You know, I saw the pirated version of HL2 when it was leaked a long time ago. they had a s**tLOAD of GREAT weapons in there!!! Now they're gone!!! I wish my brother had never DL'd that leaked copy now (I deleted it shortly thereafter), because i am so disappointed. They had snarks, a sniper rifle, an OICW, a fire extingusher, and Iceaxe, you can use the stun baton that combine uses, tripmines, satchel charges, Gauss gun, father Grigori's shotgun, and more that I can't think of now. I think you could even THROW HEADCRABS! There was also a point-and-click way fo moving the NPC's that follow you: you could actually press a certain button that turned your crosshairs into a green laserdot and where you pointed and clicked, your squad would go! There were a few more enemies in the stolen version as well, like the Hydra and a few more.

Also, from everything that I had read about HL2 before the release, there was supposed to be a LOT more content to the game. Anyone who edits will be able to see that there are textures and models and stuff for something called "Aurora" that is the name of an Icebreaker ship that you were supposed to be able to board during the game, making up an entire chapter! (that is where you would get the iceaxe, I'm sure.)

Anyway, I was wondering what all of your thoughts are on what you expected and what you got with HL2.

? quoting Crono

Wasn't there also a "Phys-Gun" which allowed you to combine physics props together and use them?

I think the game they made is excellent. There are things in HL1 that they made and never used. (Frog-Snark things, for one).

You have to understand, if they cut a certain chapter or something like that, it was probably dead wood compared to the rest of the game.
Overall, I think they created the game as they would and just edited it where it was needed to give, in their minds, the best possible experience their game had to offer. Like in films.

Now, I'm sure new FGDs with entity definitions for these weapons and objects will come out soon enough, so you can use them to your hearts content.

I always made maps for HL1 with the chumtoad and the Mr. Friendly in them. Also I loved that little orange maintenance guy that was never put in HL1.

Anyway, i remember the Physgun, that allows you to pick up the dead bodies and ragdoll 'em! I miss it.

I remember the hype about the ship. I awaited it for so long and then they didn't add it in... Well who knows maybe we'll see some of the stuff in some new add-on...

Yeah, I have gotten Grigori's gun thru the console, but it no longer looks like a double-barrel shotgun, it looks like th other shotgun only it BEHAVES like a 2-barrel (only 2 shells allowed at a time.

Also, I didn't know that the orange guy (I call him nich because he looks EXACLTY like my pal nick) was the one driving the forklifts. I thought they were driving themselves (which i DID think was odd.) Also that crate carrying yellow walking machine: Have you eve seen it RUN or dance?!?! its so freaking hilarious!!! You can browse the different actions in HLMV.

Yet, it's rather essential. There's no realistic (or common) way you can have everything look wonderful and have it all rendered real-time.
The use of models allows for higher detail at lower processing costs. Ghost Recon, for example, gets away with the massive levels it has simply because they're giant models. The maps are created in 3DSMax (probably Maya for GR2).

As far as I understand it. World brushes are the same as creating a model and rendering it real time. Using models (besides lighting) is just replaying a pre-made animation and render. There's a difference between rendering and displaying. Part of the world rendering is done during the compile of course.

Maybe the way I'm explaining it is incorrect, but I know having pre-made/rendered models is much more efficient.

Does this make any sense?

Actually the difference between games and movies are nurbs (most game models are nurb models converted to polygons to save an insane amount of computing power).

I'm not really sure how to explain it to be honest. But there is a difference between video rendering (Just showing a model based on pre-chosen Cartesian points) and real time rendering (Calculating the Cartesian points and displaying them). Real Time Rendering is like creating a model in a program and using that exact model in a real time animation (which you can't do in a game, unless the animation movement is code based). As you remember, you take your model and record animations.

Also, you're thinking of pre-rendered scenes/backgrounds, which make a 3d model a 2d image.

But I may be wrong. This is just how I understand it.

Bleh. I'll explain it next year when I get knee deep in it. But, I do know that pre-optimized models are more efficient then world brushes.
(I have to take Linear Algebra first, which is apparently the same thing as Logic)