we've seen for doing facial animations and creating VCDs, the tracks that essentially combine talking, emotions, closed captioning, and so on. Hammer's great at world geometry and entity logic. is where we build a lot of our static props, and we're working with Softimage both on
better integrating the work flow (e.g. shader visualization) and on getting XSI into the hands of the mod teams via Steam. You can continue to use Maya or 3DS Max, but we'll have a much better environment for poeple in XSI because of Softimage's commitment to the mod teams.

People using the SDK will be able to do a lot more in Source than was possible in the past.

-----------------------------

PCG: Do you expect the tools to be used for mods that aren't first-person shooters (like driving games, etc.)?

GN: I certainly hope so. Part of what makes the mod community interesting is its ability to experiment. Source gives them a much broader and more capable mod platform than they've ever had before. When we ship, a mod author working in Source will be able to build games that very few professional development organizations will be able to match. It will be interesting to see how far they go.

-----------------------------

PCG: What organization will Valve have in place to support the mod community?

GN: We'll support people pretty much the way we've been supporting them [for Half-Life]. We'll have more bandwidth to do this since we won't be trying to develop Half-Life 2 at the same time, as we have been for the last several years.

-----------------------------

PCG: Can existing HL mods be converted to Half-Life 2 with a simple recompiling, or will they have to be completely rebuilt from scratch?

GN: Lots of it will be mechanical. We want people to be exploring the new functionality, not struggling to get back to parity with where they were.

-----------------------------

PCG: How much does Valve consider the modability of HL a key factor in its ongoing success?

GN: It's been a huge part of the success. Many poeple at Valve have come out of the mod community, and we all feel the importance of being part of a larger effort to build and sustain gaming. Looking back, vValve wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the modability that id Software put into its designs. Hopefully we'll see future games being born out of the same process.
 
Yes, you could have animated textures on models. You
could have an entity in the world, like a wheel, and as you turn it it makes
part of a model more or less transparent if you wanted to (not that you
would want to, but to give an idea of entity i/o).

-----Original Message-----
From: Neale Roberts [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Query


Hi Gabe,

Will it be possible to have animated textures on models? I'm thinking
specifically about ammo counters/charge displays on weaponry.
 
Nothing particularly helpful here.

-----Original Message-----
From: Arzin [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 9:51 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: How will HL2 work on my comp?


Hi Mr. Newell,

I'm on an AMD XP 2000+ processor, Geforce 3 gfx card, 512 DDR RAM and WinXP.

How will Half-Life 2 work on my computer (FPS) ? Thanks for your time.

Arzin

Yes, we are pretty busy.

Your machine will have a good framerate, but won't have DX9-specific visual
features.
 
From: Chris Bokitch [email protected]
Subject: RE: .vtf file type/tool clarification.
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:36:50 -0700
To: <xxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: [email protected]

QUESTION> Hi Regarding textures (creation) and spray decals:

As per the quote from your hl2 FAQ At VERC: "...which start out as TGA files and are converted to textures (VTF files) via a custom tool ..." Also, I can’t find any export or “save as” options in any major middleware apps except one CAD/Design program supporting “.vtf” files…


ANSWER> VTF is a proprietary format. We will provide the necessary utilities required for conversion.
 
My e-mail to Gabe:
Hi Mr. Newell (or may I say Gabe?),

first I would like to say I'm a big fan of your work with Valve on HL & CS,
I've been playing both from the very start back in 1998 (CS in1999), And I can't wait for HL2 (& CS2), keep up the good work..

My question is about videocards, you probably get alot of these but I wanted to ask you anyway because it's important to me, HL2 will probably my next primairy game for the next 5 years orso..

Here we go:

Is a ATi 9800pro card really alot better for HL2 then Nvidia's FX5900? Or is
the difference not that big (quality & fps wise)?


Articles like this worry me:
http://www.beyond3d.com/misc/traod_dx9perf/index.php?p=1

I used to go for Asus cards all the time because I really like their in-game
OSD.. And Asus only makes Nvidia cards, so I was going to get a V9950 FX5900 especially for HL2, but if you say that's a mistake I will go for ATi this time.. Hope you find the time to answer my question..

Greetz & Thxs,

Menno de Kok
The Netherlands
http://www.cyberwarriors.nl
Click to expand...

Gabe's answer:
I have been a long-time NVIDIA card user. Currently I have ATI 9800 Pro's
in both my work and home machines.

The DX9 performance described by the Beyond3D article is consistent with
what we've been seeing.
Click to expand...

So it really looks like Nvidia screwed up with DX9 performance, and I have to let my favorite combination Asus/Nvidia go.. But to be absolutly sure I'm gonna wait for the HL2 benchmark that was suppossed to be released before HL2.. We are talking more then €300,-- here, so I want to make 100% sure I get the right thing..
 
-----Original Message-----
From: *censore*
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 8:30 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: HL2, DVD/CD questions


Hi Gabe,

I have a few questions:
1. Are there any dutch people at Valve? (I'm Dutch, so would like to know :))
[Gabe Newell] Not yet.
2. Are there going to be a CD-ROM and a DVD version?
[Gabe Newell] Yes.
3. if so, how many CD's would the ROM version contain? and will it be more expensive because of all the cd's?
[Gabe Newell] A bunch. No.
4. Any info about what's going to be inside the limited edition box? And much is this going to cost?
[Gabe Newell] Not yet.

Thanks for your time, Erwin from holland
 
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