New HL2 movies and articles

[Munro]

In "SIGGRAPH 2003", Valve had held a presentation called "Making of Half-Life2" at the Softimage booth. Japanese game site "4Gamer" has released a couple of movies and articles on this presentation.

The articles below are written in the Japanese language, but the movies of the presentation are in English.

Making the normal maps from the hi-poly model on Softimage XSI:
You can download the movie here and read the article here.

Animate Alyx on Softimage XSI:
Movie download here and article here.

Interview with Bill Van Buren (Valve's designer) available here.

Halflife2.net mirrors will be available to forum members soon.

 

[Apos]

VERY rough translations (I'll go back and clean it up):

First, the XSI article

* Movie explanation
Originally, if you want unevenness in your geometry, you would use more polygons. But with 3d games the problem is that this causes a performance decrease, and so for extremely detailed bump expression the approach that was devised to substitute bump mapping for polygons.

* Polygon from the model high accuracy the tool which forms the normal map it is
* When normal the curved surface ahead applying the map does perturbation, recalculate of the normal map necessary becomes as needed
* In extent and the video memory which so utilize the normal map luxuriously room it is
-> Large capacity video memory is needed

With Softimagec|xsi, the add-on of the compilation tool is offered to make high quality normal maps. In addition, for the mainstream it loaded function even with the video card, in these days when the video memory 128MB model is becoming natural, it reached the point where it can utilize this technology realistically with the 3d game.
In this movie, a rock wall which consists of several thousand polygons is dropped into the normal map function of Softimagec|xsi and the rock wall which applies circumstances and the normal map which are packed, is verified on the Half-Life 2 engine, as shown.
This kind of technique can be applied to the clothes of characters which appear in the HL2 and also the texture of the background, the normal map which becomes "opposite" to be prepared, it can look at the bump mapping which utilizes this everywhere in the actual game.

 

[Apos]

Now, the Alyx movie:

* Movie explanation
" Half-Life 2's modeling and the related animation were done by Softimagec|xsi. In this movie, the producer uses a version of Softimagec|xsi that is packed in the actual HL2 engine base, making the process simple.

In the movie, as for the eyeball real time being to be processed with the engine, being in a state where the eyeball has come out can check with the Softimagec|xsi picture. In addition as for the eyeball with it seems that is explained " this " interview article " eyeball processing " and, it seems that always stares the prayer, when " gaze tracking processing " on engine side is done in real time.

 

[Apos]

Aside from the movies, the interview looks like the truly interesting thing here, as it talks about how the high detail shadowing works in more detail than they've ever done before. Someone who actually speaks Japanese should really take a crack at some of the answers: it's too full of jargon for me to be able to make much sense of it other than individual words like "high dynamic range" and "shadow."

 

[festivalman]

Here's a bit torrent link for the 2 videos. Feel free to post this whereever.

http://www.filerush.com/torrents/making_of_half_life2.zip.torrent

 

[Apos]

I noted that he talks about opening up an "old version of the HL2 engine": what does he mean? Is this confirmation of the claim that they've been showing older versions of the engine than they are working on currently? The map they show is the tech demo map minus the water and panels, so maybe he meant old map, but this certainly seems like an interesting comment...

 

[AlCapucci]

Great!!!:cheers:

 

[what]

Originally posted by festivalman
Here's a bit torrent link for the 2 videos. Feel free to post this whereever.

http://www.filerush.com/torrents/making_of_half_life2.zip.torrent

thanks

 

[lonestar]

i need a broadband flat... NOW!

i will go to a friend and download the videos.

how are the videos.. tell me.

 

[Apos]

They are interesting. You see them playing around with alyx in XSI and then the HL2 model viewer. They alter her walk animation, export it, play it, and then in realtime blend new expressions on her face.

The other video shows them creating a normal map out of a 20,000 poly rock model, turning it into a single polygon with a normal map. They then load up the techdemo level in HL2 (we see the console background and steam inside it!) although it is a little different. We walk over to a similar wall to the one they were working on, and they shine the flashlight on it (it doesn't seem to cast new shadows )

 

[lonestar]

thanks for your coverage, Apos.

 

[991060]

thanks for the torrent,festivalman