Old models and new flashlight+shadow system

[Zenith Lee]

I don't know if there's anyone into EP2 modding so far...

Being a complete loser, I used to play the HL2+ series using a certain DOA model to replace Alyx ,from the 2nd playthrough and onwards. On EP2 however, I found out that the old player models seems to be incompatible to the new flashlight+shadow system. (They still work in normal lighting though.)

The symtoms:
1. When the flashlight shines on the model, the model is lit very "uniformly", like with r_fullbright on. (No such problems in HL2 or EP1.)

2. The model doesn't cast shadows.

3. Self shadowing doesn't work (in GMan scene).

I suspect all default models in EP2 are "upgraded" by including certain pre-computed data. Since HL2 doesn't use unified lighting and shadows like Doom3, they would need some "cheating" by including pre-computed data (ambient occlusion or whatnot) in the models and scene to create soft shadows.

The big question would be, is there a tool to upgrade such older custom models so that they can take advantage to the new lighting system?

 

[Zenith Lee]

Ok, disregard that... It had nothing to do with old models.

 

[Operational]

Ok, disregard that... It had nothing to do with old models.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Zenith Lee]

I tried importing another custom model (Bulma by nkinta). The final version of this model is dated 2005-Oct, way before EP2 is released. However all the forementioned "symtoms" does not exist with this model. The new lighting-shadow works pretty well.

The logical conclusion would be that the problem lies in the DOA models. Since they are pretty much a hack job in the first place, some essential data may be missing. (I suspect that would be the normal-map).

 

[Stene]

Half-Life isn't really the game for good shadows, which is my largest disappointment in graphics. Everything else is ok, the quality of models, textures and shaders, but for some reason the shadows just suck.

I'd like to see some real dynamic shadows that come from lights. This new system just casts shadow of the model to behind it via flashlight. The characters still have other shadow beneath them, because Source compiles the shadows already on the map. So models must have always one direction where they always cast shadow, then there is just new shadow coming from flashlight.

And what I am wondering is why the models never cast shadows to themselves. It looks so stupid that there is table with cup on it, put the cup doesn't cast shadow to the table, but UNDER the table there is shadow of it on floor.

Hitman: Blood Money has very good shadows, they come from lights and look very real-life like, and models self-shadow, so there is like shadow of players briefcase casting to legs and so. Shadows are one of things that make games look more real. And actually Hitman: BM runs very nicely on everything at full details. It has ragdoll physics and all that stuff in, and can handle like 1000 people on one street. But it isn't any moddable.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R shadows are also awesome, when you walk under tree your weapon gets nice shadows from leaves and so, and when driving a car all stuff cast shadows to it's roof and other places. Though vehicles can be only gotten with mod.

 

[jpventoso]

Half-Life isn't really the game for good shadows, which is my largest disappointment in graphics. Everything else is ok, the quality of models, textures and shaders, but for some reason the shadows just suck.

Exactly.

The new dynamic shadows introduced in Ep2 are STALKER-styled (shadow maps with mid-resolution textures and soft edges), but it seems to be less optimized. FPS are dropping considerably when you turn the flaslight on.

I think the main problem with Source is that you have three different kinds of shadows: Lightmapped (soft precomputed shadows), pseudo-mapping (obscured projections for objects) and, on Ep2, shadow-mapping (dynamic soft shadows), and they can't figure out a way to unify all of them and keeping DX8 compatibility without a performance lack.

In Doom 3, you can see Lightmaps working together with Shadow Volume because this last method has a simplier way of merging with any other precomputed shadow, not to mention that nVidia cards process this kind of shadows real quick. But, as we all know, Source is made primarly for ATI.

So, I still prefer Shadow Volume instead of Shadow Mapping. But it's just my oppinion.

P.S. Sorry about my english, as usual

 

[Operational]

I think the main problem with Source is that you have three different kinds of shadows: Lightmapped (soft precomputed shadows), pseudo-mapping (obscured projections for objects) and, on Ep2, shadow-mapping (dynamic soft shadows), and they can't figure out a way to unify all of them and keeping DX8 compatibility without a performance lack.

Well if that is the problem maybe it won't be an issue for Episode Three.

Episode One, Minimum of DirectX 7
Episode Two, Minimum of DirectX 8
Episode Three, Maybe a minimum of DirectX 9?

 

[Stene]

Oh god, I hope Valve doesn't really move into DX10 and leave older ones out. I have always loved as Valve can make awesome-looking things in even very old computers. I had to play HL2 with DX6 when my 6800GT broke. It still looked quite good, the textures were blurry and no AA but still.

Maybe Valve could remake most of the Source script again, like make totally new code for shadows in it. That every single light casts shadow like in F.E.A.R, and they remove the 10 years old system that makes the shadows get compiled in to the map already. It is highly lame when Alyx is casting shadow to a light, but there is no shadow of her behind.

Source is still quite much of modified Quake 2 engine, map editor hasn't changed at all, only new entities to add. Graphics have changed alot, but actually there is a way to get shadows into Half-Life 1, including bumpmaps and noise.

 

[Zenith Lee]

Given the market share of Windoze Vista, Valve (and hopefully other major game engines) won't be moving to DX10 exclusive anytime soon.

 

[99.vikram]

Source is still quite much of modified Quake 2 engine

Bullshit. That theory's been flying around for ages despite the only evidence being an obscure line in one of Carmack's blogs. :frown:

 

[jpventoso]

I think that Valve will at least keep DX9 compatibility for Ep3 (I hope so ).

Now, looking at the trailers and the Ep1 intro video of Ep2, they were all rendered with full dynamic shadows, and that looks really great.

I really think that Source is one of the greatest engines ever, it has beautiful shaders, powerful physics simulations, etc. But I think that shadowing still needs some additional work to do.