HL2 Expectations

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.

Although I never saw the pirated version, I also was expecting an OICW, and was rather disappointed not to get it. All in all though, I was very satisfied with the experience. It was an excellent game with a tight fast paced story line. it may be that they cut away allot of stuff simply because it felt like filler or bloat in what was meant to be an interactive cinematic experience.

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. :smile:

seems that we've just said exactly the same thing in different words, Crono.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>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. :smile: </DIV></DIV>

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.

Perhaps Valve is just saving all these other features for HL3?
Why put all the goodies in one basket when you can save some for later?

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...

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Pvt.Scythe</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>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...

</DIV></DIV>
I sure hope so. I thought the Aurora would have been SO COOL!

Didn't Valve say they plan on putting out an expansion in the near future (next year or something) ?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
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.

</DIV></DIV>

There was the orange maintenace guy, there's 2 driving forklifts at the beginning in the tram sequence. It's not much but he's there :razz:

On topic though, I think HL2 exceeded my expectations. I wasn't expecting such a mind-blowingly awesome experience :smile:
By the way you can get some weapons like Grigori's gun and Alyx's gun through the console. You can even place them in maps, since they're listed in the weapon entities. Cool eh?

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.

Vavle's approach to HL2 expansion is "episodic". Meaning, they are
going to release "episodes" of gameplay every few months or so, to keep
the story going. As with HL and HL2, each "episode" is comprised of
around 2-4 levels.

I hope they release that ship chapter, it looked sweet.

Frankly - and I feel bad saying this considering all the stuff I said about HL2 before its release - I was kind of disappointed. It still blows away its direct competitors, UT2k4 and Doom 3, but the single player wasn't the utter fantastic-ness I was expecting, and the multiplayer is still bare bones (though the gravity gun more than makes up for this). More than anything, I was disappointed by the editing software; it had almost none of the features I expected, and I won't really be able to texture (and thus map) for the game until a texture converter comes out that isn't entirely f**king ridiculously complicated and tedious.

I don't like the direction games are going in general - towards modelling as being an integral part of mapping - but that's not just HL2.

<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">? quote: Cassius</div><div class="quotetext">I don't like the direction games are going in general - towards
modelling as being an integral part of mapping - but that's not just
HL2. </div></div>

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).

Aren't the models still rendered real-time though? Can you explain that in more depth?

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?

Not really. It seems to me that in a game everything would have to be rendered real time unless it was a set animation or some such (i.e. a cut-scene) because the player has the freedom to view the environment from every angle and change what happens or what can be seen. That's the difference between games and movies.

Say you pre-rendered a 3D scene from all possible angels. then I suppose you might be able to have an interactive environment with the advantages of a movie. All the computer would have to do is decide what frame to display based on the location and such of the player. However, it seems like that would take up an absolutely massive amount of disk space and RAM to run...

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. :smile: 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)

Okay, well I don't really understand, but I'll take your word for it.

I'm not entirely sure on the tech of these things, but I'll try and
explain why models and BSP geometry are different in rendering costs...

BSP geometry (as in brushes built in hammer) are quite a bit more
taxing for the game than a model, because all of it needs to be in
memory. Models are loaded into memory once each and any instances of
them in your map are just references to the same model. So if you have
20 pillars in a room, if you make them in hammer then the same data
will be put into memory 20 times, while if you make them in a modelling
program and put them in as props, the geometry data is loaded in once
and referenced for each location. Obviously details are then changed
for each reference, such as bullet holes and any sort of deformation
that the instances can have, but the memory difference will be
signficantly less regardless.

As for rendering performance, it probably has a fair amount to do with
simpler lighting routines. In source, BSP geometry is lit with pretty
high resolution light maps, while props are lit with much simpler
vertex lighting. Also, somewhat complex objects built in a modelling
package can normally be made using far less polygons than hammer. They
will also not suffer from face splitting due to overlapping or BSP
segmentation.

Again, I'm not overly confident I'm correct on all of this, somebody like Andrew would be better able to answer I'm sure.

Hardly any of the lighting on world stuff is done in real time though, is it? All it has to do is display what the compile tools worked out before hand (and at great length)

Hardly any of the lighting on world stuff is done in real time
though, is it? All it has to do is display what the compile tools
worked out before hand (and at great length)

Right. If all lighting was calculated in real time it wouldn't run.
Dammit,
light is so complex. (Thus RAD calculates highlights and shadows and
everything else has a base light amount) However, I'm not sure about
dynamic lighting. That has to be somewhat calculated real time. I bet
dynamic lights have severly less quality then normal lights. And a
cleaner algorithm.

I know I s**ttly explained it because I'm not entirely sure on how it is more effecient. Sorry :smile:

difference between 3d rendering and real-time is like the difference between a sprite and a model. sprites are rendered 3d images, whereas models are compiled 3-dimensional wireframes with a 3d rendering wrapped about them. a sprite is just the skin that changes position based upon what direction it is being viewed, and it is user specific.

I was dissapointed because of the fact that there weren't any real alien weapons except for that stress ball.. thing.

Once again, I have to point out my knowledge on this isn't perfect, but I'll try to clarify the lighting differences a little.

Lightmaps are calculated during the compile process. These are then
overlaid onto faces and the colour of the screen pixel is calculated by
the chosen texel (the name of a single texture unit) and the respective
luxel (I think thats its name - the lightmap equivelant of a texel).
I'm not sure if the lightmap and texture are combined during the
compile or at run time, but for switching lights or lights with any
effects (note: NOT dynamic lighting, but light entities with any
"appearance" setting) it would need to be real time I guess.

Obviously that isn't true of dynamic lighting, such as explosions,
muzzle flashes, the flashlight, and any light_dynamic entities you
make. I can only speculate on how this is done, possibly using lower
resolution lightmaps or something made in real time?

Vertex lighting is pretty simple. The light value at the given vertex
is calculated, and the face is rendered by interpolating the light
values at each vertex and adding that value to the texel colour.
Figuring out the lighting value based on the world around it need only
be done once per vertex, rather than once per texel like with the
lightmaps. Obviously this means no small shadows will effect props,
unless the shadow happens to fall over one of the vertices of the model.

Please note that some of this may be incorrect, but its my understanding of the various lighting types.

I imagine for dynamic lights, it just temorarily changes the value of the luxel at a given point. Of course, I imagine you are a bit more... enlightened than I am on the topic than myself, but this is what I'm assuming. Makes sense to me, anyway.