Why do I continually hear...

G

Gundam Guru

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People saying that Half Life 2 has become outdated compared to other shooters like Far Cry, Stalker, Doom 3, and the future Unreal 3.0 engine. I hope that when new screenshots of HL2 are revealed, people will finally see that when compared to other shooters, Half Life 2 still has one of, if not the most graphically advanced engine available. Also I've read that things that were leaked from HL2 will be taken out and replaced with something new, and that the graphics engine was being overhauled to further compete with other shooters. Is this true? Anyway, do you believe HL2 is looking dated compared to other shooters?
 
I know why:

1) It is outdated compared to UE3.0 which is a next next gen engine

2) No new screenshots or video footage have been released so people are compareing out dated material to up to date material

3)Some people think U2 looked better than the old HL2 footage so it's a matter of opinion, quite frankly I think FC looks a bit shitty.
 
I haven't seen the Unreal 3.0 engine. Half-Life 2's engine is certainly superior to that of FarCry, but not quite as good (graphically) as the DooM 3 engine. I think what's going to make the HL-2 engine so great is that it does look great, but it runs great on normal spec machines also. Games like STALKER and DooM3 will cause your PC to beg for forgiveness when you run them, HL-2 can run on a DX6 machine.
 
Only people inside the industry have seen UE3 (the most receant version) in action so most of the people going on about how good it looks, are just guessing that it looks that amazeing on the features it supposedly includes (e.g parallax bump mapping) and what they have seen of tech demos that have those features.

and some people are just going on what the likes of gamespy have said who's creative writeing techniques are quite fantastic.

soon beyond3d are doing an interview with the lead UE developer so they might get some screen shots.
 
Let people bitch and moan, I really don't care. The graphics in hl2 are going to be pretty awesome, but that's not what I'm going to buy it for. I'm going to buy the game for the enveloping story, the physics, the fun gameplay that valve has provided in the past. I don't see how everyother game is going to affect the "funness" factor of hl2.
 
mrchimp said:
Only people inside the industry have seen UE3 (the most receant version) in action so most of the people going on about how good it looks, are just guessing that it looks that amazeing on the features it supposedly includes (e.g parallax bump mapping) and what they have seen of tech demos that have those features.

and some people are just going on what the likes of gamespy have said who's creative writeing techniques are quite fantastic.

soon beyond3d are doing an interview with the lead UE developer so they might get some screen shots.
Click to expand...

I've seen the tech demo of U3 and personally it doesn't really look as impressive as Doom 3 or HL2. Now Serious Sam 2, it's demonstration was an impressive improvement over the previous game. Still though, U3 did look good but as I said before not as impressive as D3 or HL2
 
staddydaddy said:
Let people bitch and moan, I really don't care. The graphics in hl2 are going to be pretty awesome, but that's not what I'm going to buy it for. I'm going to buy the game for the enveloping story, the physics, the fun gameplay that valve has provided in the past. I don't see how everyother game is going to affect the "funness" factor of hl2.
Click to expand...
I agree with you Staddydaddy, people are so busy trying to pitch games against each other, if the graphics alone made a game then why do so many people still play half-life, any gamer that gives a crap about the engine will most likely buy all of them anyway, its such a pointless argument.
 
Half Life 2 is impressive not only because of the graphics, but because of the combination of good graphics, ai and physics..

Most of the games today has the same features that hl2 will have (Havok, Ai, Graphics) but none of then have all together + a good coding that makes the game run on everyone PC + a VERY mod friendly engine.
 
I think the difference is that for HL2 fans, we look at the early screenshot and think about the potential for HL2 to look awesome and what Valve can do with the source engine. For non-HL2 fans, they treat the shots like they are the final material from HL2 and are more critical of minor content problems (how many times have people complained about the HL1 blood splats?).
 
Also people never notice that the Level size in far cry is huge compared to HL2. Fay cry can render most of an island which u can drive and roam about at will. If your making a game set on an archipelago Far Cry has a very nice engine :)
 
My opinion:

- Source has been surpassed in NO WAY by Far Cry in terms of graphics
- Doom 3 has a more powerful engine, and is technically more advanced, but the art of HL2 is a lot better and thus still looks better despite being technically outdated compared to Doom 3. (a matter of opinion)
- I doubt HL2 went through a make-over the last few months, it won't look a lot better, probably just new shader effects, tweaks to models and textures and the addition of more normal mapping.
- UE3 surpasses the current state of Source, indeed, well.... pretty obvious don't you agree? For an engine that doesn't even fully run on current hardware compared to an engine that works on onboard Intel DX6 graphic cards.
- Source will continue to update as time passes. If Steam detects you just bought a brand new PS3.0 shader compliant card, it will download the appropriate shaders for your specs. Well.. that's the theory of course.
 
Woah, people are getting confused here :)

Source Runs on DX6, that doesnt mean it looks nice on DX6, just that it will show something. Source Running on DX6 doesnt mean it will look worse than something that doesnt on DX9 hardware.
 
Its all about how people use the features in there engines, just look at what the mod community has done with the half-life engine since day one, ive seen some really clever stuff coming out in maps lately, and thats what makes the half-life community so great, so ok source may not have ALL the buzz words, but the clever people that will do neat stuff with it , is why HL2 is gonna be so great.
 
Wilco said:
Woah, people are getting confused here :)

Source Runs on DX6, that doesnt mean it looks nice on DX6, just that it will show something. Source Running on DX6 doesnt mean it will look worse than something that doesnt on DX9 hardware.
Click to expand...

Yeah.... I know that...
But UE3 will refuse to run on anything below DX9 compliant hardware, it's a full DX9 game, Source is a DX6-DX9 hybrid. So it's just plain stupid to say 'UE3 is ahead of Source' yeah.. duh..

And I agree with Lobster, the HL engine has progressed a lot since HL itself, imagine what could happen with HL2.
 
Time to settle this puppy of an argument.

Gameplay over Graphics ALWAYS!

I beg,nah order anyone who says that graphics are more important to play
the Monkey Island Series(Well 1,2,4 anyway)
Sam and Max Hit the Road(Damn them for cutting the New one)
Full Throttle(Damn them for cutting the New one)
Grim Fandango
Day of the Tentacle
Half-Life(The obvious one)+its mods
Call Of Duty(Slightly newer and looks ok but still offspring of QIII)

And they are just the ones which spring to mind,many would also say Starcraft,CnC Red Alert,Total Annihilation.

Now back to the topic.(and relevence)HL2 looks brilliant however it doesnt need to be the best looking FPS on the market,it just needs to be enjoyable,fun to play and evoke that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you are playing a good game.
 
In my opinion FarCry's graphics DO NOT have the realism that Half-Life 2's has.

The character animation in Half-Life 2 is also far smoother than in FarCry, which, lets face it, had waxy looking models. So Half-Life 2 probably will beat FarCry as far as character depiction goes (that goes for the monsters as well, Half-Life uses superior character bump mapping). An area it may not defeat FarCry is in outdoor enviroments, but non-the-less Half-Life 2 still has some pretty nice looking outdoor enviroments (and it seems as though they don't prove to be too much of a FPS strain like they do in FarCry)

Oh, and no one is getting confused. Half-Life won't look as nice on DX6 but at least it will run, where as you wouldn't stand a chance of running some of these other 'modern' games on DX6 hardware. This is where VALVe stands king I believe, in the scalability factor. They've realized that not everyone has the latest and greatest hardware and they've catered for them, giving HL-2 an absolutely huge hardware spectrum that it can be run on. Games like FarCry however have a very narrow range of systems they can be run on. For example people with a 1.5 GHz CPU and a GeForce 4 will just get away with running details on low and that's probably with some serious FPS issues.
 
Farcry does not have better graphics than Half Life 2. Seriously, look at the characters. Farcry's people look so plastic :dozey: while Half Life 2's characters are much more realistic. Yay HL2!
 
The appeal of HL2 isn't just the graphics. It's the gameplay, the mod-friendliness of it's engine, the revolutionary features(environment-specific sfx, automatic lip-synching, realistic physics), the storyline of HL2, and yes, the graphics.
 
hey what about operation flashpoint, absaloutly terrible graphics, but some damn awsome features, esspeacialy the size of the maps.

Valve and its community have always shown they dont need great graphics to make great games, but now they have the graphics, its gonna be damn interesting to see the future :D
 
Thanks Lobster I'd Forgotten Op:Flashpoint.Damn that was a good game.I especially liked one of the Standalone missions where you had to ambush this convoy on your own as a sniper.Musta spent 2 hours planing where exactly I would place the first mine and when to set off the explosives and whether I would snipe the Gunner or Driver or Commander first.

Now there's an example of what gameplay can do above graphics.
 
Lobster said:
hey what about operation flashpoint, absaloutly terrible graphics, but some damn awsome features, esspeacialy the size of the maps.

Valve and its community have always shown they dont need great graphics to make great games, but now they have the graphics, its gonna be damn interesting to see the future :D
Click to expand...

Same goes for Söldner, no great graphics but damn fine gameplay (if you forget the many bugs, but thats what it's a beta for). I thought OFP didn't look that bad, at all (only the animations sucked), the explosions were awesome and to my opinion, not really matched by any game (most games, except HL2, Soldner and some rare others have those big unrealistic fireball explosions, uughhh) to this date.
Fooling around with scripting in OFP owned, mortar barrage scripts and stuff. :D
 
Gundam Guru said:
People saying that Half Life 2 has become outdated compared to other shooters like Far Cry, Stalker, Doom 3, and the future Unreal 3.0 engine. I hope that when new screenshots of HL2 are revealed, people will finally see that when compared to other shooters, Half Life 2 still has one of, if not the most graphically advanced engine available. Also I've read that things that were leaked from HL2 will be taken out and replaced with something new, and that the graphics engine was being overhauled to further compete with other shooters. Is this true? Anyway, do you believe HL2 is looking dated compared to other shooters?
Click to expand...

HL2 has HDR, do you know how good the game could get ? NO OFFENSE to far cry, I love the game and cherish my copy but HL2 = :bounce:. We still have not seen anything yet. It may seem like Far cry looks better now but that will all change pretty soon. Plus the bink videos is nothing like actually having it run in real time on your machine. Just like when the first Far cry screenshots came out, nobody really cared about them, and it didnt look that good but once it was running on your machine it was gorgeous, the same will happen with hl2. Who knows though there are a few Far cry mods in work right now that might change everything, we will see.
 
Some elements of HL2 are out of date or just don't match what the other engines have, but i'm still buying it.

Either way i think it's fantastic that there's so much competition at the moment.
 
I ofcourse I am also VERY excited about HL2 and when it was first announced, I was jumping for joy.

But let's not forget a few things, compared to FarCry. Everyone says HL2 is/will be better, but do we know for sure ? No, some of us played some alpha-beta hacked version and that is all we played with. Nothing more nothing less. From the reviews about those versions you won't be too happy, because well, it sucked according to a lot of people.

Ofcourse we can alll shout that HL2 is gonna be great, and I sincerly hope so, but there is nothing that will prove to me (at the moment), that it will.

Also, we can judge over those movies that were released, but hell, who says that wasn't just scripted all that way. Then the graphics look nice, but what about when I walk around myself ?

Dont forget, I am a HL fan too, and I can't wait for this to be released, but still, I am not getting my hopes up high (won't make that mistake again after September 30th) and by the time the game will be released, maybe a new UT will be out with the 3.0 engine and HL2 WILL be outdated :(.

Another advantage of FarCry : It was reasonably on time and out there now ;)
 
What elements of HL2 are outdated anyways? Especially when shaders can be written for almost any visual effect you could ask for (Valve was talking about real-time shadows, motion blur, depth of field, tone mapping done with shaders). Then there are aspects outside of graphics where everything HL2 is doing is top of the line....
of course then there is the actual GAME.
 
I would say the detail of characters in HL2 is not as good as those in Doom 3. When you compare the two you can see plain as day that Doom 3 characters just have more detail on them.

HL2- http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/35.jpg
D3 - http://www.planetdoom.com/images/image.asp?screenshots/official/37l.jpg

There is bump mapping on the d3 characters and just generally more polygonal detail. The HL2 characters are still very much using the standard model with texture slapped on like HL1. No bump mapping and very minimal polygon detail.

That's just one element and there are things HL2 does better than Doom 3 but as Styloid says there is the actual GAME!!! We are forgetting HL1 wasn't the greatest game ever because of it's graphics. In fact it's graphics were crap at the time. It's just weird reading people make judgements like "Far Cry has better graphics than HL2, therefore HL2 is crap and i won't buy it".

As for people thinking the beta was garbage. It is so horribly unfinished, there's virtually no structured single player, sounds missing, models missing, maps missing. The best analogy i can think of right now is this, if anyone has seen animation/model tests of Gollum on The Two Towers DVD and how crap it looked early on....yeah that's it.

With that said, there are hints of brilliance...
 
Well detail is really a matter of oppinion. When I look at those two pictures, I see two distinct differences, that I find very important.

First off, with D3, you have really high polygon models being stripped down to roughly the equivalent of a high poly q3 model. Now dont quote me, just going off of what Ive read and seen about their system. They slap on the normal and bump mapping and there you go, high detail model. Except they have to keep really low poly models because the full real time lighting that taxes the system. So really my point is, overall the models arent that much more highly detailed because upclose to a model you can tell that its normal mapping.

Now with HL2, Ill admit they dont use alot of normal mapping and bump mapping for the models, but by the looks of it, they dont need to. The detail, ie realism they put into the models is apparent with the eyes and mouth and the overall feel of the models. As well, a modder could take some time and advance the engine some with the player models and make them look even better using shaders and the sort. Just my oppinion but I can see where you are coming from.

On the note of HL2's gfx not being up to par compared to other games like U3...first off, have we seend HL2? No, have we seen U3? No, have we seen D3? No, so those cant be compared to any other game, because its how they play, not look in screenshots, Im sure you guys have seen a game that looks awesome, and you just cant wait to play it, then you go to the store and pick it up, and bam... it sucks arse. My point is you have to actually play a game to comment on the visuals. As well to really compare gfx to gfx you have to have high priced computer components to get the high end, and well the average gamer doesnt have oodles of money to spend on all of that. So what game appeals the the gamer on a budget? As well, when has it been that a games gfx turned you off so much you wouldnt even play a demo or listen to reviews of how it plays? I will give a game that much chance, even if it looks like a dog has crapped on the screen.

In my honest oppinion, I feel that valve has produced a top notch game, and with the fact that they are focusing on the modding community, they have given their game years of enjoyment, not the average shelf life of most games that you play, beat, uninstall. With HL2 you could play, dl a mod play that, dl another mod, so on and so on, make your own mod, and whatever. Anyways tis all I wanted to say. Go HL2!
 
Doom 3 has a more powerful engine, and is technically more advanced, but the art of HL2 is a lot better and thus still looks better despite being technically outdated compared to Doom 3. (a matter of opinion)
Click to expand...

Doom3 does not have a more powerful engine. It simply focuses on different things than Hl2's engine. The concept of "power" is kind of silly to describe engines: mostly what's important is what features they can cram into what sort of performance on what sort of target hardware. In that, Source, HL2, Stalker, Crytek, and all such generation engines are all basically in the same league. Unreal 3.0 is next gen beyond that, but that's also because it is targeted for hardware that does not even exist yet for public consumption.

What I think will make HL2 stand apart is that it puts its features to use. Physics in Far Cry and what we've seen of Doom3 are all basically just detail touches: props that barely impact gameplay and might as well not be in at all. In HL2, physical interaction seems to be an integral part of the gameplay. HL2 monsters, even just those we've seen, all seem to be far more interesting than the parade of grunts and leaping thingies we get out of the other games. They seem geniunely creative, and Valve has a history of using them to great effect, giving them all sorts of options and abilities that work together to create all sorts of cool situations. Those are just examples. Personally, I think I'd enjoy messing around with just the maps in the demo movies we've seen so far of HL2 more than I enjoyed Far Cry. It was a fun game, with nice graphics, but only rarely did it really offer anything cool or new or innovative.

And dont underestimate the impact of HDR effects on the graphics...., which we've seen very little of so far...
 
Mr-Fusion said:
HL2- http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/35.jpg
D3 - http://www.planetdoom.com/images/image.asp?screenshots/official/37l.jpg
Click to expand...

You're not doing your argument a favour by posting one of the oldest available shots of HL2 and one of the ugliest of DooM III.

Generally speaking, I think this type of discussion is a bit pointless.
Different strokes for different games, I'm just glad that there still is so much variety out there and that we haven't nearly reached the supposed graphics apogee of samey photorealism yet.

In the end, it's a question of preference; I personally dislike the look of games that heavily rely on the normal mapping/uniform lighting stuff I've seen in movies and screenshots of DooM III, DX:IW and the indoor bits of FarCry (probably not a technically sound description, I'm referring to the unnaturally dark and 'plasticky' look).
I'm happy that Valve haven't chosen to follow that path, just as I'm extremely content with the balance between realism and fantasy in Half-Life 2's overall design.
To me, the game with "the best graphics" is the game that provides the largest visual stimulus that in turn helps to create the deepest emotional impact.
To me, that game from what I've seen so far is Half-Life 2.
 
Gundam Guru said:
I've seen the tech demo of U3 and personally it doesn't really look as impressive as Doom 3 or HL2. Now Serious Sam 2, it's demonstration was an impressive improvement over the previous game. Still though, U3 did look good but as I said before not as impressive as D3 or HL2
Click to expand...

Your either lieing or you have seen the old tech demo (from E3 I think), the new one was shown at GDC to developers and journalists, all of which thought it was fantastic. I'v seen tech demo's that look way better than Doom 3 in one area or another and apparantly UE3 excels in all these areas.
 
Really valve doesn't have much to worry about with farcry cause it can't even beat CS:CZ sales, game graphics are never very far behind another games graphics , thats how it'll always be.
 
Mr-Fusion said:
That HL2 screenshot is as new as we're gonna get!! If you can point me to ones from a more recent build go right ahead. As for Doom 3, any hobo and his pet cat can browse through them all here http://www.planetdoom.com/doom3/screenshots/official/
Click to expand...

Uhmm dude, that screen of HL2 is really old, since Alyx is still wearing the green costume, while her actual clothing is the one with the brownish jacket and the "CK ME" (which could could interpret as '**** me' or 'black mesa' :D) so it's not a shot of the most recent build.

And Apos, yeah it was sort of a wrong comment by me, which I realised after I posted it. They all focus on different things to accomplish with their engines. HL2 seems to focus more on shaders and Doom 3 on lighting. It's really impressive to see that HL2 eyes are not even geometry but just realtime shaders, and that they use shaders for everything.

And btw, it's not entirely true that HL2 doesn't use normal mapping on characters, the antlion guard uses them (HDR video) and now the normal antlion does so too (the ATI GDC presentation) and probably a lot more characters. But luckily, Valve doesn't work with the motto "more normal mapping will draw the attention away from my bad artwork" like some games do (Far Cry) which have totally obsolete use of normal mapping which makes the characters look like f*cking GI Joes. The characters of HL2 look believable and only use normal mapping when needed. I couldn't stand talking to a G-Man that looks like he's from Far Cry.
Good modeling and especially good texturing, and maybe some good shaders, will make a good model, normal mapping will only support the model with subtle effects but should not be used to give it detail too much.
 
Ok, this is really a waste of time but hey we've got months to burn till the games out so we can argue these pointless little details for hours at a time! I LOVE IT :D !!

I load up a Doom3 model and a HL2 model side by side. Lets say a combine and a marine from d3.

Doom3 marine
http://www.planetdoom.com/images/screenshots/hi-res-trailer/31a.jpg
http://www.planetdoom.com/images/screenshots/hi-res-trailer/30a.jpg

Combine
http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/50.jpg
http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/37.jpg

In the Doom3 model i can see that there is more overall detail compared to the HL2 model. I can actually see bump mapped muscles and sweat pores on Doom3 but simple texture mapped skin features on the HL2 model.

Though Doom 3 is let down by it's "phony" looking lighting which in a way destroys some of the believability of the models, HL2 excels in that area creating a much more realistic feel ( i tend to stay away from technical terms :) ).

So that's all i'm saying. Side by side, in my opinion, Doom 3 models look better.
 
Mr-Fusion said:
Ok, this is really a waste of time but hey we've got months to burn till the games out so we can argue these pointless little details for hours at a time! I LOVE IT :D !!

I load up a Doom3 model and a HL2 model side by side. Lets say a combine and a marine from d3.

Doom3 marine
http://www.planetdoom.com/images/screenshots/hi-res-trailer/31a.jpg
http://www.planetdoom.com/images/screenshots/hi-res-trailer/30a.jpg

Combine
http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/50.jpg
http://www.beyondhalflife.com/gallery/pics/37.jpg

In the Doom3 model i can see that there is more overall detail compared to the HL2 model. I can actually see bump mapped muscles and sweat pores on Doom3 but simple texture mapped skin features on the HL2 model.

Though Doom 3 is let down by it's "phony" looking lighting which in a way destroys some of the believability of the models, HL2 excels in that area creating a much more realistic feel ( i tend to stay away from technical terms :) ).

So that's all i'm saying. Side by side, in my opinion, Doom 3 models look better.
Click to expand...

Arent both those models from last E3? making them pretty old?
 
Mr-Fusion said:
So that's all i'm saying. Side by side, in my opinion, Doom 3 models look better.
Click to expand...

I think it's a fact that Doom 3 models are more detailed, but whether they look better is a matter of taste. I like the realistic look of HL2, with believable models, you like the highly detailed models of Doom 3 which have the main drawback that they look like oversized GI Joe's.
To me this is the most beautiful screenshot in a game I've seen (except for some shadow artifacts and the lack of soft shadowing which HL2 now does have) because of the soft realistic lighting, especially on the combine helmets.

Nice going btw with the illegal HL2 shot :E

And like I said, HL2 uses normal mapping where needed, my opinion is that, normal mapping would be obsolete on combine soldiers, but I think it fits well on an alien.
And on that part, I don't think the gfx of the normal mapped antlion guard are any less impressive than the gfx on a Doom3 monster.
 
hhhmmmmm Doom 3 certainly has better graphical quality but in some ways it looks like a Pixar movie which is a bit off putting, while HL2 seems to have more in common with black hawk down or even a more rustic version of the matrix, it just seems a bit more clean cut and realistic (I use that word with caution as it can be misleading in this context).

In other words HL2 is more stylish and maybe for me atleast; more immersive.

EDIT: beaten too it by Pvt. I just wish I could see the scene to which the screen shot relates, in motion.
 
Oh shit i'll just delete that pic :)

Edit: Oh crap i can't delete it!
 
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