Why do I continually hear...

[mrchimp]

Mr chimp has terribly high standards, have you seen HL2's shoreline water , Far Crys water looks decent indoors and outdoors, so its got something going for it over Half life 2

(it looks fine from long distance, must be the old Beast of a computer overheating )

I wish i had a screenshot to show you what I mean. I do have high standards but only in the consistency department, I would rather a game looks fairly good all the way through (e.g Pain Killer) than extremely good just some of the time, towards the edge of a map, FC just begins to look like crap and the dramatic drop in LOD over a short distance (or even a long one) annoys me to the point I can't ignore it.

I really don't like FC's style of graphics and I don't like the engines configuration (the engine it's self is great).

Gundam: I think Stalkers foliage is fantastic, I think stalker handles it better than FC, although thats just judgeing by the Stalker videos not the alpha.

EDIT: Apos: that may have been true for the fixed function T&L generation but programable vertex and pixel shaders open up a window for alot more variation between games. Although it's normally the hardware vendors who invent new forms of shading or are atleast the first to put the new technique into a demo. It is now possible for a software company to invent a completely new way of doing something and not tell anyone else about it. Also I have 3 demos of GI that all use different methods of achieving the effect and all look fairly different. I would say we'r going to start seeing more variation between engines in the next couple of years.

I hope that wasn't incomprehensible.

 

[PvtRyan]

Where did you find this information? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to see come citations on this that prove it. Seems a little unlikely to me.

I think he means the game only uses one specularity shader throughout the game, not a diffusion shader.

 

[ray_MAN]

OK, I am going to set this straight.


FAR CRY: Far Cry's graphics engine was designed for outdoor environments. It is a very colorful engine and that is why a good part of the game is outdoors in the jungle. And the huge environments make this game one of the best I have played. The water is excellent aswell. The Crytek engine does a nice job of distributing beauty indoors and outdoors. The physics engine is used well in Far Cry, too. The story was great until the end, which was mediocre. The AI is wonderful. It is so realistic with the teamwork. Have you ever been flanked on both sides in any other game?

HALF-LIFE 2: HL2's graphics engine was mostly designed of up close encounters, hence the detail to the face and such. It uses it's graphics engine very well indoors, but outside it lacks a large amount of vegetation which Far Cry and STALKER have. The water is beautiful, much like Far Cry's. The physics are very precise like in STALKER and Far Cry. They are well implemented, but from what we have seen they do not play any part in the story. They are just used to kill some enemies easier, like in Far Cry. In fact they are very similar. AI is very well done as in Far Cry. The enemies work together as a team and they use top-notch tactics.

STALKER: I can only talk about the engine and physics here. The engine is beautiful. It is the best of them all. It combine excellency indoors, aswell as outdoors. It can use
a good amount of vegetation but not as much as Far Cry. The indoor environments are nicely textured and detailed. On to the physics. Like most the other games the physics are really just a luxury. They don't really play a huge part in the game, but they are a nice touch that allows you to kill enemies as well. But is the most adavanced of the two. It is the only engine with true liquid physics(Far Cry had psuedo liquid).

If I am missing anything, tell me.

 

[Brian Damage]

Where did you find this information? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to see come citations on this that prove it. Seems a little unlikely to me.

A magazine called Atomic: Maximum Power Computing. And the guys in there know what they're talking about...

If I may quote:

"Where Half-Life 2 really shines are its sophisticated shaders. Whereas Doom 3 for the sake of lighting consistency uses a generalised lighting algorithm on everything, the Source engine uses separate shaders to describe different materials. Because many materials (fire, water, organic tissue) have complex properties that a single unified shader can't describe, Doom leaves everything looking similar and what some people call 'plasticy' while Half-life 2 looks more varied and lifelike."... Then it goes on to describe the water Fresnel shaders and what sounds like the HDR lighting system.

Any spelling arrors are mine :E.

I think he means the game only uses one specularity shader throughout the game, not a diffusion shader.

Yeah, probably.

 

[mrchimp]

The whole thing about Doom 3 useing one unified shader is a bit confuseing because it all depends on what you define as a single shader. The proper definition of a shader is that it is the complete process that creates the finall look of an object. Because not all surfaces in Doom 3 have a reflection or in some cases a normal map, you could consider them to have a different shader to surfaces that do, even if they use some of the same code. It's probable that because every surface in Doom 3 uses the same basic shader but with bits disabled that ID consider this to be one unified shader.

However some people do not follow this definition and may just consider a single shader to be just part of the process of rendering a surface (e.g a bump map shader). In this case Doom 3 uses many shaders even on the same surface.

 

[Spiffae]

OK, I am going to set this straight.


FAR CRY: Far Cry's graphics engine was designed for outdoor environments. It is a very colorful engine and that is why a good part of the game is outdoors in the jungle. And the huge environments make this game one of the best I have played. The water is excellent aswell. The Crytek engine does a nice job of distributing beauty indoors and outdoors. The physics engine is used well in Far Cry, too. The story was great until the end, which was mediocre. The AI is wonderful. It is so realistic with the teamwork. Have you ever been flanked on both sides in any other game?

You can't set it straight, because you ar only one opinion out of many. In my opinion, Far Cry was extremely underwhelming. Huge environments does not mean good gameplay. in fact, i found FC's huge environments to be a detriment to good gameplay. I'd much rather have the tight, quick, perfected mission areas of the better shooters, like Max Payne 2, Freedom Fighters, or Half-Life...and, if the videos are any indication, Half-Life 2.

The water is fine. It does not use a fresnel equation for reflection, and it does a shoddy job of refracting. The physics engine left me baffled, especially when i'd kill a guy and he'd end up propped up because his knee was caught under him.

I didn't finish the game, so i can't comment on the story, but I found the AI to be more annoying than wonderful. Bad guys who can hide and flank does not necessarily make the best gameplay. Sure, it makes the game hard, but is that necessarily good?

HALF-LIFE 2: HL2's graphics engine was mostly designed of up close encounters, hence the detail to the face and such. It uses it's graphics engine very well indoors, but outside it lacks a large amount of vegetation which Far Cry and STALKER have.

to quote someone, "it's a design decision, not a technical limitation"

The water is beautiful, much like Far Cry's. The physics are very precise like in STALKER and Far Cry. They are well implemented, but from what we have seen they do not play any part in the story.

in the story? like how?

Alyx: Gordon, look at this box! It is heavy!
Dr. Kleiner: Gordon, if this box floats, the humans have a chance!

Of course it doesn't play a role in the story. what it does, is make a believable physical game world. HL2s use of physics is far beyond FC and Stalker, because those physics are purely eye candy. These are actually useful.

They are just used to kill some enemies easier, like in Far Cry. In fact they are very similar. AI is very well done as in Far Cry. The enemies work together as a team and they use top-notch tactics.

STALKER: I can only talk about the engine and physics here. The engine is beautiful. It is the best of them all.

let's agree to disagree. every movie i've seen of stalker looks stiff and choppy. show me something besides a big open map, and maybe i'll be interested

It combine excellency indoors, aswell as outdoors. It can use a good amount of vegetation but not as much as Far Cry. The indoor environments are nicely textured and detailed. On to the physics. Like most the other games the physics are really just a luxury. They don't really play a huge part in the game, but they are a nice touch that allows you to kill enemies as well. But is the most adavanced of the two. It is the only engine with true liquid physics(Far Cry had psuedo liquid).

If I am missing anything, tell me.

 

[torso boy]

Time to correct some things....

HALF-LIFE 2: HL2's graphics engine was mostly designed of up close encounters, hence the detail to the face and such. It uses it's graphics engine very well indoors,

all of this is true...currently hl2 has the most detailed player models, and is designed for close quarters fighting

....but outside it lacks a large amount of vegetation which Far Cry and STALKER have.

there is no proof of this, because we have yet to see any outside areas that are designed to have lots of vegetation. However, i have noticed that hl2, like the others has dense grass that will fade away in the distance, like in the other engines. (i noticed this in the seaflor video on the sides of the road before and after the jump) so there is evidence that if you wanted to you could make a dense jungle like in far cry.

The physics are very precise like in STALKER and Far Cry.

true, but currently hl2 has the most sophisticated physics engine of all of the games being the only engine currently with hinges and cloth physics (well actually those are possible in painkiller), and bouyancy calculations in water

STALKER: It can use a good amount of vegetation but not as much as Far Cry.

Again that is a design issue not an issue of limitation, there has et to be an attempt to make a jungle in anything but farcry.

But is the most adavanced of the two. It is the only engine with true liquid physics(Far Cry had psuedo liquid).

no engine currently has true liquid physics, because that would turn your computer into a boiling pile of shit. HL2 currently has the most advanced physics engine, as described earlier.

and with the AI in farcry...its crap. When 5 enemies go and hide in a room and wait for me to pass by, i call that crap they all died in a second. And they don't actually know how to search for you...its just once you shoot all enemies know your exact position, even if your sniping from a MILE AWAY IN DENSE VEGETATION!!!!

my opinion is:
1.HL2
2.Painkiller
3.Stalker
4.Far Cry
5.Doom 3

*edit...whoops, looks like someone else thinks someone is quite wrong too*

 

[clarky003]

no engine currently has true liquid physics, because that would turn your computer into a boiling pile of shit

I agree , until computers can simulate substances such as water as virtual particles, you cant call it true water physics, at the moment its just a box, with simulated water properties attached to it,, games experts have a long way to go with water yet.

and with the AI in farcry...its crap

I dont think anyone cares, its funny, and fun, so I certainly couldnt care. Its complex getting AI to react every second realistically. Im sure there will be a few dodgy moments in Half Life 2, until they have there own semi complex little programmed virtual brains, your never going to see AI that can really truely behave convincingly all the time

 

[ray_MAN]

true, but currently hl2 has the most sophisticated physics engine of all of the games being the only engine currently with hinges and cloth physics (well actually those are possible in painkiller), and bouyancy calculations in water

Cloth, buoyancy, and hinges are possible in Far Cry as well as Splinter Cell, that has no physics engine.

Again that is a design issue not an issue of limitation, there has et to be an attempt to make a jungle in anything but farcry.

You haven't seen the lates STALKER vid apparently. It's not a rainforest, though.

no engine currently has true liquid physics, because that would turn your computer into a boiling pile of shit. HL2 currently has the most advanced physics engine, as described earlier.

Sorry, man. Wrong. STALKER will have liquid physics. At least, that's what they say.

 

[XenoSpirit]

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.

the farcry engine has some gay stuff in it... just about all the plants and trees are made from 2d plates and textures... the dirt displacement from rockets sucks and its near impossable to drive a buggy threw the island... i unloaded 30 rounds into a dead guys head and all i got was blodo and bullet marks... i hope hl2 has removeable limbs and better gibbing / blood / gore...

i shoot the ground where the blood is and the bullet hole dont turn red... well farcry has a demanding engine ne ways and very sucky online play.... i mean wtf? 512 kbs for 8 ppl WTF? allso the trees and plants i mean i shoot a tree repeatedly with rockets and explosives I EXPECT IT TO ATLEAST FALL OVER OR CATC HON FIRE

 

[Varsity]

i hope hl2 has removeable limbs and better gibbing / blood / gore...

Nope. There is blood and perhaps total gibbing but no limb loss.

 

[clarky003]

just about all the plants and trees are made from 2d plates and textures

lol , we can all hope they stop using those polygons to make things out of,.. :dozey:

what do you think HL2 is made up of.. real 3D plants with leaves each one individual and different, most of modern day games engines are owned by 2D stuff. the 3D aspect is just an illusion,, I mean its on a flat screen godamit. :angel:

 

[alehm]

Sorry, man. Wrong. STALKER will have liquid physics. At least, that's what they say.

You mean in Stalker players will be able to shoot a barrel filled with water and watch it spill out onto the floor in a neat little puddle and can splash in it?

 

[torso boy]

about liquid physics....you do know how cloth physics work right...its a bunch of points that are physiaclly simulated, with textured polygons linking the points. so water would be similar, except each point would have to make sure that the others are a certain distance away, depending on the volume of water each main point is responsible for, and then you need sub points to calculate the movements of each individual volume of water that is affected by the main points so that each individual main point has a certain volume of water shown to fit the container its in. now to do that for a puddle you would need about ten main points and 20 sub points for each main one. so thats 200 physics calculations to do per frame for a puddle about 3 ft in diameter....that added to all the other physical calculations, would, like i said, turn your computer into boiling shit. And then the goverment will come and take your boiling shit because the'll think that anything trying do that much must be trying to hack into government computers and launch all the nukes in the country at very other country at the same time

 

[PvtRyan]

about liquid physics....you do know how cloth physics work right...its a bunch of points that are physiaclly simulated, with textured polygons linking the points. so water would be similar, except each point would have to make sure that the others are a certain distance away, depending on the volume of water each main point is responsible for, and then you need sub points to calculate the movements of each individual volume of water that is affected by the main points so that each individual main point has a certain volume of water shown to fit the container its in. now to do that for a puddle you would need about ten main points and 20 sub points for each main one. so thats 200 physics calculations to do per frame for a puddle about 3 ft in diameter....that added to all the other physical calculations, would, like i said, turn your computer into boiling shit. And then the goverment will come and take your boiling shit because the'll think that anything trying do that much must be trying to hack into government computers and launch all the nukes in the country at very other country at the same time

Not to mention that real liquid water (that could flow out of barrels and that forms drops and pudles) would be done with millions of interconnected particles, which is obviously even heavier

 

[mrchimp]

torso boy: I'm not sure what you just said but liquid dynamics wouldn't work the same way as a cloth simulation.

The easiest way to do it (and this is how Red faction did it I think) is to use particles attached to very low poly metaballs that have some kind soft body dynamics applied to them. When two particles come close enough together the metaballs would join up to become one.

I could go on for a very long time talking about this but nobody reads long posts.

 

[Apos]

HALF-LIFE 2: HL2's graphics engine was mostly designed of up close encounters, hence the detail to the face and such. It uses it's graphics engine very well indoors, but outside it lacks a large amount of vegetation which Far Cry and STALKER have. The water is beautiful, much like Far Cry's. The physics are very precise like in STALKER and Far Cry. They are well implemented, but from what we have seen they do not play any part in the story. They are just used to kill some enemies easier, like in Far Cry.

Nonsense. Hl2 is the only game of the three that we've seen that seems to have incorporated physics elements directly into gameplay in interesting ways. Indeed, setting up all sorts of interesting, multiple faceted "scenes" is what Valve has proven good at. From huge balanced monsters to physically (instead of simulated) working machinery to all sorts of gameplay tie-ins, physics is used as more than detail or a throwin for ragdoll effects.

As for vegetation, the reality is that you don't need some special engine for it. Most of it is just sprites and detail brushes. We've yet to see HL2 scenes that feature extensive vegitation, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Even Doom3 could pretty easily add lush vegitation. Vegitation is just not a huge or difficult feature, it's a design decision. You plop in the detail bushes, tweak their visibility range, and that's it.

HL2's outdoor scenes are pretty darn impressive. From the cityscapes to the detail and high object population of that dried up riverbed, it demonstrates that mere foliage is not the only thing going in outdoor scenes.

STALKER: Like most the other games the physics are really just a luxury. They don't really play a huge part in the game, but they are a nice touch that allows you to kill enemies as well. But is the most adavanced of the two. It is the only engine with true liquid physics(Far Cry had psuedo liquid).

Stalker does not have true liquid physics. Like both Far Cry and HL2, it has bouyancy, which is not the same thing.

The Stalker devs actually have something of a history of overstating and saying slightly misleading things about what their engine is doing.

 

[ray_MAN]

You mean in Stalker players will be able to shoot a barrel filled with water and watch it spill out onto the floor in a neat little puddle and can splash in it?

It's what they said. Last time I checked.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

ray_MAN, thats hugely unlikely. I mean the graphics and physics and everything are allready extremely impresive and most likely very very CPU and GPU intensive. There is absolutely no chance they could hope to achieve something like true fluid dynamics as well.


They probably meant it just like valve did when talking about liquids in HL2.
There will be boyency and the like but nothing else.

 

[Apos]

You mean in Stalker players will be able to shoot a barrel filled with water and watch it spill out onto the floor in a neat little puddle and can splash in it?

Aside from creating a permanent puddle, this by itself is actually easily to simulate, and has nothing to do with physics. MaxPayne2 has this in: shoot a wine barrel, and it leaks wine. All it takes is a decal and a sprite effect: there are no physics involved. Whether games add it in or not is really rather trivial, as it's just a minor detail effect. If all you mean by a puddle is just another shader decal, then that's not so hard either.

 

[CreedoG]

From about quake 1 to Battlefield 1942.. all first person shooters have pretty much looked the same to me. Maybe more polygons here, or larger textures there.. or woah, curved surfaces.

Halo and to some extent, UT2K3 were better ..

But Far Cry, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Stalker... MAN O' MAN

These are truly next generation games. The combination of revolutionary graphics (with much due to bump mapping and pixel shading), realistic physics, realistic lighting, and believable AI just meld into an awesome gaming experience. They all look unbelievably believable. It's the renaisance of gaming.. right here, right now. We haven't had this kind of a revolution since we went 3D. Everything up till now has been baby step evolutions.

I just played through Far Cry, and it's possibly the best game I've ever played. From the screenshots/movies, I thought it looked cheesy and cartoony. But my God, when I played through it, the leaves on the trees casting a shadow on my gun that moved with the breeze. Killing a dude, and his dead corpse realistically slid down the wall. To the swimming through the water, and coming up through the surface.. the sweet sweet vegetation that can be used as cover, instead of just a pretty effect. Shooting a light in a warehouse and watching the shadows jump on the wall. To being chased down, hunted, cornered, flanked by enemies who always seem to find a little bit of cover. To running down those same bitches in a humvee, and watching their bodies go flying.. to throwing a grenade into a pack of enemies, and watching their bodies go flying... HOLY CRAP!

To the guy who said something like "I feel sorry for the guy who stops and looks at a texture" I did just that... quite a few times. I was seriously amazed. I'd look at a bumpmapped wall, and be like "DAMN that looks nice" and then i'd whip out my flashlight just to see what it looks like and say "DAMN! that's crazy neat!"

And I'm hoping HL2 and DOOM3 are even better. Oh man, I hope they're even better. And all the bink videos and screenshots and leaked betas don't mean a thing till we experience the real game, as the dev's intended.

Anyway, why are all you guys trying to figure out which game's got the biggest dick? Can't you just be excited they all have pretty decent sized dicks now.. they're just different shapes and colors?

 

[torso boy]

torso boy: I'm not sure what you just said but liquid dynamics wouldn't work the same way as a cloth simulation.

i was just using the example that only certain points would be physically simulated

 

[Apos]

But Far Cry, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Stalker... MAN O' MAN

These are truly next generation games.

Yeah, no kidding.

But I think Half-life 2 and Stalker will add something that Far Cry and Doom3 will not. Their worlds look to be full of OBJECTS, and that's something that really changes things. What I've seen from Far Cry and Doom3 are occasional objects lying around, but not that many, and the world essentially still feels very static. We're not quite still trapped in Quakeworld where basically we're playing around in a box, but still both Far CRy and what I've played of Doom3 present a fairly static world in which action then occurs. What I've seen of Stalker and Half-life 2 is a lot on world depth, lots of objects that react and interact and get used in gameplay, and basically make the areas involved seem a lot more like actual worlds than just bsps

 

[Rossell]

Just for the record, no matter how outdated you may say FarCry is to the rest of the breed...

They had a bloody good stab and did a bloody good job don't you agree?

 

[Spiffae]

Just for the record, no matter how outdated you may say FarCry is to the rest of the breed...

They had a bloody good stab and did a bloody good job don't you agree?

bloody good stab? sure. they did their best.

bloody good job? for some, yes, for some, no. The game simply didn't come together for me... i didn't enjoy the gameplay.

 

[CreedoG]

Yeah, no kidding.

But I think Half-life 2 and Stalker will add something that Far Cry and Doom3 will not. Their worlds look to be full of OBJECTS, and that's something that really changes things. What I've seen from Far Cry and Doom3 are occasional objects lying around, but not that many, and the world essentially still feels very static.

I agree with that completely. I really hope that HL2 goes above and beyond what Far Cry is (and I think it will). The one scene where the environment REALLY played a part in (from what i've seen of HL2 videos) is when the guy pushed the bookshelf in front of the door to stop the intruding enemy. If tactics like that really come to fruitation in HL2, then I'll be all over it.

Actual physical traps, like shown in traptown, WERE done in Far Cry, however. You can knock a few barrels down a hill, and they run over and kill people. Or you can shoot a barrel, and it will explode, killing and sending bodies and other objects into the air.

But those things aren't as interactive as what Valve has planned with HL2. The manipulator alone.... endless possibilities.

But I'd still classify Far Cry as truly next gen. Doom 3 too. Truly using the physics in a game to their fullest, with our current cpu horsepower, alone doesn't make Half-Life 2 a next-next generation game. It just makes it more fun. Sort of like the AI and Character Interaction in Half Life 1. It wasn't a next generation game compared to the other games of it's time, it was just more fun.

 

[CreedoG]

Just for the record, no matter how outdated you may say FarCry is to the rest of the breed...

They had a bloody good stab and did a bloody good job don't you agree?

HELL YEAH!

With the graphics and AI and physics and immersion factor, for a first time dev, I'd say they did a great job.

But, like spiffae said, to each his own. My wife sure wouldn't want to play it.

 

[Varsity]

If tactics like that really come to fruitation in HL2, then I'll be all over it.

Something that excites me is the ability of mappers to accurately create a house without actual gameplay in mind, then being able to crawl over it just manipulating the environment and just seeing how much cool stuff you can do with each other. It would take co-op to a new levels.

 

[Styloid]

I agree with the idea on objects. I remember John Carmack was saying in an interview that one thing that he wants to see in games are desks that really look like a person sat there. It should have lots of stuff layered on it like computer stuff, lamps, paper, a coffee mug. etc. He went on to say how modern games (ie. Doom3) can only sparsely fill up the desk but nothing like real life. To me that is because of how heavy Doom3 is on the computer. I see HL2 doing all these things. Dr. Kleiner's desk almost looks like some one is working there (though quite tidily); it has a soldering iron, a magnifying glass, computer stuff and everything on the desk can be manipulated and moved around. All the soda cans in the machine can pour out and you can manipulate them all.
This has to be something that next-gen games must pick up on. Not only is it a huge gameplay boost using these objects for distracting enemies or launching at them, it is just as important in how immersive, natural and believable the game world becomes. It ties in to atmosphere and graphics.

 

[blahblahblah]

I agree with the idea on objects. I remember John Carmack was saying in an interview that one thing that he wants to see in games are desks that really look like a person sat there. It should have lots of stuff layered on it like computer stuff, lamps, paper, a coffee mug. etc. He went on to say how modern games (ie. Doom3) can only sparsely fill up the desk but nothing like real life. To me that is because of how heavy Doom3 is on the computer. I see HL2 doing all these things. Dr. Kleiner's desk almost looks like some one is working there (though quite tidily); it has a soldering iron, a magnifying glass, computer stuff and everything on the desk can be manipulated and moved around. All the soda cans in the machine can pour out and you can manipulate them all.
This has to be something that next-gen games must pick up on. Not only is it a huge gameplay boost using these objects for distracting enemies or launching at them, it is just as important in how immersive, natural and believable the game world becomes. It ties in to atmosphere and graphics.

Tell me if Half-Life 2 could power this. My desk has...

A monitor, 2 post-it notes (slightly bent) attached to it, two remote controls, a curved glass, a coster, a keyboard, a mouse, a ministapler, chapstick, a small swiss army knife, a small decorative pin, two small pieces of paper, two pens, and a mousepad.

If Half-life 2 is able to render all of that and then render realistic looking characters, as well as render the rest of a room in the same detail, and not require a supercomputer (to run it), I will be amazed.

 

[Apos]

A monitor, 2 post-it notes (slightly bent) attached to it, two remote controls, a curved glass, a coster, a keyboard, a mouse, a ministapler, chapstick, a small swiss army knife, a small decorative pin, two small pieces of paper, two pens, and a mousepad.

Sure: any of the next gen games we're talking about could render that, though some might not want to spend all that detail on one desk when they also want to support other parts of the environment or lighting, or whatever. And some, like the paper, might be easier if they were jsut decals or baked into the desk texture, but the fact remains, we are beyond the era where a desk was just basically crude map geometry.

 

[S1nF1xx]

The crytek engine has most, if not all the physics hl2 did. The crytek engine is simply amazing graphically, with a 600 or so meter viewing distance it is truely a site to behold. The graphics of far cry are much supirior to what hl2 was when they got the source code stolen. I bet Valve has been working non-stop to up the power of their engine. They have to . Doom3 is a supirior engine, and the UT04 engine is supirior. Valve shot themselves in the foot with this one.
Half life 2 is still going to be a fantastic game. The physics engine rocks, the AI is supposed to be amazing (although everytime a company says this their AI is nothing more than average, Far Cry, Soldier of Fortune 2 etc) plus you have CS2, which is the main reason I'm going to buy HL2. But unless Valve stepped up the rendering power of the Source engine, it will not be the most graphically impressive game out. Period.

 

[Sparta]

Dude, The DirectX 9 video of Source whoops Far Cry's graphical ass outta the ball-park. And thats the only thing we've seen with the graphics on as far as they can go. Far Cry has the best graphics of any game currently out but HL2's graphics own it

 

[Apos]

The crytek engine has most, if not all the physics hl2 did.

Not really. Most everything was still pretty much static, and had only the simplest rotational solid object physics and ragdolls. It's not really a matter of modelling physics, it's a matter of really integrating it with gameplay and adding the little touches that make it believable.

And Far Cry's viewing distance is not really as special as it is made out to be. It's just done with lots of static LOD mapping, and it shows. HL2's large open scenes, like the cityscapes and the dried lakebed, look incredibly huge as well, and they assuredly will have "popping" just like Far Cry does to solve the problem. This generation of engines just can't move the amount of polygons needed to avoid perceptable popping.

Doom3 is far from a superior engine to any of the others here. It has one feature (unified lighting) that in the end I doubt will make as much difference as people think it will, and to compensate it cuts back heavily on other shader effects, polycounts, enemy density, and view distance. HL2 is definately more versatile.

UT04 really isn't in the same league as Far Cry, Doom3 or HL2 or Stalker. In the end, those four are in a class of their own, and all of them excel at various things, specializing in this or that. One might be clearly more well done in most regards, but it's far too early to say for final.

 

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I am still confused on how you integrate physics in to gameplay. Is it good physics to determine how far you fall before you die? Is it good physics to press a button to kill enemies (falling beam, etc)? In previous games they were preplanned sequences when they were executed.

Don't get me wrong, the physics engine is awesome but how much of time when you play HL2 are you going to spend dragging a mattress across a complex object?

Yet, I know that Valve will find a way to make good use of the physics but they will disappoint to an extent. You can do make the same arguement for Doom 3. Is that new lighting system really necessary? I think so.

Its all about incremental achievement. Was a completely 3D game needed for Quake? What about colored lighting for Quake 2? What about curved surfaces for Quake 3? Of course not, but they helped advanced computer games. Both HL2 and Doom 3 will advance computer games equally. Saying one feature is not important is kinda of subjective. May not be important to us, but it may help game developers create better games down the line.

I forget what the purpose of this post was. Oh well. :O