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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.")
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.