Old facts...still facts?

[ShinRa]

Does the ENGINE (source) still have:

1. Dynamic lighting
2. Dynamic shadowing
3. 64 times map sizes from original hl
4. all the other shit it said it has?

I ask cuz the sdk doesnt seem to be much, and we havent heard anything really from valve lately on the engine. So does anyone know if source was brought down a few notches? Raised a few? What?

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Well map sizes we will see tuesday, and just about the other things we will see on tuesday, so sit tight

 

[KagePrototype]

1. Dynamic lighting

Not to the same extent as Doom 3, no. But there still is I think. A lot of the lighting is pre-compiled, possibly even all of it. The extents of this we won't know until Tuesday.

2. Dynamic shadowing

To an extent, yes. HL2 uses a combination of pre-compiled shadow maps and real-time shadowing to save processing power.

3. 64 times map sizes from original hl

HL2 maps aren't that big, there are other limitations to consider when creating maps, mostly to do with optimisation, but also engine limits. The space you can work in the Hammer is supposed to have 64 times the volume of work space the original Half-Life allowed.

4. all the other shit it said it has?

A list would be nice.

 

[ShinRa]

Ummmm.......

5. definable breakpoints for objects (as many or as little as you want.)
6. realistic res textures (havent seen any yet)

 

[KagePrototype]

5. definable breakpoints for objects (as many or as little as you want.)

I'm assuming you mean like breaking bits of wood, right? Dunno about this, I haven't messed around in the SDK enough...they may just be generated automatically when a material is assigned to an object now. As for things like large pillars (in the Strider vids for example), these are easily done.

6. realistic res textures (havent seen any yet)

HL2 textures were always touted as being 512x512 pixels on high quality settings. Is this what you mean?

 

[Brian Damage]

5. Yeah. But it's a modelling thing, not dynamic and in the engine and Hammer as a lot of people seem to think.

6. I have. Try looking at some of the new pics. Eli's shirt comes to mind.

 

[commando]

the maps will seem a hell of alot bigger due to the 3D SKY BOX hehe

 

[goldenboi]

the textures are extemely 2D up close, which is why source performs so well on computers. The windows look like regular CS windows up close, unfortunately. Just focus on the enemy and not the environment and you're good to go :thumbs:

 

[Adam]

Does the ENGINE (source) still have:

1. Dynamic lighting
2. Dynamic shadowing
3. 64 times map sizes from original hl
4. all the other shit it said it has?

I ask cuz the sdk doesnt seem to be much, and we havent heard anything really from valve lately on the engine. So does anyone know if source was brought down a few notches? Raised a few? What?

As a user of the old SDK and now the new one...

Yes to dynamic lighting (I made a map with this in it already)
Yes to dynamic shadows (Its in CS:S and a map I made)
Yes to 64 times map size. (In the SDK version of Hammer, you can clearly see an increase of the map bounds to 16,000+ in all directions, compared to only like 4000+.)
As for question 4, theres alot of things you can do in the new SDK, but 75% of it is undocumented until the full release of the SDK.

 

[Kaboomenstein]

This is actually a very good question. lots of people on the bungie.net forums were mad that alot of the promised things (real time lighting, destructible environments, unincluded vehicles) were removed from the game. I'd hate to see the same happen to hl2

 

[Ownzed]

This is actually a very good question. lots of people on the bungie.net forums were mad that alot of the promised things (real time lighting, destructible environments, unincluded vehicles) were removed from the game. I'd hate to see the same happen to hl2

Yeah, NO CRAP! That would suck SO BAD!

 

[jacen]

As a user of the old SDK and now the new one...

Yes to dynamic lighting (I made a map with this in it already)

the maps still use lightmaps, so sun and ambient light is not realtime (also most of the indoor lights are precompiled ... only fx lights seem to be dynamic from what i have seen)

Yes to dynamic shadows (Its in CS:S and a map I made)

i really dont believe u this.
show me the map or be branded as liar
unit low source screenshots only showed static shadowmaping ... u know something we dont?

 

[wayne white]

what about hdr?

 

[jacen]

what about hdr?

erm ... hdr is allready included in some cs:s maps
havanna, dust ... every map with a sun -_-

 

[ShinRa]

the textures are extemely 2D up close, which is why source performs so well on computers. The windows look like regular CS windows up close, unfortunately. Just focus on the enemy and not the environment and you're good to go :thumbs:

thats my biggest peeve of all. the textures all look like complete shit up close. isnt there any way to fix this? i really thought source was alot better than that.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

How exactly do you propose they do that then? The base texture size is 512x512. If they used 1024x1024 textures, the minimum requirements (in terms of memory and video card) would go up enormously.

512x512 is as high as any other current game.

 

[KagePrototype]

i really dont believe u this.
show me the map or be branded as liar
unit low source screenshots only showed static shadowmaping ... u know something we dont?

Watch the HL2 Binks, and you'll see plenty of real-time shadowing. It's not all real-time, most of it is done with pre-compiled shadow maps, but for moving things the shadows are real-time.

 

[ShinRa]

How exactly do you propose they do that then? The base texture size is 512x512. If they used 1024x1024 textures, the minimum requirements (in terms of memory and video card) would go up enormously.

512x512 is as high as any other current game.

The minimum requirements are low as hell as it is. (1.2 ghz? jesus christ). And they should have done them and made it an option for people who do have comps that can run those kind of textures.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Name a game that uses 1024x base textures.

Once again, you're trolling for things to bitch about.

 

[Eon Blue]

thats my biggest peeve of all. the textures all look like complete shit up close. isnt there any way to fix this? i really thought source was alot better than that.

Even Doom 3 on Ultra looks like shit up close. You can't really play a game with textures big enough to look good up close - today's computers can't handle it. Think of the 512x512 that HL2 has. Imagine it being 10 times that size. Then you'd be satisfied, but your computer would laugh at you.

 

[ShinRa]

K...think back to the directx 9 video of hl2. where he walked around, showed all those sweet effects, especially the ant lion guard. will we be able to make a game that looks like that?

btw...trolling is for trolls...nit picking and being curious is for people who care.

 

[deltree]

ShinRa no the HDR effects in the ant lion guard video aren't in the game.
apparently they had probelms making their low-dynamic range media look good under HDR lighting or something... go play Farcry on a 6800 if it matters to u

EDIT: and dynamic lighting is in, but most is precomputed. characters support up to 4 (but usually only 2 are enabled) dynamic lights + a contribution from precomputed lights

 

[ShinRa]

noo not if its in hl2..if the source is still capable of it so u can make a super high quality mod that looks like that all the way through.

 

[ne0_shiny]

This is actually a very good question. lots of people on the bungie.net forums were mad that alot of the promised things (real time lighting, destructible environments, unincluded vehicles) were removed from the game. I'd hate to see the same happen to hl2

this wouldnt happen because hl2 is a physics game

 

[Apos]

apparently they had probelms making their low-dynamic range media look good under HDR lighting or something

This is nonsense you just made up. HDR is in, but they don't know if it'll be enabled for everyone right out of the box because its performance intensive and not a huge priority.

 

[poseyjmac]

its be nice to have some official word on HDR's status in hl2 either way

 

[deltree]

the quote about HDR was from MadMaxx the sound designer of NS after he visited Valve.

EDIT: linky
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=40714

it certainly isnt in CS:S. and don't even try telling me the sun sprites and sprites in the dust dome are HDR cos if u do u don't have a clue

not one of the review mag screenshots shows HDR lighting. if u knew anything about it, u'd know that most HDR demos use floating-point source material. none of the HL2 source material would be in floating point so i'm guessing it wasn't looking the best under extremes of lighting... MadMaxx said it was a problem with the media not the engine IIRC

 

[Apos]

, u'd know that most HDR demos use floating-point source material.

Lol... so clueless!

The game already looked great in the demo, so there is no media issue. It's simply a matter of time and resources, as they said in the info thread. Source supports HDR just fine, and we've ALREADY seen them working in tandem.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

K...think back to the directx 9 video of hl2. where he walked around, showed all those sweet effects, especially the ant lion guard. will we be able to make a game that looks like that?

btw...trolling is for trolls...nit picking and being curious is for people who care.

You're neither nitpicking nor being curious. You're bitching about the texture quality in a game that uses the highest-resolution textures that it's possible to use given today's hardware.

 

[shapeshifter]

The problem I recall with the HDR was they couldn't get the Fx cards to use it with out taking it up the... well you know.

And thats why they default to dx 8.

:lol:

 

[deltree]

what do they need to spend the time and resources on if it already looks great?

an isolated demo and the whole game are different things. i'm guessing here, but based on MadMaxx's comment from the Valve devs, i'd say that when applied to media from the whole game, HDR wasn't looking right in some places.

please list the CS:S CVAR to enable HDR mode if it is currently in - we know that SOME build of source could do it, but it's not the shipping one.

i won't bother listing the large number of HDR demos using FP lightprobes to address ur clueless, either...