Mirror?

[m00b]

Did anyone see a mirror in the game??? Is the engine capable of it? I've been into 1000's of bathrooms but no mirror? Wtf? :O

 

[Mechagodzilla]

There aren't any mirrors because Valve thinks player reflections never look very realistic. I tend to agree.

Mirrors are very possible though. They've been in games since what? Duke Nuke'em?

After all, they have working TV cameras, and the water reflections are great.

 

[Tyguy]

u cant see gordon so they wouldnt put a mirror in the game, plus, mirrors are over rated

 

[Jesus Lincoln]

Notice you dont see your legs or your hands when driving...noticing a pattern

One reason why they dont let you see yourself that much (besides your hands) is becase they want you to believe that "you" are gordon freeman, and all this shit is happening to YOU.

Youre not playing as Gordon freeman, you ARE Gordon freeman




PS: 800TH post, woot!

 

[Victor2]

What would you see anyways, there´s never a real G.Freeman model to reflect in the mirrors, and that´s not because of the imersion of the game, for God´s sake, i see my reflection every day in my real life and I feel pretty damn "imersed", Valve is just too damn lazy to build a real model..........

 

[m00b]

Actually there is. I saw it in SDK.
I wanna know because I'm a mapper. So that's another reason other than thinking it might be cool to see Freemans face.

 

[Ownzed]

That would ruin it all.

 

[superjuanchango]

Laziness, yar. Mirrors looked fine in Doom 3.

 

[riles]

i heard there was a freeman model in the sdk. is that true?

 

[CrimsonKing]

Look, seeing Freeman in a mirror, or in the thirdperson at all would make Laidlaw's Fourth Wall(as I named it)come crashing down.

The reason is very simple, you are Gordan Freeman, look into a mirror in the game, you'll see the reflection of Gordan, not you. Fourth Wall is broken and it becomes easier to lose immersion. Might be a bit technical, but thats why.

 

[riles]

sure sure sure... create excuses for laziness. so you are saying they didnt do mirrors to create the essence of you being gordon freeman. well what more essence do you need than looking in a mirror and seeing gordon

 

[Walkman]

maybe its part of valves storyline. the combine have forbade the use of any mirrors.....they could be used to boost moral.....

joking of course btw

 

[Steve]

How can anyone say that valve is LAZY? If valve was lazy, HL2 wouldn't be HALF the game it is! And they're LAZY because they didn't include mirrors in the game? Sorry, but no.

 

[Asus]

By not allowing you do see your own model, Valve has further created the illusion that you are Gordon because they leave it up to each individual's mind. The look, the attitude etc.

I don't know about you but when I played D3 and looked in the mirror I was distanced from being the character because I felt like 'Oh, is that what I look like". I didn't know the character.

 

[Shadow][]

doom 3 had mirrors, and so did unreal tournament 1, btw that would be cool if you look down in the water and could see yourself

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

doom 3 had mirrors, and so did unreal tournament 1, btw that would be cool if you look down in the water and could see yourself

The whole point VALVe doesn't want you to see Gordon....

 

[JPack]

The lack of mirrors doesn't change much for me. I already know what Gordon looks like. He has a beard, glasses, green eyes and brown hair. The lack of mirrors just makes it weird.

The lack of legs? Come on. Then why can we see Gordon's hands?

The moment someone picks the game box with Gordon's picture on it, they already know they're playing Gordon. I'm not more immersed in the game just because there are no mirrors.

 

[Motley]

Now if everyone could decide on a universal file to save a skin of your own face, you could drop that file into one of the game folders and it could automatically apply it to the game's player model.

I wonder if that would break the fourth wall? It might be a little disturbing seeing your own reflection from the digital mirror. Perhaps you'd cease to exist. Sounds like a good short story...

Source is more than capable of doing mirrors. Valve chose not to put them in of course, and I very much doubt if it were due to laziness.

 

[Calm_Blue_Ocean]

I don't see how anyone could say it's due to laziness. This has been Valve's philosophy ever since they started making the first game. Source would have no trouble at all rendering mirrors, but it would spoil the immersion. A Gordon model is present in both the HL1 and HL2 SDK, but it was never intended for more than multiplayer. It would of course be fairly easy for a modder to add.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Well, look in a mirror right now. You can move your hands, your head. You can make faces and brush lint off your shirt. Even staying perfectly still, your eyes move around.

In HL2 though, you couldn't be able do any of those things at will. Just jump up and down and occasionally shoot. It's not realistic at all. You'd look like a mannequin.

And it's stupid to say Valve was "too lazy" to include reflections. They're insanely easy to do.
Hell, just look at the crossbow's scope. It reflects everything behind you. The water reflects objects too, very well.
With all these curves and rippled surfaces, do you really think they couldn't make a flat mirror?

 

[BrimStone04]

the doom 3 mirror effect looks like poo, u pull out a gun and it shows it on the mirror after u already have it out, its delayed, u reload and its all crappy looking.....its prolly the best mirror reflection i seen and it still isnt close to being right. im glad hl2 didnt cuz it would just be something worng with hl2 and i personally thinkts its flawless, i dont wanna see gordon, cuz if i wanna see the main character ide go play halo, a game that plays like a normal game, hl2 makes me feel a part of the story....its the whole reason they made the hl series was to get the gamer into the game, if u dont like it then go play another game that u dont feel a part of.

 

[Gertrum]

One day we'll all have webcam scanning our faces as we play games, allowing for perfect facial, expressional and eye tracking. Of course, by then there'll be voice recognition as well, something Valve said they wanted to put in but the technology couldn't yet allow for it.

Can you imagine wandering about in online games, with people's faces (even if they aren't necessarily their true ones) communicating their emotions to you? Shock as you jump out at them; maniacal glee as they empty a clip into your corpse.

Then, just maybe, we will get a half-life game with mirrors. The day that you will be able to see your own face looking back at you.

 

[azz0r]

If anything its an engine limitation.

CSS for example - I dont have a shadow and I certainly dont have a water trail yet alone being visible in mirrors.

Can anyone confirm mirrors are available to make currently? I doubt it.

 

[AcousticToad]

Im guessing with the engine allowing the live images by having a camera in a room and the character looking at it, then it should be possible to make a surface that looks shiney, stick a camera infront looking out towards the player and then putting the camera image on the mirror surface.

Not sure how it would work, guess we will have to wait and see in the full sdk and hammer.

 

[m00b]

It looks like there are two choices:
1. Just like in UT2k4 take a scripted texture and bind it to a camera
2. Use small water surface that doesnt move and force high definition reflection on it.
Any more ideas?

 

[Dead-Inside]

Now if everyone could decide on a universal file to save a skin of your own face, you could drop that file into one of the game folders and it could automatically apply it to the game's player model.

I wonder if that would break the fourth wall? It might be a little disturbing seeing your own reflection from the digital mirror. Perhaps you'd cease to exist. Sounds like a good short story...

FUNNIEST. SHIT. EVER.

If anything its an engine limitation.

CSS for example - I dont have a shadow and I certainly dont have a water trail yet alone being visible in mirrors.

Can anyone confirm mirrors are available to make currently? I doubt it.

Wtf? Engine limitation? I hope to god you aren't serious.
So you can have a videocamera pick up images from another part of the map and display them on a screen anywhere you want, but you can't possibly create a simple ****ing mirror? You're a joke, mate.

 

[riles]

they just didnt have a gordon model made. plain and simple. no they arent lazy... hl2 is the best game ive ever played. there are mirrors in the engine definitely but dont say they didnt add mirrors because they were afraid of it making it look to much like you were playing a role. thats kinda stretching it

 

[CriYam]

What would you see anyways, there´s never a real G.Freeman model to reflect in the mirrors, and that´s not because of the imersion of the game, for God´s sake, i see my reflection every day in my real life and I feel pretty damn "imersed", Valve is just too damn lazy to build a real model..........

Yes, I saw the box art and freaked out, I mean; WHO IS THAT GUY?! I'm a girl.... but I thought I was Gordon.... this is getting confusing....


Sorry for the sarcasm but really, this "immersive" crap is just going too far. Doom3 had awesome mirrors. And who wouldn't like to smash a mirror and hold a piece to look around a corner? You'd all shit yourselves if you could.

 

[KagePrototype]

If anything its an engine limitation.

CSS for example - I dont have a shadow and I certainly dont have a water trail yet alone being visible in mirrors.

Can anyone confirm mirrors are available to make currently? I doubt it.

Mirrors have been around since Duke Nukem 3D, and HL2 already has reflections on water. I'm 100% positive mirrors are possible in Source. It's simply a design decision, not a technical limitation. As for CSS, I remember my player having a shadow and water trail.

 

[OD-Black_Fire]

It's possible. Just place one of the cameras infron of a "mirror" and have the "mirror" play it back. And, if done correctly, you won't see the pixels. The textures used on most of the TV's are low res (like, 256x256 at the most). Source supports 2048x2048 textures, so, you could have a INCREDIBLY sharp mirror, but the fps will be slightly lower, but not any lower than using the method Doom 3 or AA:O does.

 

[Ames]

It's possible. Just place one of the cameras infron of a "mirror" and have the "mirror" play it back. And, if done correctly, you won't see the pixels. The textures used on most of the TV's are low res (like, 256x256 at the most). Source supports 2048x2048 textures, so, you could have a INCREDIBLY sharp mirror, but the fps will be slightly lower, but not any lower than using the method Doom 3 or AA:O does.

AA = Unreal Warfare engine......

 

[Ren.182]

If you put a camera behind a mirror and have the image from the camera placed on the mirror then that would mean if you stand to the side of the mirror, the reflection YOU see would be the one directly in front of the mirror. But in real life if you stand to the side of a mirror you dont see whats directly in front of it.

Mirrors would be like the water in the game. They'd just make a mirror with the same reflectivity proporties as the water.

 

[lammmbda]

valve never intended to let you see gordon in the game.....

 

[TyrantII]

what you could do to fool this is have the camera to follow the player, much like enemy AI, NCP head movment, or even the sentry guns.

Acctually that would also be wrong, what t would have to do is follow the player, but then "look" at the inverse angle the player is at.

might not be possible right outa the box, but coding a camera entity to do it shouldn't be hard at all for a mod!

 

[nagual678]

hey people he just asked if source could handle mirrors not justify the fact that there aren't any mirrors and that you can"t see yourself/gordon in it ? wth
it's incredible to see how this thread has revolved to saying how much HL2 does better than other games because of an off-topic fact.

 

[joule]

You actually can see Gordon in the game, but it might not be what you had expected.

In console:
thirdperson

Note in thirdperson view Gordon appears as an incomplete grey model.