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Source Engine - In The Belly Of The Beast?
Thanks to Half-Life 2 Fallout for its fan-written feature discussing the content of Valve's Source videogame engine, as used for Half-Life 2. The piece explains: "The Source engine is not just a 3D engine (in the sense it's not just a renderer) -- it contains many different modules that are all brought together into one package", and tries to clarify discussion on subjects as diverse as lighting ("Something that has caused confusion in the past is 'dynamic lights' [in the Source engine].... All a light has to be in order for it to be qualified as dynamic is to be able to move and have changeable attributes.... It doesn't mean that it will [necessarily] cast real time shadows like in Doom 3 or Unreal Engine 3.0"), and in-game water ("When Valve say the water is physically simulated, they mean objects have buoyancy. They don't mean the Source engine has fluid dynamics.")
it's generally been my expierence that most "unexpected outcomes" are euphemisms for bugs ;)
I might as well copy-and-paste from a comment I posted a few weeks ago. I can't be arsed writing another detailed criticism of all these 'scripting' allegations...
"Then there are claims of 'scripting' in the leaked demos. Believe it or not, some things have to be scripted. Decent AI might get a simulated soldier to behave realistically and evade or attack the player at appropriate moments, but higher-order behaviours (like, say, breaking a door open) need to be scripted. It would be impressive for a human player to instantaneously figure out all the interactive aspects of a map, let alone a computer-controlled enemy. The scripting for such complex behaviours needs a lot of work to take account of many different possiblities, and it's obvious that Valve didn't include all of them in the demonstration map. But it's not as if the whole lot was faked, like the E3 2000 Halo demonstration...
"I've done a bunch of single-player mapping for Half-Life. One of the hardest things is the scripting - not the obvious, scripted sequence stuff, but the behind-the-scenes mechanics which makes the world come alive. AI works for the moment, while scripting is needed to set the scene, and to make the enemies more than simplistic automata. AI drives the scripting, and scripting drives the AI."
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Yes, but thats still better than it will be released next month. Opps sorry, no it will be released a year from now.
some things HAVING TO BE scripted has nothing to do with facts that things valve said weren't scripted were scripted.
that's like saying "this game doesn't just spawn enemies around the player, it's a full living world" and then when you play the game you go "WTF?" when the world is just one room after another of fancy graphics AND enemies that get spawned right in front of your eyes after you enter the room.
it's just total bullshitting, like saying that the game is ready in a month when in fact it needs so much work they can't get it out in a fucking year.
valve has gotten so much forgiven already for making half-life 1 an excellent game, after that they haven't really delivered anything except hype.
While it might not really be a startling reaction from the players point of view, I can imagine being pleasantly surprised if I developed the game and knew that it was not scripted. I mean most people say that games have good AI if they manage to take cover when you try to destroy them, but actually destroying a bridge to hinder the player or doing other actions stop the player from reaching their goals really is unheard of in gaming today (at least any game that I can think of).
SIGFAULT