Shadows, compared to Splinter Cell for example

[Seb]

I've read here and there on the forum about Half-Life 2 shadows, and some people talk about them not being real....they cheat in some way or I dont know. Theres talk about static and dynamic shadows, or something in between.

All that discussion doesn't say me much, I dont know the difference between all different types of shadows.

I would just plain and simply like to know if it will have as good, or at least the same types (technology), as the old game Splinter Cell has?
That would be totally fine for me....its very cool when you put a lamp in motion for example, and see the light from it and all shadows move around with it
And all shadows on the character are nice too.

So, will HL-2 have similar shadows, or simpler, or more complex?

 

[Hudson]

think they will be fairly saimilar, not sure though

 

[Seb]

Originally posted by |CC|Hudson
think they will be fairly saimilar, not sure though

Ok....cause if Splinter Cell doesn't have really real shadows, then I dont know how real shadows in a game would look like
Cant be much more real, I mean there are shadows everywhere, even though they can probably look better and so on, but I think the game has really dynamic shadows everywhere and hope HL2 will have it too, even though I've heard others in here for example...

Lightning and shadows are cool in games, they really add to the feeling thats for sure

 

[Claws]

Originally posted by Seb
Ok....cause if Splinter Cell doesn't have really real shadows, then I dont know how real shadows in a game would look like
Cant be much more real, I mean there are shadows everywhere, even though they can probably look better and so on, but I think the game has really dynamic shadows everywhere and hope HL2 will have it too, even though I've heard others in here for example...

Lightning and shadows are cool in games, they really add to the feeling thats for sure

No they are not dynamic. Observe this the next time you play SC: When you are about to enter the police station, where there are jail cells on both sides. Before you enter through the dorr there is a lamp out side that lights up the surrounding, and the jail cell corridor is very dark. But when you open the door, the light from the lamp outside is supposed to light up the beginning of the corridor, but it doesn't.

 

[Guest]

mario sixy four had some kickass shadows phew that black dot under mario was hardcore baby :cheers:

 

[Seb]

Originally posted by Claws
No they are not dynamic. Observe this the next time you play SC: When you are about to enter the police station, where there are jail cells on both sides. Before you enter through the dorr there is a lamp out side that lights up the surrounding, and the jail cell corridor is very dark. But when you open the door, the light from the lamp outside is supposed to light up the beginning of the corridor, but it doesn't.

Ok, so its like perfect, but misses some light-sources at some places?
Cause it cant get much better than shooting at a lamp to make it swing around hanging from the ceiling, and the light and all cast shadows move with it. Or all the shadows that are cast on the character while he moves through them.....well it sure is well done in Splinter Cell, even though as you say they might have missed something here and there (dont ask me how, though you may please explain why it gets like that in the game instead lol)

 

[82ross]

Splinter cell has both static and dynamic shadows aswell.

Static as described above and dynamic as in the way the player casts a shadow, lighs can be smashed, fans cast moving shadows etc.

Fully dynamic is pretty hard to achieve and pretty hard on your pc. I dont think its worth it with current hardware. Splinter cell had superb lighting.

 

[Seb]

Ok, so we can assume that HL2 will have like the same quality of shadows/light as Splinter Cell?
Not 100% dynamic shadows is not a bad thing if I understand you guys right

 

[Rilcon]

Anyone here ever played "blade: edge of darkness" (severence)?
Now that game had really good shadows, better than doom3's IMO.

 

[zdub]

Yea, i own severence. good shadows but not so realistic. they are to hard edged, but that was only because of system restrictions back then.

 

[Guest]

Ugh, I hated Splinter Cells lighting. Sometimes you'd have a shadow, sometimes you wouldn't. A supposedly dynamic light casts shadows for about a third of the things in a room, and not in one occasion were there swinging lights. Thats because the ones cast by static objects (i.e. a desk) were prerendered. Crappy lighting for a crappy game, in my opinion.

 

[Lifthz]

Half-Life 2 lighting is on a general scale more dynamic than Splinter Cell's.

The thing is that in Half-Life 2's lighting, not everything is dynamic. So you get some dynamic, and others are not. Whereas in a some other games in development, the lighting is all fully dynamic.

 

[Dagobert]

Half-Life 2 lighting is on a general scale more dynamic than Splinter Cell's.

Nope Splinter Cell uses shadow volumes,

HL seems to use a simpler dynamic model and pre-culculated lightmaps for the landscape.

SC has a more complex shadow system than HL2.

HL2 is massively more complex than SC in almost every other area.

 

[Hudson]

fully dynamic lighting is still a few years away from being mainstream, and running well.

 

[0zz0]

ok so lemme get this straight will a player cast a shadow in hl2 like when he waslks and stuff. Im asking this mainly for the reason of mp say some damn camper is around the corner and u know it well u can walk right and sneak up on them. But if the light is coming from behind u will it show ur shodow to let him know ur coming??? If so that would suck.

 

[Dagobert]

will a player cast a shadow in hl2 like when he waslks and stuff.

Looking at the video, that is the case. Dynamic objects cast shadows on the landscape brushes. There are sections in the movies where it is clear that dynamic objects don't cast shadows on other dynamic objects (in Kleiners lab you see a shadow for an item on a table below the table).

So Half-Life 2 does not have a global shadowing system. Why? Well Valve could certainly implement this if they wished, but.

1. This global model would have to be a replaced with a simpler model for those DX6 cards they support anyway.
2. A Global model won't work on a big landscape because you need a massive shadow volume that takes up literally hundreds of megabytes. It's a clear tradeoff, big open areas or cutting edge shadows.

 

[vann7]

Originally posted by Dagobert
Looking at the video, that is the case. Dynamic objects cast shadows on the landscape brushes. There are sections in the movies where it is clear that dynamic objects don't cast shadows on other dynamic objects (in Kleiners lab you see a shadow for an item on a table below the table).

So Half-Life 2 does not have a global shadowing system. Why? Well Valve could certainly implement this if they wished, but.

1. This global model would have to be a replaced with a simpler model for those DX6 cards they support anyway.
2. A Global model won't work on a big landscape because you need a massive shadow volume that takes up literally hundreds of megabytes. It's a clear tradeoff, big open areas or cutting edge shadows.

indeed..

is a tradeoff . you cannot have Doom3 unified lightning in the big landscapes of Hl2 and playable frame rates at the same time.

 

[Lifthz]

Well Halo 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R will have lighting just as good as Doom 3 and they have huge outdoor environments as well as indoors. So it wasn't a trade-off for those games...