Source tech still in development ???

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Then leave?

You've been an ass in all 4 of the posts I've read of yours. Leave if you don't like it and you think it's a waste of time.
 
Half Life 2 uses a mixture of dynamic and static light maps. If you have played the Beta (shame on me) you would see that dynamic light sources are included with things like table lamps that you can move around, (problem is they only work in specific areas and then it seems the effect is turned off, or else you could get 30 table lamps and put em all in one place and crash your PC with the load of trying to compute the shadows :D).
 
Either your full of shit or Ive been walking around blindly because Ive never seen a lamp in HL2.

MOVING ON

Half Life 2 is made to scale to all computers and we all know Doom 3 is high end, if HL2 had full on dynamic lighting you'd be denying low end computers any source tech games.
 
You are very rude AND Youve been walking around blindy :)

Docks level where you use the crane, go into the office where the switch is to open the door, a LAMP on the table casting lighting, move the lamp around and see.

EDIT: my bad, although it looked realtime when i saw it the 1st time on closer inspection it is not realtime, just another little 'trick' like the magnifying glass. Just a lamp with a torch effect like gordons on his HEV suit.

Still no reason why Vavle cant inplement a mixture of the two.
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Yeah. Anything static that simply won't move - won't have a dynamic shadow. Such as a gigantic tower block. It will have a dynamic shadow map seen in most of the early screenshots. You may also notice that the shadows from any people in these screenshots are projected to a different direction. Not sure if the problem still exists or not, but the problem seemed to like in the way that dynamic and static shadows were projected and worked together.

As for the lights, I guess that if you shoot a lightbulb in HL2 that is set as a breakable then the light will go out and cut off any necessary shadows or trigger the light to be set up. I'm guessing that it'd be pretty easy to set up a sort of "Doom3esque" type bathroom scene where if you shoot a light fitting it will effect both the physics and the lighting of the light.

The thing with HL2 is it's so scalable. Like the wood fragment thing. I've seen that works pretty well although some people have told me that wood still breaks at certain points. That's not 100% dynamic but it partly is where it counts which is what HL2 is all about.


Edit: And yes, DoD was also one of the greats that improved on the HL1 engine blah blah ;)
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I'm guessing the way the realtime shadows work are by using a specific light, or lights and whichever your closest to, the shadows correct their angles to match. The question I wonder, if thats the case. Will the shadows flick from position to position, or will there be information in the code so they move smoothly to match the new position, in the case of having more than one light. By the looks of I think the baracade video, the shadows are always there too, regardless of whats on the map, so you'd get a shadow within a shadow. Hardly a big problem, but it would have been cool if the shadows faded out when you were in shadowed area's. Maybe Source v2 or something heh

I wonder how it'll handle semi-transparent objects. Will they cast full shadows, or faded shadows, or colored faded shadows. Or no shadows atall. Will the object be forced to recieve shadows when set to be like a hologram for example (do the objects recieve realtime shadows anyway?) Will it be possible to create models that are invisible but DO cast shadows.. for some strange effects to spook the player ;).. Also it would be really cool if you could have say an object of a rat. Yet have the shadow cast by it to appear like a large 3x size of the player scary rodent creature, perhaps using the invisible model idea. That would be kinda neat :)
 
Doom3 and HL2 have completely different methods for handling dynamic lighting, each suited to their own needs.

Doom3 uses 3D objects to enclose the "light" projected from a source. Essentially, this allows much more complex shadows, and objects and characters that can shadow themselves. It does this at a huge expense to CPU time, so the amount of dynamic shadows in any one given portal (or area) will be small. It's for this reason that Doom3's engine caters more to indoor areas. You'll see little or no dynamic lighting outdoors, unless distance fog is used to enclose open areas (from the looks of the screenshots, that's what they'll be doing).

HL2 uses the same method for dynamic lighting as they do for static lighting. Don't get this confused with "burnt-in" shadowing, which is what will be used for static, none-moving objects like buildings and statues with fixed light sources to help conserve CPU time. HL2 essentially renders a very simplistic image from the point of view of the light source, along with the distances (z-buffer). It then takes this image and stencils the outline of the shadow onto the boundaries and fills it in. Granted the shadows aren't as detailed, and characters won't be able to self shadow (accept where programmed to do so, i.e. their eyes), but it's much less processor intensive than Doom3's method, and can therefore be used indoors and outdoors. You can have moving and multiple lightsources with this method, but it just adds to the CPU time. I'm sure these options will be available for more high end machines.
 
First of all, the guy who said dynamic lighting doesnt have a place in hl2 deserves to be laughed at. A unified lighting system is the single most important step we could possible make in game environments to a new level of realism and atmosphere. A unified lighting system has a proper place in EVERY game.

And people keep saying that valve has dynamic lighting they just do it differently than doom3. You dont understand, thats PR language at work. By dynamic lighting he means you can shoot out a light or two, and that some of the objects and people in the world will cast A projected shadow map. This isnt just doing it differently from doom3, this is not even trying to touch the level of sophistication in doom3s unified lighting system. You make it sound as if hl2s lighting is just as sophisticated, only its done differently. This is just flat out wrong. Hl2s lgihting system is childsplay compared to the new system in doom3, its not much more advanced that the projected shadow maps we had a couple of years ago. Its insane that people say these things.

To the people who continually say that "its a design decision, not a technical limitation. It can be modded" are really annoying. You dont realise that with todays tech, there are pretty much no limitations at all. You can do whatever you want with it. So that "design decision blah blah" babble doesnt really have any bearing. I can say "halflife2 doesnt has (blank) feature" and insert pretty much any feature i want, and you can say its a design decision not a technical limitation, and its moddable. Hell, look at the quake2 engine. Someone modded a unified lighting system and pretty kickass bumpmapping system into it. Thats incredible. These are next generation features that even hl2 doesnt have(it has normal mapping, but not much of it) and in an old ass engine like quake2. ANYTHING is possible people. ANYTHING is moddable.


And to the people who say Source will never be outdated, its nearly outdated already. There is not one feature that source bosts that other engines dont have, and yet the opposite isnt true for source. Game developers arent going to turn to an engine that is a generation less sophisticated than a handfull of other engines at their disposal. Every game developer wants their game to compete with the best looking games out there. They want their game to look good. And while source can produce a good looking game, there are a handfull of other engines that will be available in 2004 that will make a better looking game, and with al lthe features of source(physics). I doubt we will see any more than 6 or 7 games made with source in its lifetime.

Doom3, on the other hand, will be used up until carmacks next engine is out. Just look at the quake3 engine, still being used to make great games to this very day. With the doom3 engine, carmack made an engine that simply wont be outdated sooner than he can make his next engine, and his next engine, i predict, will take graphics all the way. The doom3 engine is the biggest step towards "final fantasy" quality graphics in games that we have ever seen, and his next engine will most likely take it past final fantasy quality. Thats just the pace Carmack works at.
 
Doom 3 wont be usable for most games until the end of 2004, thats half a year Source has on it.

Doom 3 engine is too high tech, hardly anyones PC can run it, If I had to choose Doom 3 or source Id choose source for the simple reason most PC's can run it.
 
EvilWok, HL2 does not have a real use for a lighting system like Doom 3's, sure it could give some cool effects in the gameplay, but it doesn't justify the huge performance drop. Doom 3 does justify this because it needs it for its gameplay.

The engine's are adjusted to meet the games' demands, the lack of a fully dynamic lighting system in HL2 isn't because of poor programming, it's is.... yes... a design decision (sorry...)

Source fits HL2 best, Carmack's engine fits Doom 3 best. Everyone should be happy right?
 
Doom 3 wont be usable for most games until the end of 2004, thats half a year Source has on it.
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Doom3 system requirements are as follows:

Minimum System Requirements
-1ghz cpu
-256mb ram
-GF1 or Radeon 7xxx


Doesnt sound too steep at all to me. Your forgetting that doom3 has been designed to run at 30fps(which is plenty for doom3) with a geforce3 generation vid card and 1ghz cpu with most settings on medium and some on high. It will run fine with 1.5ghz and geforce4/radeon 9xxx generation vid card with settings on high. Granted, hl2 will run an lower specs than doom3, but thats only because hl2 is no where near as high end as doom3 is. With higher graphic quality higher system specs are required. But you make it sound as if only the very very top of the line quality systems will run doom3, and this is wrong. Judging by the official system requirements, most serious gamers already have the hardware to run doom3 with medium to high quality settings with reasonable frame rate, and most of the rest plan to upgrade iin th emany months before doom3 will come out anyway.
 
Originally posted by EvilEwok2.0
Your forgetting that doom3 has been designed to run at 30fps(which is plenty for doom3) with a geforce3 generation vid card and 1ghz cpu with most settings on medium and some on high.
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Exactly, you're talking about an entirely different type of game. Doom 3 is much slower pased compared to HL2. HL2 sacrafises a near real shadowing system for bigger maps, quicker gameplay, and more on-screen characters.

Doom 3's lighting isn't revolutionary, it's just ambitious. Sure Doom 3 is supposed to run at those specs, but you can forget about all the eye candy. Doom 3 will lose all it's charm without realistic lighting and bump-mapping. HL2 will be built to be quite good looking with it's graphics scaled down.
 
EvilWok, HL2 does not have a real use for a lighting system like Doom 3's, sure it could give some cool effects in the gameplay, but it doesn't justify the huge performance drop.
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Every developer makes a decision of how sophisticated the graphics should be based on the hardware capabilities of the projected user base. Valve sacraficed in this area for the lower end spec guys. Thats fine with me.

But that doesnt mean a realistic lighting system has no place in hl2. Thats just absurd. A realistic lighting system has a place in all games. Thats all i was saying.

The engine's are adjusted to meet the games' demands, the lack of a fully dynamic lighting system in HL2 isn't because of poor programming
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LOL! I dont rmemeber accusing the programmers over at valve of being too sucky to impliment a unified lighting system.

Yes, halflife2s lighting system meets its demands because valves graphical demands were a few steps down from a game like doom3, since valve wanted the game acessible to the 700mhz geforce2 player. This is fine, i was just protesting your statement that a unified lighting system has no place in hl2. As if hl2 doesnt need it. Its not a matter of needing it or not, its a matter of progression of games graphics. We can stay in the stone age for a decade, or we can continue to progress. As for myself, i would rather upgrade my comp when needed and have games continually move towards perfect realism, than not have to upgrade for 5 years and still be playing at the same graphic quality.



Source fits HL2 best, Carmack's engine fits Doom 3 best. Everyone should be happy right?
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Im just peachy ;) .
 
I think that there are very few people that will disagree that Doom 3 is technically more advanced, but it comes at a price, the engine has it's limitations on modern hardware.
 
Exactly, you're talking about an entirely different type of game. Doom 3 is much slower pased compared to HL2.
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I was only correcting your belife that doom3 is reserved for those with uber high-end specs. This isnt true.

Doom 3 is much slower pased compared to HL2.
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While this is true in general, i didnt notice anything particularly fast paced about hl2.

HL2 sacrafises a near real shadowing system for bigger maps, quicker gameplay, and more on-screen characters.
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Now your getting games and engines twisted. Just because doom3 the game is designed around clostrophobic areas and slower paced gameplay doesnt mean its a limitation on the engine. We have more than enough information from the developers to believe otherwise.

And this myth that doom3 only allows 4 players on screen is amusing. It stems from the Mp being 4 player by default(which is purly a design decision in the first place) and that in most screenshots there arent more than 4 people/monsters visible. But if you followed the engine at all you would know otherwise. Its just the design of doom3 to make it slowr paced and with few monsters than the original, but there will be instances where you go up against way more than 4 at a time. The trites attack in large packs, for example. And in a recent interview a journalist described playing a part of the game where over a dozen imps simontaneously teleported to the room he was in and attacked him.



Doom 3's lighting isn't revolutionary, it's just ambitious.
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It will revolutionalise the graphic quality in games for the future. I belive this qualifies to as revolutionary, but your free to disagree. Games will never be the same after doom3, however. It will raise the bar significantly in gaming graphics.

Sure Doom 3 is supposed to run at those specs, but you can forget about all the eye candy.
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No, that isnt true. Re-read my post. Doom3 is designed to run with a 1ghz cpu and geforce3 egneration vid card with ALL SETTINGS IN EITHER MINIMUM OR HIGH. Carmack has been saying this from the very beginning. You can run it with most/all settings on high(maximum eyecandy) with a 1.5ghz cpu and geforce4 generation vid card.
 
The last article written by Carmack that I read he stated that both the high end nVidia and ATi cards were suffering from performance setbacks. This leads me to believe that he was just simply asking too much out of them. I'd be incredibly suprised if he's able to optimize the code to run on such a dated system with all the eyecandy on high. But, I guess we'll just have to see on that one. I was just trying to stress the point that Doom 3 is ment to be "playable" at 30fps.

Low on-screen character count and enclosed areas were indeed a conscious decision made on the part of the game designers. But, then engine was then built to take full advantage of that fact by adding in many effects that it couldn't normally have with more action on screen. If the game had the ability to render many on-screen enemies and huge environments without taxing the crap out of even high-end machines, the legal benchmarks released thus far would be much higher than they are.
 
Originally posted by EvilEwok2.0
Every developer makes a decision of how sophisticated the graphics should be based on the hardware capabilities of the projected user base. Valve sacraficed in this area for the lower end spec guys. Thats fine with me.

But that doesnt mean a realistic lighting system has no place in hl2. Thats just absurd. A realistic lighting system has a place in all games. Thats all i was saying.
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Sure, a realistic lighting system should be in any game, including global illumination, photon mapping, indirect illumination, but hardware can't handle all this now so you have to leave things out and make compromises.

Valve could chose between having a realistic lighting system and cut back on the traditional Half-Life gameplay, or cut back on the lighting system.
The picked the last one, because altough the game would look better with it, it didn't add to the HL gameplay, unlike Doom 3 who needs it for good gameplay.
 
I was just trying to stress the point that Doom 3 is ment to be "playable" at 30fps.
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Yes, playable on a geforce3 generation card and most settings on medium/some one high. Ide hate to start quotiong my own posts but this is getting repatative. You can form whatever opinions you want about how doom3 will perform, ill just take the word of Carmack. Hes always proven to be brutally honest and realistic about his engines.

Low on-screen character count and enclosed areas were indeed a conscious decision made on the part of the game designers.
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=/ not because of the engine. Its just the game they are making. You are aware that is is possible for a game developer to INTENTIONALLY make a game that runs at a slower pace and lower enemy count in general, right? You dont think that every game developer wants to have scores of enemies around all the time, right? Its just that kind of game. Bu tthat isnt to say that there wont be moments where you have 12 enemies coming at you at once, because you will as has been described earlier. Its just not the type of gameplay that doom3 focuses on.

If the game had the ability to render many on-screen enemies and huge environments without taxing the crap out of even high-end machines, the legal benchmarks released thus far would be much higher than they are.
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Again, you can either believe that the developers are lying through their teeth and form your own opinions, or not. Up to you. But IMO its just stupid to form the opinion that doom3 cant render more than 4 people on screen at any given time based on interperetation of a benchmark, despite the developers and others describing instances where you will have over 12 enemies on-screen at one time, and that doom3 is perfectly capable of large outdoor areas. Oh well.
 
Heheh, that guys head is about to go bye bye!


And yeah. Despite all this HL2 stuff I will allways believe that DOOM3 is gona be a trully great game. Just look at the videos. Its fantastic stuff. Both the graphics and gameplay look top notch :)
 
Wow, if you put it that way, the Doom 3 engine sounds pretty amazing. It's not only able to render incredible images with realistic shadows at mind blowing speeds, but it's able to do so on TWO YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY?!?!? Carmack is a God!

Look, what I'm trying to get across is the lighting systems of each game are perfectly catered towards the type of game it's ment to be. Not to say that HL2 couldn't benefit from a unified lighting system, nor that Doom 3 couldn't use some HDR, but it just doesn't make sense when the focus of the games are so different.
 
lol, EE is at it again, good to see you back from the recently banned.
 
Sure, a realistic lighting system should be in any game, including global illumination, photon mapping, indirect illumination, but hardware can't handle all this now so you have to leave things out and make compromises.
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LOL. I like how you just randomly name out all this shit that is too complicated for todays games when we are talking about a feature that is already present in a few games and works fine with any gameplay you could come up with.

Valve could chose between having a realistic lighting system and cut back on the traditional Half-Life gameplay, or cut back on the lighting system.
The picked the last one, because altough the game would look better with it, it didn't add to the HL gameplay
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Ok, lets get off the subject of doom3 for now since it doesnt compare with hl2s gameplay. Doom3 strives for a type of gameplay so far removed fomr hl2 that it isnt worth the time comparing the gameplay versus lgihting model of the games. Lets look at deus ex:invisible war. A lgihting system similar to doom3. Sure it doesnt look anywhere near as good, but thats why id is at the top of the industry. Anyway, deus ex:IW has gameplay much closer to that of hl2, and yet the lighting system doesnt hinder it at all. It has rather large areas and much faster gameplay than doom3.

unlike Doom 3 who needs it for good gameplay.
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Ok this si the second time you used that phrase and you make it sound as if doom3 has no gameplay without the unified lighting system. Doom3 isnt 100% based on a monster jumping out form a shadow and making you jump in your seat. There isa lot to the gameplay, and the shadows ENHANCE it, not define it.
 
Originally posted by EvilEwok2.0
LOL. I like how you just randomly name out all this shit that is too complicated for todays games when we are talking about a feature that is already present in a few games and works fine with any gameplay you could come up with.

That was an exaggerated example to show you can't have it all.




Ok, lets get off the subject of doom3 for now since it doesnt compare with hl2s gameplay.

Exactly

Doom3 strives for a type of gameplay so far removed fomr hl2 that it isnt worth the time comparing the gameplay versus lgihting model of the games. Lets look at deus ex:invisible war. A lgihting system similar to doom3. Sure it doesnt look anywhere near as good, but thats why id is at the top of the industry. Anyway, deus ex:IW has gameplay much closer to that of hl2, and yet the lighting system doesnt hinder it at all. It has rather large areas and much faster gameplay than doom3.

Wrong, DE2 is nowhere near close to HL2, it has a totally different gameplay, in which the gain of a dynamic lighting system outweighs the performance hit. This isn't the case in HL2.


Ok this si the second time you used that phrase and you make it sound as if doom3 has no gameplay without the unified lighting system. Doom3 isnt 100% based on a monster jumping out form a shadow and making you jump in your seat. There isa lot to the gameplay, and the shadows ENHANCE it, not define it.

Doom 3 DOES rely for the most part on the lighting system, no question about that. And that's not a bad thing here.
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Let me clerify why i brought up deus ex. You said....

Valve could chose between having a realistic lighting system and cut back on the traditional Half-Life gameplay, or cut back on the lighting system.
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..indicating that both hl2s gameplay and the unified lighting system could not go together. That some aspects of hl2s gameplay just wouldnt be possible with a unified lighting model and therefore a choice would have to be made. Now, its not easy to prove this wrong by comparing hl2 to doom3, since doom3s gameplay is so far removed from hl2 to compare.

But deus ex, on the other hand, is much more similar to hl2. i didnt say they were identicle, but deus ex is at hl2s pace, incorperates many of the features of hl2(such as complicated physics interaction) has many large areas like hl2, and has more enemy action on screen at any given time. Therefore, its easier to compare hl2 to deus ex gameplay wise than it is to compare hl2 and doom3.

Now, deus ex has many gameplay functions that hl2 does, and yet the unified lighting model does not hinder it the way you suggested by saying that hl2s gameplay and a unified lighting model wouldnt mesh well. Infact, because of the unified lighting model deus ex allows for more interactive types of gameplay than hl2 does, such as hiding in the shadows(enemies wont see you) and even moving objects with the physics syetm to block lgihts and make certaint areas darker, which will affect the enemeis abilities.
 
First EvilEwok comes on these boards pushing STALKER as the best game to date. He gets banned.

He comes back as EvilEwok2.0 and pushes Doom 3 as the best game to date. He will get banned.

I see a pattern here.
 
I love how he nit-picks everyones posts completely apart. This is a forum, not debate class.
 
As for the subject at hand, I love how once again, EvilEwok doesn't even give HL2 a chance running in these "vs" threads.

He always says "Game A is better than HL2, hands down", and then when other people post their thoughts, of course, they're wrong. Thus, the reason he will be banned.

Take a hint, you were banned once.
 
I never pushed stalker as the best game to date, i only started a thread displaying why stalker looks better graphically than hl2, and you all pitched a little fit about it. thats not why i was banned, anyway.

Im not pitching doom3 as the best game to date. We arent even talking about games here, we are talking about technology. Doom3 may suck, hl2 may suck, DNF will own them all.
 
Originally posted by iamironsam
I love how he nit-picks everyones posts completely apart.
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Actually, "nit-pick" is one word, spelled nitpick.


Originally posted by iamironsam
This is a forum, not debate class.
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Yes it is debate class.
 
Originally posted by iamironsam
Actually, "nit-pick" is one word, spelled nitpick.




Yes it is debate class.
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..why are you arguing with yourself and quoting yourself?
 
Originally posted by iamironsam
I'm immitating EvilEwok's debating skills.
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LOL, oh, okay, I thought you had just gone off your rocker :LOL:
 
well, if you just go by his modern behavior (since being reborn), he hasn't done enough to warrant a banning, imo. he might get this thread closed though. the problem for EE is his past; we all kow about his dirty past. The mods around here seem to be a little ban-happy, so i wouldn't be surprised to see a EvilEwok3.0 in the future. he should call himself EvilEwokXP or EvilEwokForever. say, EE, do you know if dukenukemforever is supposed to be any good? got any screenshots?

:)
 
EvilEwokMe and EvilEwokFX will be crappy, just warning you.

I don't actually know his dirty past, what is it?
 
Its amusing how im hated here for simply stating the facts of the matter.

It just goes to show that this forum isnt so much a discussion forum as it is a hl2 worship forum. Its liek if i went on a christian forum and said "see, look buddhism isnt so bad. they are good people too" and i will get flamed continually by the goodhearted christian memebers for my heathenistic ways and im on the path ot hell and what not.

Doesnt it desturb you that you compare so well with intolerant christian zealots?
 
His dirty past is his dirty present.

He came on these boards, acted like an asshole by telling everyone that they're wrong and that STALKER is clearly 10x better graphically than HL2 (despite countless posts proving him wrong), that source is outdated, that everyone is misinformed and has no idea what they're talking about and that his opinion is/was fact.
 
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