NEW HL2 SCREENS!!!!

Be interesting to see what sort of things us mappers will be making in 5 years time with it- compare early HL maps with todays...

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This is a joke, right? I mean, movie-quality renders dont look that real.

? posted by scary_jeff

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But having seen pictures of FarCry, these suddenly don't look so amazing tbh...



^^ FarCry on the next ATI graphics card.

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someone take a real life picture photoshop in a gun?

Theres no freakin way a game and video card can display that

my drool is filling the room. i need desperate help. i imagine HL2 mapping. it would be harder to do, because of all new features, but it's gona KICK ASS!

i'm gonnna try and re-make UT2k4 vehicles. i'm so000ooo gonna do it...

LOL, yeah it is a joke guys, just a very well edited on gun and HUD...I hope.

The gun has a slightly different light source

someone take a real life picture photoshop in a gun?:confused:

Theres no freakin way a game and video card can display that

It's quite obviously an IRL photo :razz:

Speaking of graphics, do you think it is really the area that FPS's need to push further? I personally think the most impressive FPS I've seen in ages is Namco's Xbox FPS "Breakdown". I've not played it yet, and it got hit or miss reviews, but the videos are absolutely amazing in my opinion. Graphically its not astounding (though nice enough for a console effort), but what sets it apart is its unique take on immersing the player. The whole game is viewed in first person, which is nothing new, but the level of interactivity and the way that the first person viewpoint is handled is breakthrough. For instance, near the beginning you start having some fit of illness in a bathroom, and the camera swings around realistically as your character runs into a toilet stall and is physically sick. Also, there is a hand to hand combat system which may or may not be any good, but when hit by a hard punch you can be swung around, knocked over, made dizzy, and so on.

I really recommend you download some trailers if you have a decent connection, even if you wouldn't consider buying it. Its definately one of the few FPS games that has really excited me for a while now, as its actually trying something different.

http://www.gametrailers.com

EDIT: I recommend grabbing Breakdown trailer 3 from this page, though its a tad hefty. The gameplay clips show the nicely handled FPS viewpoint pretty well too.

http://www.gametrailers.com/vault-b3.html

Graphics matter, especially in FPS's. Why?



There it is. Yep, pure gameplay. Pure action. No silly "graphics" to get in the way.

Myrk- said:
God you guys! You love HL so blindly you don't realise the truth. HL2 is dissapointing, its bog standard graphics. Released in september it would have blown the world away, but please, Stalker...

Stalker has an advanced weather engine, and it looks good, HL2 doesn't even cast shadows from { textures ffs! Look at the fences, no shadows. The graphics are just as good as Splinter Cell lol!

If you wanna see a good game I advise you try and find out more about the game Gearbox are anouncing... they released 5 screenshots of oh so goodness. When they were loading I thought they were photos!

I won't bother to respond to this save by saying: don't be a fool Myrk. If you hate HL2 so much and are so confident that its 'bog standard graphics' and incapability to cast shadows from transparent textures will get it owned by Stalker and a motherf**king Gearbox game, then quit posting in these threads.

They still need to (trying-to-be-realistic games) need to work on their physics engine more.

Havok 2 is great ... but it's not even close to realistic. However, they can't be added in yet ... an average gamers computer wouldn't be able to run a game that calculated everything that was needed for realistic-like physics. I mean pressure effects A LOT of thing and so does temperature, but they haven't REALLY been implimented. At least games have proper velocity and trajectory now :smile:

But even forces need to be tweaked.

When you edit a game it would be very nice if you could define certain things, such as acceleration due to gravity, and not the 800 crap. (I believe if you look at the HL Physics code the gravity WAS set to 9.81 m/s^2, so I think they were trying to do this). Techincally that and mass is the only thing you'd have to define, everything else could be calculated from it's dimensions and material type.

I mean ... it would be pretty bad ass if you had the ability to engineer actual devices in mapping. (of course it wouldn't mandatory though, that would be silly). You could build a bridge and set the wind current ... and depending on how your bridge was built it would sustain or not ... think of the possibilities with something like that. Also, a lot of the calculations would be done durring a compile.

But ... keeping track of these things would still bog a computer down. None of this takes into account elasisity or proper (human) joints either.

I think graphically they're fine.I mean yeah great they're pretty and all ... but as Vash said, gameplay matters more (however, graphics don't hurt :smile: ).

[EDIT]
I'm not saying some of these things aren't being taken into consideration, its just that they aren't being executed properly.
[/EDIT]

Myrk- said:
God you guys! You love HL so blindly you don't realise the truth. HL2 is dissapointing, its bog standard graphics. Released in september it would have blown the world away, but please, Stalker...

We have already had this argument before in the "review" the HL2 and D3 betas tread, we already know that HL2 has mediocure graphics, so frikin what? Vash really hit it on the nose:

Vash said:
Who cares about graphics. Want super-realistic, real-life graphics? Go outside. Half-life 2 offers much more than a pretty face. It seems to offer a variety of style, and content, rather than making levels full of polygons and labeling it a game. People these days are so distracted by how much prettier games have gotten that they havent noticed the fact that playing them is like stabbing yourself in the balls...What made Half-Life so compelling was its robust single-play story line, its online frag-fest of multiplayer, and its moddable content which kept it alive till this day. The reason I cant wait for Half-Life2 is because its just Half-Life 1, repackaged and suped up a lot for our pleasures. Just thinking of all my ideas from Half-Life 1 that couldnt be modded, but now can be in Half-Life2 is mind blowing.

This is what it all boils down to:
1) HL2 may have mediocure graphics, but can you have the fun of shooting scientists and knocking over computer screens and having them yell at you in any other games? (may be true in some cases)
2) Why are you bashing Half-life in a Half-life community?

Most of the time I wouldn't want to say this, but I can honestly come up with no other reason but Myrk likes the attention - whenever possible, he asserts his enlightened views on the subject, which frequently come out as entirely unfounded.

I like HL2 because other games have nice coded graphical effects, but in terms of artistic value HL2 is king.

Agree with Cassius. Artistic integrity + vision > polygons

HL2 graphics are definately not mediocre. I kind of compare it to World of Warcraft in that respect. Sure, it's not a polygon/texture-cramming engine, but it still looks great. Also keeps the game much more accessible - I'll pretty much never be able to play Doom 3 or Stalker on my system anytime soon.

Ya your right and let it be said again that there is more to a game than polished graphics, I mean look at FF6, it is still one of the greates games (in my opinion) today, but yet the graphics are outdated.

Campaignjunkie said:
Graphics matter, especially in FPS's. Why?



There it is. Yep, pure gameplay. Pure action. No silly "graphics" to get in the way.

First off, you can't take the most extreme example and extrapolate way beyond it to make a point. There is a big difference saying I want gameplay over graphics if the choice is between three more cool levels or reflective surfaces instead of three more cool levels and textures. Secondly, dust is ugly, and whenever I play it seems like a big yellow blur anyway, so replacing pink for yellow wouldn't matter to me. I'd still play it. Hell, look at all the killboxes and 'fun maps' out there that many poor souls play. They look like crap, yet contain 'gameplay' that they want to experience. If looks mattered so much they would reject them outright.

Yak_Fighter said:
First off, you can't take the most extreme example and extrapolate way beyond it to make a point. There is a big difference saying I want gameplay over graphics if the choice is between three more cool levels or reflective surfaces instead of three more cool levels and textures. Secondly, dust is ugly, and whenever I play it seems like a big yellow blur anyway, so replacing pink for yellow wouldn't matter to me. I'd still play it. Hell, look at all the killboxes and 'fun maps' out there that many poor souls play. They look like crap, yet contain 'gameplay' that they want to experience. If looks mattered so much they would reject them outright.

Lots of people argue that dust looks great (well it did a few years ago anyway), and I certainly think it still stands up fairly admirably to maps today. The point I was trying to make was that if de_dust was that horribly, horribly ugly, it definately wouldn't be popular. All those people that claim that gameplay is the most important part - have fun playing Quake or something. Graphics matter, a lot. Of course that seems to contradict my earlier statement of graphics not mattering for Half-Life 2. In which case... Well ermmm... It depends on what your definition of "good graphics" is. runs

Also, I was under the impression that killboxes / whatever don't get as much playtime as everyone makes them out to have. Even idiots (i.e. my friends) become bored of the repetition. I guess I'm too disconnected / isolated from the multiplayer community now? :smile:

Graphics matter of course, but they aren't the be all and end all - they don't have to be the best out there to garner the game a decent audience. HL2 more than stands its own in today's FPS market - it might not look the best out of its competition, but neither did HL1 - and if it keeps up its forerunners grand reputation, its gameplay and modding community will surpass the others due to be out around the same time.

Aesthetic quality is a huge factor in how a map is played, especially in terms of lighting.

Campaignjunkie said:

Yak_Fighter said:
First off, you can't take the most extreme example and extrapolate way beyond it to make a point. There is a big difference saying I want gameplay over graphics if the choice is between three more cool levels or reflective surfaces instead of three more cool levels and textures. Secondly, dust is ugly, and whenever I play it seems like a big yellow blur anyway, so replacing pink for yellow wouldn't matter to me. I'd still play it. Hell, look at all the killboxes and 'fun maps' out there that many poor souls play. They look like crap, yet contain 'gameplay' that they want to experience. If looks mattered so much they would reject them outright.

Lots of people argue that dust looks great (well it did a few years ago anyway), and I certainly think it still stands up fairly admirably to maps today. The point I was trying to make was that if de_dust was that horribly, horribly ugly, it definately wouldn't be popular. All those people that claim that gameplay is the most important part - have fun playing Quake or something. Graphics matter, a lot. Of course that seems to contradict my earlier statement of graphics not mattering for Half-Life 2. In which case... Well ermmm... It depends on what your definition of "good graphics" is. runs

Also, I was under the impression that killboxes / whatever don't get as much playtime as everyone makes them out to have. Even idiots (i.e. my friends) become bored of the repetition. I guess I'm too disconnected / isolated from the multiplayer community now? :smile:

The comparison should be between games of the same generation of engines. Obviously I wouldn't enjoy playing Doom or Dark Forces nowadays because the lack of mouse look bothers me and the lack of true 3d graphics... but if we are debating the relatively tiny differences between a bunch of engines I'm going to pick the game built with the best gameplay and story over the game built on the flashiest engine.

Aesthetic quality is a huge factor in how a map is played, especially in terms of lighting.

Yup, and games with graphics only as good as the original Thief managed to pull that off to a greater extent than most games on modern engines. You don't need an engine like Stalker or Far Cry to have developed enough lighting to determine your gameplay style. Splinter Cell isn't the best looking game out there, but its use of light and dark in gameplay is far more developed than anything else I've seen. If HL2 wants light levels to play a huge part in gameplay, its engine is more than developed enough to manage that.

Yak_Fighter said:
but if we are debating the relatively tiny differences between a bunch of engines I'm going to pick the game built with the best gameplay and story over the game built on the flashiest engine.

Ditto. Well, the flashiest thing that will run on my system.

it would be pretty bad ass if you had the ability to engineer actual devices in mapping.

I believe you can do that in HL2. They had a level where they had build an engine with cylinders and all the other gubbins, the main shaft was being artifically rotated, and all the other parts responded to this movement approptiately.

Honestly, the arguements against 'gameplay over graphics' here are nothing short of pathetic. If you say you prefer gameplay, that doesn't mean you don't care about graphics at all!! If I say I prefer coke to pepsi, that doesn't mean that if only pepsi is available, I won't have anything.

Jeff, I would hazard a guess and say those were models (with the physics engine working on it) rather than map geometry... The cars do the same thing, with the axles and doors moving about if they get hit.

Who cares? Its still cool!

Cassius said:
Most of the time I wouldn't want to say this, but I can honestly come up with no other reason but Myrk likes the attention - whenever possible, he asserts his enlightened views on the subject, which frequently come out as entirely unfounded.

Thats a loada bulls**t tbh. I merely like to post an alternative view on the subject to make things more interesting. If we all liked the same thing the world would be a boring place, so I question your likes and dislikes which brings in more of a debate.

If you can't handle a debate then don't attack the person asserting the other point of view. I never once said I didn't like HL2 or HL1, I merely say that in todays market it is not near the top in any way (as far as we know)...

I think to be automatically contrary is'nt so much of a debate sparker, rather, it tends to have an inflammatory tone. Here especially, as this is basically a HL forum.All that aside though, I think Far Cry has achieved graphically, pretty much what we can expect from HL2. So it boils down to gameplay as stated before. HL brought with it an involving storyline, intermingled with inventive and thought provoking gameplay, and bundled with a wildly entertaining multi-play aspect. I am a bit jaded now, and can't seem to find the thrill of my earlier HL deathmatch days. I hardly play that any more simply because I am tapped out. I have row after row of new games sitting on my CD rack, almost all of which I have finished the single player mode, but have not been thrilled with the multiplayer aspect of any of them, save for the battlefield games which are of course, mainly multiplayer.Even the UT series fails to entertain me. I can only hope that HL2 brings with it he same feeling I got with the original with regaurd to multiplay. I intend to upgrade every cent I have to spare to make this possible. More RAM, new Vid card, CPU, whatever it takes. I may be fooling myself, and pinning too much hope on what Valve is capable of, but what else have I got to do with my spare change?.

Thats a loada bulls**t tbh. I merely like to post an alternative view on the subject to make things more interesting. If we all liked the same thing the world would be a boring place, so I question your likes and dislikes which brings in more of a debate.

What you just said there sounds like trolling to me.....stating the opposite viewpoint so we can argue over it, for no other reason...

WHERE CAN I GET ONE!!!?!!!111 :biggrin:

lol- so how many sources did you steal stuff from for that pic :razz:

Enough, but after some 'Convincing', I'm sure no-one will complain. :razz:

I never once said I didn't like HL2 or HL1, I merely say that in todays market it is not near the top in any way (as far as we know)...

LOL, "its not near the top in any way (as far as we know)" - thats possibly the most worthless point I've ever heard, it says nothing! In the same vein - it IS the top in every way (as far as we know). I'm withholding my full judgement on the game - my faith in Valve isn't quite what it used to be - but I'm fairly confident it will be superior in terms of gameplay and innovation than most FPS games I've played lately or see on the horizon. The use of the environment shown in all the videos surpasses anything seen in any other FPS, and its things like that that will, I think, set it above its competitors.

How can you comment on the market position of something that isn't in the market, and further whos date of entering the market isn't even known?

i just read that some PC Gamer reporter will go to VALVe HQ and get to play HL2. i smell newer screenies and awesome reviews in the july issue... those lucky bastards... get to play HL2 before all of us... grr.

Azelito posted scans of this months UK PC Gamer which had an article written by a guy who went and played HL2 at Valve's offices. It had quite a lot of new screenshots in it - my flatmate has the magazine :smile:

No no no, those scans were PC Zone. And Pc Gamer went to the exact same thing Pc ZOne did, so they won't have anything new (they didn't report this month because of complications with promising another game a magazine cover).

Unfortunately, look at the e3 videos again. Forget the fact that it's half-life, forget the fact that it's got great graphics (which unfortunately aren't going to be the best). Have a look at the pure gameplay. What do you get? Hmmm...

What new gameplay is there? Sure there's the physics in there, but there's nothing new. So there's the facial animation - to be honest, how often are you actually going to be close enough to recognise a lot of it? The problem that I have with a lot of e3/promo videos is that they concentrate a lot on these sort of effects - take the Gman demonstration. The viewpoint is a lot closer to the Gman that one would normally be. If you zoomed in that close to game like Unreal 2 then you'd see something quite similar.

As for new gameplay - what new gameplay? Sure there's the physics to play around with, but we've still got the same ammo pool, primary fire and secondary fire. There isn't even iron-sighting for godsake. There's the odd good combat scene, but if the fight uphill against the combine is something that they want to show as being a fantastic action piece then I've got a suspision that there may not be many fantastic action pieces throughout the game.

Last year i thought that this game would revolutionize gaming like the origional HL did, but after careful consideration and discarding of the graphics, I'm not quite so sure anymore.

Who said new gameplay? Look around. Not games these days offer new gameplay. They offer the same old gameplay, with different themes and weapons. But that still hasnt made them boring. FarCry is your average, run-of-the-mill FPS that sticks the player into an immersive jungle, and shoots enemy after enemy at him. This is the same old style gameplay as Doom, but its still fun.

Like Pain-Killer too. Your give new weapons and physics, but still - enemy after enemy is launched at you until their dead, and its just a different world setting; wether it be Graveyard, monestary, or even hell - its all the same gameplay in different places with upgraded firepower.

Half-Life2 doesnt offer no gameplay; no. Instead, it offers good gameplay, unlike most games these days which strive to look the best, but control, play and do everything else wrong. Its like having a pretty girlfriend - sure, shes cute - but she has no personality, evntually sooner or later your going to get bored by just having sex (because it doesnt last forever), and you'll look for someone to talk to - even if they arnt the "preitiest".

/2cents

(and if half that stuff doesnt make sense, I cant do much about it - my brain went on auto-response 2 minutes ago :biggrin: )

If you zoomed in that close to game like Unreal 2 then you'd see something quite similar.

I don't think so mate. The facial animations is the one area where graphically half-life 2 will be vastly superior to any other game. If you see the same thing in other games, why haven't we ever been show images/movies of it before? Surely if half-life 2 isn't the first to do it, we would have seen pictures of a different game come out a couple of years ago saying 'wow look at our new facial animations.

In addition, how are you meant to judge gameplay from a technology demonstration? The E3 vids show what is possible with the engine, and the obvious potential to be seen in the E3 vids is what leads people to believe that valve will be able to produce some pretty damn good gameplay that makes use of the technology...

As for new gameplay - what new gameplay? Sure there's the physics to play around with, but we've still got the same ammo pool, primary fire and secondary fire. There isn't even iron-sighting for godsake. There's the odd good combat scene, but if the fight uphill against the combine is something that they want to show as being a fantastic action piece then I've got a suspision that there may not be many fantastic action pieces throughout the game.

Sure, a lot of games have physics engines. It's how you use it that counts. Half-Life was not revolutionary in terms of gameplay at all; it really consisted of shooting things and pushing buttons. But Valve managed to use the resources they had to their advantage, and created an incredibly immersive game that is still being played today. Honestly, how many of you are going to care about facial animations, casting shadows and realistic physics when you're playing this thing? Did you care about such trivial details when you were playing Half-Life?

Whatever happened to judging games based on how much fun they are, rather than how many more polygons it can draw per second? People are still buying and playing Half-Life because it is fun, not because it was innovative at the time. Seriously, some people need to pull their heads out of their arses for once and just breathe for a bit.

I'm wondering when iron-sights modes became a requirement of all games in existence, or even part of the measure of a game...

As long as every weapon has an iron-sight or buttstock as a secondary or 'thirdary' I'd enjoy it. The evolution of most games these days is not to create something new, but to make the old work better, have more and work around the tested and true methods. We're too spoiled sometimes I think.

Nothing wrong with it when done well, of course. But you can't criticize a game based on the fact that it doesn't have it...

Hell, I think I'd criticize HL2 if it did. Sure, I'd make use of it, but it's just not the style we've come to expect from HL. I don't expect HL2 to be a carbon copy of HL1 - there will be improvements, but I'd hate to see something tossed in that all the other games have that would be contrary to the style of the game we all know and love.

I can handle your argument any day of the week, to be honest, because your criteria for what makes a good game is ridiculous - raw graphical quality or being 'at the top of the market' is hardly the measure of a game.

I said you must like the attention because that's honestly what it seems like. You spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort insulting a game that you do not support or seem to want anything to do with (until its released, when you'll probably buy and edit with it, all the while groaning about Valve's evil lies) and then taking back your statments under any degree of pressure. In addition to the examples in this thread, you've of course gone off many a time about how HL2's engine was somehow bad because it was based off HL1's, which you stopped saying after I confronted you on it.

BEFORE: "HL2 is dissapointing"

AFTER: "I never once said I didn't like HL2"

BEFORE: "Released in september it would have blown the world away"

AFTER: "in todays market it is not near the top in any way"

And that's just from the two posts you've made larger than two or three sentences. You remind me of John Kerry.

What new gameplay is there? Sure there's the physics in there, but there's nothing new.

Judging from the gameplay footage, there is more new gameplay potential than found in any of the games its being compared with - Stalker, Far Cry, Painkiller? Sure, all pretty games, but none of them do much new, its all hack maim kill. HL2 may well be the same, but the manner in which these kills are achieved seems to be far more versatile than the normal weapons or nothing approach of the FPS. Essentially, its a leap made to gameplay rather than graphics. Not a huge one I admit, but a bigger one than most FPSs seem to make, and that appeals to me more than higher polycounts or uber shader effects.

ReNo said:
Azelito posted scans of this months UK PC Gamer which had an article written by a guy who went and played HL2 at Valve's offices. It had quite a lot of new screenshots in it - my flatmate has the magazine :smile:

LOL they were the same old pics Reno... Valve arn't giving anything away :razz:

And scary Jeff I'm obviously going to take the side of KingNic here... You're never going to be that close to see the facial animations in thier full glory, knowing that if you watch it too hard you will lose concentration of the surrounding environment, and are likely to be killed :razz:

Good to see someone else isn't HL2 obsessed beyond logical reason like most people here though... I'll wait till the game comes out to properly judge it for now, but all we are given atm is graphics, so graphics is what I'll critisize :kitty:

And a lot of you are taking my opinions childishly, not as an oposing view, as they should be taken. Think about what I'm writing :rolleyes: Pracitce your debating skills.

Myrk- said:
And scary Jeff I'm obviously going to take the side of KingNic here... You're never going to be that close to see the facial animations in thier full glory, knowing that if you watch it too hard you will lose concentration of the surrounding environment, and are likely to be killed :razz:

Good to see someone else isn't HL2 obsessed beyond logical reason like most people here though... I'll wait till the game comes out to properly judge it for now, but all we are given atm is graphics, so graphics is what I'll critisize :kitty:

And a lot of you are taking my opinions childishly, not as an oposing view, as they should be taken. Think about what I'm writing :rolleyes: Pracitce your debating skills.

:rolleyes: - The refutation of all three paragraphs. How's that for childish debating!

Debating skills? You can't keep a consistent point apart from that your views are immune from criticism because they are 'opposing', nor do you seem to be able to directly respond to valid argument. I'll come back here when you choose to hear my 'opposing viewpoints'.

Myrk- said:
And a lot of you are taking my opinions childishly, not as an oposing view, as they should be taken. Think about what I'm writing :rolleyes: Pracitce your debating skills.

???Childishly???? I have to agree with cassius...your the one making false statements like: "Good to see someone else isn't HL2 obsessed beyond logical reason like most people here though" ???obsessed??? :eek: we're not obsessed, its more like this game looks great so far and we want to play/map for it. so whos the child now??? Us or you?