Technical Conjecture

[MFL]

Yet another thread about the delay:

Does anyone here who works in the game industry or other related fields have any idea of any new technologies anyone might be working on that Valve might be integrating into Episode 3?

Given that they already have the pretty strong base of the Steam Engine to work with, what could they possibly be working on? I don't really care if you're accurate, just throw shit out there. I'm curious about what I'm seeing in the future of all of my gaems, not just Ep. 3.

They could be trying to develop idea's that didn't work in the past. Could be enhancing or branching out from gimmicks they've already used. Maybe it's reached the point that to have a better physics puzzle, we need better physics code. Maybe they've spent the past two years trying to balance maps around the portal technology. Maybe they're figuring out how to put portals on moving objects or things that aren't flat walls. Maybe Maybe Maybe. Maybe they're making a Hydra that's fun to fight.

If you can't baffle me with bullshit, confuse me with weirdness. Have at it.

 

[superluser]

Yet another thread about the delay:

Does anyone here who works in the game industry or other related fields have any idea of any new technologies anyone might be working on that Valve might be integrating into Episode 3?

I don't work in the games industry, but I do know that the next (Source-based) Postal game is supposed to run on Linux.

That could explain some of the delay.

 

[Paulaner]

Does anyone here who works in the game industry or other related fields have any idea of any new technologies anyone might be working on that Valve might be integrating into Episode 3?

An episode should not be the place to integrate new technologies. But Valve already admitted they screwed up with the episodic model, so everything is possible. I don't want to repeat myself over and over again, but after all this time, from Episode 3 I expect something much more complex than Ep1/Ep2.

 

[ChiliFan]

Maybe they're just taking a really long time? I'm not expecting any significant changes in the engine, gameplay mechanics or length of the game, because I think I would be disappointed when it came out as just an 8-10 hour continuation of the story that isn't massively different to Episode Two.

 

[MFL]

An episode should not be the place to integrate new technologies.

Whether or not it should be, it is what has been going on.

 

[Colonel Kernel]

As someone else (not me) stated in another thread, Valve are perfectionists. maybe something didn't work as planned and they're redoing that section?
I dont expect from them to integrate a new engine - save it for Half-Life 3, I say. A few touch-ups would be good and they might improve on the scripted sequence and animation systems as well.
Im saying this mainly because my machine won't take it.

 

[Crazy_killer]

Well deferred shading is becoming increasingly more popular, it's faster but has its downsides such as no support for anti-aliasing, I heard even CryEngine 3 is going to use it.

Who knows, Valve is full of surprises.

 

[MFL]

What is deferred shading?

Here's to hoping they are developing more appropriate Combine AI.

 

[Noodle]

I'm hoping for better A.I. more than anything. Maybe a tad more A.I. scripting, which I think is good for a single-player game. The Combine in Half-Life 2 have a strategy similar to that of a plywood target dummy on a moving track. Maybe some more useful allies.

And while I'm mentioning random ideas, some upgrades to the graphics towards what we know the engine is capable of (see L4D) would be nice.

 

[Crazy_killer]

What is deferred shading?

Here's to hoping they are developing more appropriate Combine AI.

In computer graphics, deferred shading is a three dimensional shading technique in which the result of a shading algorithm is calculated by dividing it into smaller parts that are written to intermediate buffer storage to be combined later, instead of immediately writing the shader result to the color framebuffer. Implementations on modern hardware tend to use multiple render targets (MRT) to avoid redundant vertex transformations. Usually once all the needed buffers are built they are then read (usually as input textures) into a shading algorithm (for example a lighting equation) and combined to produce the final result. In this way the computation and memory bandwidth required to shade a scene is reduced to those visible portions, thereby reducing the shaded depth complexity.

The technique is increasingly being used in video games because of the control it enables in terms of using a large amount of dynamic lights and reducing the complexity of required shader instructions. Sony Computer Entertainment has several games that use deferred rendering including Guerilla Games's Killzone 2, Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet, and Sucker Punch Productions' inFamous. Other games known to use deferred shading are GSC Game World's Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Electronic Arts' Dead Space[3], NCSoft's Tabula Rasa[4], Realtime Worlds' Crackdown and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV. Crytek's CryEngine 3 also implements deferred lighting.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_shading

 

[blackout]

I'm hoping for better A.I. more than anything. Maybe a tad more A.I. scripting, which I think is good for a single-player game. The Combine in Half-Life 2 have a strategy similar to that of a plywood target dummy on a moving track. Maybe some more useful allies.

And while I'm mentioning random ideas, some upgrades to the graphics towards what we know the engine is capable of (see L4D) would be nice.

yeah this^

 

[ríomhaire]

I don't work in the games industry, but I do know that the next (Source-based) Postal game is supposed to run on Linux.

That could explain some of the delay.

I read that as Portal running on Linux and I was thinking "When the hell was another Portal confirmed?"

I don't really care for new technologies but I think some L4D-style procedural difficulty would be nice. Making the game drop medkits when you need them (instead of everywhere), adding a couple more zombies to a horde or soldier to a unit when you're doing well. Things like that. Also different skins for zombies. They've shown they can do variety in enemies.

 

[Crazy_killer]

One thing that bothers me in L4D2 is the extremely low-res textures and lack of specular and normal maps. Seriously, some models are basically just two colors with no detail, no specular or no normal map visible whatsoever (yes my graphics are set to the absolute maximum).

I noticed they use a lot of geometry (especially small geometry) on models that could have been better if normal maps were used.

 

[MFL]

Well if they are adding more models for less redundancy and applying the director AI to the Half-Life series, here's to hoping they retroactively apply it to their previous titles as well. Give me a reason to go back through HL1 again.