movable light-enity´s in hl2?

[Katana]

is it possible to like make some kind of torch, and use it as a lightsource.. and then make so its possible to pick it up with that anti-gravity-gun, and go around and use it as a lamp?

(excuse my bad english, but i think youll know what i mean ) :upstare:

 

[Thadius Dean]

my guess is yes. with all this other things the system can do (centrifical force and whatnot) i bet it is possible. that would be pretty hot.

EDIT: but i wouldnt trust me if i were you

 

[Gorgon]

Indeed, I think its not available in HL2 but you can mod it.

 

[Katana]

would be cool to make like lamps and stuff, that stand on a flor/table, you lift it up, the light and shadows and stuff change when you move it, you throw it into the wall or something and it breaks.. everything becomes totally black... QUAAAAAAAAAAAAK, youre getting attacked by 20 snarks.. :9

 

[PvtRyan]

I think HL2 uses lights which have fixed positions in the world (so no swinging lights) but some modding could solve this I think.
But in an open area it would look funny, because the lightmaps are static, and they wouldn't change when light casts differently on it.

 

[The Terminator]

In doom3 the lighting is fully dynamic, maybe thats the game youd wanna muck around it for lights, etc.

 

[kaf11]

i saw a post that in some magazine, they had an article saying that they saw a small demo which featured a light hanging in a room, that when run into would swing back and forth, making all the lighting in the room change. could be bs though, i didnt read it myself.

 

[Pauly]

would be cool to make like lamps and stuff, that stand on a flor/table, you lift it up, the light and shadows and stuff change when you move it, you throw it into the wall or something and it breaks.. everything becomes totally black... QUAAAAAAAAAAAAK, youre getting attacked by 20 snarks.. :9

think you mean CRAAAAAAAACK! not quaaaaak! lol....

 

[FoB_Ed]

is it possible to like make some kind of torch, and use it as a lightsource.. and then make so its possible to pick it up with that anti-gravity-gun, and go around and use it as a lamp?

yes its possible

 

[Katana]

think you mean CRAAAAAAAACK! not quaaaaak! lol....

heh, dunno how to spell those snark-sounds... next time i´ll link to the real snark-sound instead :imu:

 

[The Dark Elf]

Ok, Valve have confirmed a while back that there are dynamic lights in HL2.. Things like your HEV torch is classed as a dynamic light (like in HL1 only improved) the muzzle flash seen in the vids would be dynamic light also. Which show it will be possible to have both dynamic spot and point lights. The maps are lit with static 'baked' lighting and radiosity, which you can animate to a certain degree, as you could in HL1, but not dynamically.

Valve did say they won't have dynamic shadows cast by these types of lights, though that could have easily changed in the months extra they have had to work on it.

They also said everything except the map itself can have physics applied to it. So it stands to reason you can link a dynamic light to an object with physics and it will behave how you want it to.

 

[zdub]

awesome. i keep getting the vision of the welder trooper from the HL1 exp....that i always forget the name of.

 

[Triggerhappy41]

too bad those dynamic lights cant create dynamic shadows. It would look so cool!

 

[Styloid]

I think in a recent email (about dynamic sunlight in the skybox) Yahn said that you *could* make all the surfaces in the world react to dynamic lights and shadow more realistically (recalculating lightmaps), but that would require a lot of computer power and likely cutting back in some other areas (AI, polygons, size of map, etc) as well. The lights can all be per-pixel and dynamic but it's the shadows and self-shadowing I wouldn't get my hopes up on doing reasonably. It's funny because I've also heard of this 'phantom' article about HL2 dynamic lights but I've never directly seen or read it. I would have to say that the stuff you're talking about doing is well in the Doom3 area.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I think in a recent email (about dynamic sunlight in the skybox) Yahn said that you *could* make all the surfaces in the world react to dynamic lights and shadow more realistically (recalculating lightmaps), but that would require a lot of computer power and likely cutting back in some other areas (AI, polygons, size of map, etc) as well. The lights can all be per-pixel and dynamic but it's the shadows and self-shadowing I wouldn't get my hopes up on doing reasonably. It's funny because I've also heard of this 'phantom' article about HL2 dynamic lights but I've never directly seen or read it. I would have to say that the stuff you're talking about doing is well in the Doom3 area.

Why call it a phantom article, its mentioned in the Valve only info thread, I just can't be arsed looking for it when its pretty much what I'd just said anyway :E

I believe its also in the Valve ERC FAQ

and probably mentioned briefly in the Gabe interview

the trick is to go through everything and piece together all the information from all the official sources, then you get a better idea of what might be possible.

 

[Styloid]

Why call it a phantom article, its mentioned in the Valve only info thread, I just can't be arsed looking for it when its pretty much what I'd just said anyway :E

I believe its also in the Valve ERC FAQ

and probably mentioned briefly in the Gabe interview

the trick is to go through everything and piece together all the information from all the official sources, then you get a better idea of what might be possible.

hmm... I've heard about it several times but I also heard that it was written in dutch or something like that. I'm sure something exists but I can't really cite that article as evidence since I've never personally seen or read it. That's all.

 

[Sorze]

Why do you say it won't be possible??

In the Info from Valve thread, they state that Souce is very capable of dynamic lighting, only they thought it best not to use it for the singleplayer campaign.

So to answer your question, I'm quite sure it's possible, but it doesn't seem like hl2 singleplayer will do anything like that.

And btw, if this is all wrong somehow, my mod idea is totally screwed..... :x

 

[The Dark Elf]

Why do you say it won't be possible??

In the Info from Valve thread, they state that Souce is very capable of dynamic lighting, only they thought it best not to use it for the singleplayer campaign.

So to answer your question, I'm quite sure it's possible, but it doesn't seem like hl2 singleplayer will do anything like that.

And btw, if this is all wrong somehow, my mod idea is totally screwed..... :x

Yeah, you could certainly light a map with dynamic lights.. You'd get no shadows unless you coded something to sort that out, not for the faint of heart I'd imagine. But the basic lighting could certainly work. Wouldn't look too good. But it would show off normal mapping a great deal more though. I would like to see someone try it, we'll never know unless someone tries, worst that can happen is it doesn't work too well. I'd say its worth trying.

 

[Triggerhappy41]

Indeed. Dynamic lights are the possible thing, it the dynamic shadows that will need to be modded. Or you could just get Doom 3 too.

 

[kaf11]

i think its just fine if HL2 dosent have dynamic shadows. obviously source could have easily implemented them, but the fact that valve chose not to from a design perspective is fine for me. they will be cool in doom III, because im sure it will have a totally different design to it. theyre 2 very different games, which cannot be compared by things like, "which engine can do this better." both games will be badass, but overall looks, gameplay, physics, and story, id say were on the winning side.

 

[The Dark Elf]

i think its just fine if HL2 dosent have dynamic shadows. obviously source could have easily implemented them, but the fact that valve chose not to from a design perspective is fine for me. they will be cool in doom III, because im sure it will have a totally different design to it. theyre 2 very different games, which cannot be compared by things like, "which engine can do this better." both games will be badass, but overall looks, gameplay, physics, and story, id say were on the winning side.

Yeah.. And while I do now admit that dynamic light/shadows can look really cool. A game doesn't need them for atmosphere. Many great atmospheric films, if paid close attention to will very rarely have lights moving all over the place. So its not an essential feature for getting the atmosphere you want.. They Hunger had nothing like that, and that was scary as hell heh.

 

[Sorze]

So Fenric, what you+re saying is, it won't be that easy to implement dynamic lighting in a mod, or what? I don't really care much for moving lights and stuff like that, but I would really like being able to shoot out lights. I was thinking on experimenting a bit with a Splinter Cell kind of mod, only.... different

That's going to be hard as hell .. ? :x

And, what are you saying? HL2 has "dynamic lights" but not "dynamic shadows" or what? I don't understand... please explain!

 

[Revenge]

Basically a when a dynamic light shines on something it wont cast a shadow (the theory most likey being that dynamic lights are either the player's torch or muzzleflash and neither of those would need shadows because you wouldn't be able to see them even if any were cast)

 

[Styloid]

Lighting really does play a major part in atmosphere. I think that whatever HL2 is using for it's lighting, that was a good choice. The game looks natural and alive. Static lightmaps still give better, more realistic graphics than real-time for the time being and I'm glad that HL2's environment looks as good as it does. I find it ironic that Doom3's most celebrated feature, the lighting, is what makes me think it looks very rigid and unnatural.

 

[Sorze]

I told you I saw something in the info from valve thread!

"Hy gabe,

I am kinda involved in a short discussion about wether Half-Life² does or
does not support dynamic shadows like DooM³. I think it does because a dutch

gaming magazine said it does, and they got to see a demo with a lightbulb
hanging from a cord in a room and when you push it it swings and the light
would go dynamically across the surfaces off the objecs that where installed

in the room. and cast dynamic shadows.

Yes, we have dynamic shadows. We use a different approach than Doom3."

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1298&page=2

phew... I got worried for a while there, I could really use dynamic shadows in my mod idea...

Btw, how would you implement them? Do you just tick "dynamic" on your lightsources, or what? and don´t use static lightmaps ?
Does anyone know ? (Fenric..? you seem to be the guy that knows sh!t..?)

 

[Arno]

I think what Gabe meant was that the objects in the map, such as the player, tables and barrels and such have a dynamic shadow. But the walls still use static lightmaps.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I told you I saw something in the info from valve thread!

"Hy gabe,

I am kinda involved in a short discussion about wether Half-Life² does or
does not support dynamic shadows like DooM³. I think it does because a dutch

gaming magazine said it does, and they got to see a demo with a lightbulb
hanging from a cord in a room and when you push it it swings and the light
would go dynamically across the surfaces off the objecs that where installed

in the room. and cast dynamic shadows.

Yes, we have dynamic shadows. We use a different approach than Doom3."

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1298&page=2

phew... I got worried for a while there, I could really use dynamic shadows in my mod idea...

Btw, how would you implement them? Do you just tick "dynamic" on your lightsources, or what? and don´t use static lightmaps ?
Does anyone know ? (Fenric..? you seem to be the guy that knows sh!t..?)

Possibly dynamic shadows across models only, with one realtime shadow per object in the actual world.. If its not that then Valve haven't to my knowledge shown it in action. so far it looks like there's only one point that generates the shadows in the actual world, while the dynamic lights will cast shadows, if there are any, only onto realtime objects, maybe even the props. But I haven't seen that in anything from Valve yet either... BUT, thats not to say they can't do that. I hope they can now, had long enough extra time to add support for it atleast with the models and props. And it would be very cool.

 

[MooCow]

I'm sure somewhere it was mentioned that there is a limit of one dynamic light per map, possibly for performance reasons.

I tried to search for it but of cource due to the f'ing stupid search ruls it's impossible to find the post as you can't search for words like "one" or "map".

 

[Sorze]

"- Its been said that while HL2's lighting is static based, there will be
some dynamic lighting. Do dynamic lights cast dynamic shadows? Is this
something will only be able to be used in a few places (such as in the HL
engine, where dynamic lighting is was a pretty big system hit) or could we do things like in Splinter Cell, with having lots of light bulbs being shot out and whatnot? Would it be possible to have a swinging light ala DOOM III?

I'm not sure where people get the idea that HL-2 doesn't support dynamic lighting."

Doomaniacs post in info from valve thread here

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1298&page=5&pp=40

the bold text is Gabe's answer btw.


Man.. can't someone just tell me straight out.. that's kind of a bad answer, I still don't know wether or not trying to make a mod with splinter cell kind of lightning is possible..

Edit: Fenric, I know they haven't shown any dynamic lighting, but they haven't shown alot of stuff that Source is supposed to be able to do.. The question is wether or not Source can do dynamic lighting, I guess. I really hope so...

 

[The Dark Elf]

"- Its been said that while HL2's lighting is static based, there will be
some dynamic lighting. Do dynamic lights cast dynamic shadows? Is this
something will only be able to be used in a few places (such as in the HL
engine, where dynamic lighting is was a pretty big system hit) or could we do things like in Splinter Cell, with having lots of light bulbs being shot out and whatnot? Would it be possible to have a swinging light ala DOOM III?

I'm not sure where people get the idea that HL-2 doesn't support dynamic lighting."

Doomaniacs post in info from valve thread here

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1298&page=5&pp=40

the bold text is Gabe's answer btw.


Man.. can't someone just tell me straight out.. that's kind of a bad answer, I still don't know wether or not trying to make a mod with splinter cell kind of lightning is possible..

Edit: Fenric, I know they haven't shown any dynamic lighting, but they haven't shown alot of stuff that Source is supposed to be able to do.. The question is wether or not Source can do dynamic lighting, I guess. I really hope so...

I've already said it can do dynamic lighting, but dynamic shadows is a whole other kettle of fish

It has one realtime (dynamic) shadow thing setup.. Now how this actually works I don't know. Could be done in a number of ways...

A special realtime light which gives the shadows their direction, length, colors etc.

Or the realtime shadows take information from the STATIC lighting in the new map format to decide the direction of realtime shadows.

The first would probably be easier, and in theory allow you to animate its position, making crawling sun effects possible. But if an entity was closer to a brighter light source, its shadow would be at odds

The second method would be the best method. Using some pointers within the bsp to tell the engine where the nearest light is and for any entities to use that as its shadow casting source. BUT, for this to look good there would need to be some form of blending between the changes in shadow direction /light source. Or it would jump unrealistically between the nearest sources at the time

A third method would be multiple shadows, each one generated from every light in the map, though with a falloff so only the nearest lights would have some shadow casting while more distant lights wouldn't effect it.. Perhaps with some individual falloff setting on a per light basis. In which case you'd be able to give a sun or suns, a greater falloff, while smaller lights would have a lower falloff.. If you then add the blending and fading to that, it would probably be the most realistic looking. But of course not actually realistic as shadows arne't simply uniformly soft edged, they go from very sharp where the shadow is closest to the casting object to soft and faint the further away the shadow is from its casting object. And then this effect depends on the type of lighting it is, how "clean" the light source is, if its more diffuse the shadow is far softer than it would be if cast from a bright clean light source.

So that covers the actual realtime shadows seen in the video's. It must be one of those. As for the dynamic lights, its got dynamic lights, it just hasn't got dynamic shadows in anything I've seen so far. It's not to say they haven't added that since the E3 vids. I simply don't know. It has for definately got atleast one dynamic light though, your flashlight, HL1 had that.. Since Valve allegedly say they have dynamic shadows. Then its more likely only something that effects models or maybe even props. If those types of shadows also effect the map itself (casting a new shadow of a zombie onto a nearby wall when you point your flashlight at it) Then in theory you could light your map completely with dynamic lights and have Doom like realtime shadows everywhere..

But HL2 was never meant for this, its using a far more realistic method to calculate better lighting and shadowing information aswell as using radiosity for color reflection onto other surfaces in a map. I personally can live without fancy realtime shadows all over the place. As I've said before, the most atmospheric scenes in movies have little to no wizzing lights all over the place. those that do stick to things like flickering lights (those climatic scenes in Alien for example) which HL2 can easily do with its static lights, it could do that in HL1.

You COULD, with some hard work, be able to setup static lights and fixtures to be movable, not completely realtime, they would be some kind of scripted sequence and baked into the map just like the on/off lights were in HL1.. You'd then setup that object to perform some movement when shot at, and create an array of static lights to then flick on and off in order, matching the movement of the fixture. Not perfect but it would give some kind of dynamic looking shadows, even if its faked.

 

[Sorze]

Wow Fenric, what a post!

But how is it now, in HL2? They use static lightmaps, yes? But what about this?

Since Valve allegedly say they have dynamic shadows. Then its more likely only something that effects models or maybe even props. If those types of shadows also effect the map itself (casting a new shadow of a zombie onto a nearby wall when you point your flashlight at it) Then in theory you could light your map completely with dynamic lights and have Doom like realtime shadows everywhere..

Don´t zombies etc. cast shadows on the walls now? I mean, the characters should have dynamic shadows right? They can´t possibly have predetermined every characters shadow in every possible situation in all maps ?

And also, is it possible to make a map with static lightmaps, but still have breakable lights (without moving them)? Or would you have to make a lightmap for the level for all possible combinations of broken and working lights (huge memory wastage)?

Since Valve allegedly say they have dynamic shadows. Then its more likely only something that effects models or maybe even props.

I don't get how this works..? When shining the flashlight for example (or any other dynamic light) on a creature, it would light up the creature, but the creature wouldn't cast any shadows on the ground/walls, or what ?

I don't see why they would implement dynamic lighting without dynamic shadows (if i understand the terms correctly..)?

And why is there such a problem with shadows being cast on walls etc but not on creatures? Atleast that's what it sounded like to me in you last post..

It seems to me like the problem would be having dynamic lights&shadows and static lightmaps.
Wouldn't it be possible to create a map without static lightmaps if all lights were dynamic?

Gabe directly compares HL2 to Doom3, only saying their approach is different. I doubt he would do this if Source could only handle some kind of "budget-dynamiclighting/shadowing"...

Fenric, by the way, keep it up, you´re a mine of information here..

 

[jonnyapps]

hmm, what about self-shadows? can a monsters shadow shadow part of its own body?

 

[Ashton]

Everyone needs to go to this website.. http://oldsite.havok.com/xtra/demos/demo-warehouse.html it will show you what Half-life will be like.

 

[jonnyapps]

WOW i hope that's not what hl2 will look like!

 

[The Dark Elf]

Yes they'll cast shadows.. But I haven't seen anything showing that dynamic lights placed in the map will cast shadows. I get the impression that the realtime shadows in the maps are setup some other way. Logically, you'd have one light casting light and any shadows that exist, but since HL2 will use static baked lighting information in a map. There's no _real_ light source in the map then. It's simply textures with brightness information. The brightness of a realtime model in that map has always taken its brightness from something in the bsp map telling it if its in light or in dark area's and the parts in between.. So something else must be needed to tell it which direction the shadow goes.. Using one of the above methods I mentioned.

Yeah, in HL1 you could very easily make a map where every light was breakable.. It was simply a trigger

Shoot objectA - triggers LightA to switch off.

or more advanced you'd have

Shoot objectA - triggers LightA to switch off - LightB to switch on - replace objectA with objectB - shoot objectB - triggers lightB to switch off

LightA is a normal light
LightB is a flickering light, as if its broken
ObjectA is a normal looking light fixture
ObjectB is a damaged looking light fixture

Dynamic lighting is the easy part. Dynamic shadows are whats complicated. It's not impossible, its certainly been done, there's some example of very cool looking realtime soft/area shadows in the hardware section. But then the engine would need to know at what point a specific light source is used to cast its shadow. Otherwise you'd get the overlapping shadows which look really bad (the early shadow effect in Serious sam as an example) with each shadow that overlaps, it darkens. Which real shadows wouldn't do.

Well a dynamic light, to keep the speed up, which is something HL2 apparantly has sorted. It will only allow realtime shadows created from other dynamic lights, to be cast on models only. While one realtime shadow generator thing places realtime shadows on the world.. That way the engine doesn't have to worry about hundreds or thousands more realtime shadows and only has to do it on a per object basis (if it can do this, I don't know)

So, with that in mind..

The map will have one source for realtime/dynamic shadow.

The map will probably have some finite number of dynamic lights allowed.. maybe more but obviously the more there are the slower its going to be because it wasn't built for this in mind

The models will possibly be able to recieve and cast realtime shadows onto themselves and each other, but not onto the world (apart from that single realtime shadow source above)

Gabe is right, its handled diffrently

HL2 = static lighting. Each light casts illumination on its surrounding area, then during compiling of a map, the light is calculated with radiosity. Which allows for light bouncing around from surface to surface, giving a very realistic lighting effect.

DIII = uses realtime lighting and shadowing. Direct line of sight, no bounces. Hence DIII has hard edged shadows, and if a light source can't see a particular area, that light source can't light it. The effect is moodier but not as realistic as HL2's method

As an example.. In pre-rendered work, we use the HL2 method way more than we'd use DIII's method for production quality CG when we're trying for realism because hard edged shadows simply do not look realistic, where's bounced light does.. We bake that into surfaces because its slow to calculate. But once its part of a surface its very very quick. (Obviously we do a lot more than that to get perfect realism but there's no point going into those details as they don't apply here)

So to sum up. If you want completely realtime lighting, and don't mind hard edged shadows that remain very sharp no matter how distant the light source is. Go with DoomIII

If you want admittedly static lighting/shadowing but that will allow you to create very realistic environments. And can cope with basic dynamic lighting/shadowing. Use HL2


Personally I think HL2 wins. DIII does look cool with its shadowing, but you can't help but see that its not realistic. There's something very unatural about seeing a light wobbling about on the ceiling casting sharp hard edged shadows across the surfaces of a room.. In the modeling section, when people light their models that way. There are always responses about how bad the lighting looks.. So maybe some wont care/notice, but quite a few will have problems with it. If you had a bright light shining through a window in DoomIII. It would cast a bright light onto the floor or across a wall. But everything surrounding the very bright area's would be pitch black.

HL2 has far better lighting, because its based on real world lighting. If using the above example, you had a bright light shining through a window. It would give more realistic shadows, gradually fading and becoming softer from the source. And the surrounding areas near the very bright surfaces would also have light to them

You could realistically light a room through a window in HL2/HL1. You'd need a lot of lights to get the same quality in DoomIII.. more realtime lights will kill the framerate in DoomIII. and you'd need quite a lot to get anywhere near a faked radiosity type effect... unless you faked it with illuminated textures, but then you defeat the purpose of Doom's realtime shadows/lighting.



Edit: and just to add.. The game isn't out yet and Valve probably have something up their sleeves. Chances are I could be wrong about the possible limitations.. In a way I hope I am. It would just go to make HL2 even better than its going to be. Kicking Stalker's, Far Cry's and Doom's digital butts.


We'll just have to wait and see.. unless anyone from Valve would like to chime in.. though I doubt that they'd bother with this site now we're letting people talk about the stolen files as if its ok

 

[The Dark Elf]

Things you'll probably be able to do

1) Car headlights

2) torches

3) spotlights / searchlights

4) lanterns

5) lighthouses

6) weaponry that cast light from them.. glowing lightsabres or balls of energy

7) realtime customised light flashes

8) Fake DoomIII style maps with some hard work


Things you probably wont be able to do

1) DoomIII style maps where everything is completely realtime



-
I'll add to that if I think of any more

 

[Sorze]

I hope you don´t think I´m annoying Fenric, because this is kind of interesting for me...

Btw, I also think the HL2 lighting method looks more real than the DIII method. I've tried a certain cough*build*cough of DIII, and... yeah, hard, black shadows are kind of weird, in my opinion.
(btw... the walking speed in DIII is tooo damn slow..)

Do you think it´s possible to make a "Splinter Cell"ish mod, with similar lighting? What I´m really after is a mod where you can shoot out lights to make the map darker, and being able to hide in the dark from guards etc (I´m going to try modding myself, I know some stuff). I'm not really after moving lights everywhere, but mood, darkness, and sneaking action..

The reason i brought in that quote from Gabe about comparing HL2 and Doom3, I got the feeling that he was comparing the dynamic lighting/shadowing between the two (in engine Source, not ingame HL2SP...), and said HL2's way of doing dynamic lighting/shadowing was a bit different than DIII's.

I do know the difference between the methods they use in their respective single player campaigns, and how HL2 isn't at all the same as DIII.

whoa, noticed something just now...
Gabe says (up a few posts...)"Yes, we have dynamic shadows. We use a different approach than Doom3.".
Notice how he says dynamic shadows, and not dynamic lighting? I really believe (kindof...) and hope that dynamic shadows aren't that big of a bitch to implement..

You said that dynamic shadows was the hard part, and not dynamic lighting right? I hope not using dynamic shadows in HL2SP is the classic "Design decision, not technical limitation".

Edit:

Edit: and just to add.. The game isn't out yet and Valve probably have something up their sleeves. Chances are I could be wrong about the possible limitations.. In a way I hope I am. It would just go to make HL2 even better than its going to be. Kicking Stalker's, Far Cry's and Doom's digital butts.

Yeah I'm veeery interested in what Valve have been up to the last few months...

meh.. forgot what I was going to say the moment I pressed the Edit button... Also if Source really can handle both dynamic lighting/shadowing and static lightmaps, it's surely the most kickass engine around.

Editno2: I don't think this site has lost any respect or whatever from Valve since the rule changes, they know most of the people that visit this site are quite hard core HL2 fans, and would die to just get a few new screenshots...
They know we totally adore their games, and just talking about a leak isn't going to change that.

 

[Arno]

You could realistically light a room through a window in HL2/HL1. You'd need a lot of lights to get the same quality in DoomIII.. more realtime lights will kill the framerate in DoomIII. and you'd need quite a lot to get anywhere near a faked radiosity type effect... unless you faked it with illuminated textures, but then you defeat the purpose of Doom's realtime shadows/lighting.

As far as I know, Doom3 uses ambient lighting for this. Meaning, the light level in the entire room is upped a bit to account for the missing radiosity.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Well yeah I already said you could do that with shooting lights out. If your not fussed about DIII style then yeah HL is perfectly capable of doing that, could do it in HL1. So yeah, you'll be glad to know your splinter cell type mod will work
-
Yeah, HL2 has dynamic shadows, and yeah their done differently to DIII, I mentioned how it would probably do it, but until the game is out and I get my hands on the engine I wont know for sure
-
From what I've learnt the Source engine is pretty bloody advanced. But I've also heard it has entity limits (I'm hoping thats just a rumor that got started from some twat with the stolen files who doesn't know what their doing) Otherwise Stalker and Farcry will end up having the last laugh come detail in a map. Otherwise it should be good

 

[umop]

"From now on, you will all refer to me by the name of Betty."
- Master Pain

your quote owns me, although if i made the movie i would have used Sally