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Source Engine - In The Belly Of The Beast?

Posted by simoniker on from the jonah-and-whale dept.

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.")

5 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. AI is "very, very powerful" by lunarscape · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The sequence where the Strider blows up the bridge was unscripted and unexpected by Valve

    That was unscripted??? Wow. Just wow.

    The NPC's will refuse to take stupid orders

    What do you mean you won't walk into that flaming pool of death? I gave you an order!!!

    1. Re:AI is "very, very powerful" by Zorilla · · Score: 5, Funny

      The NPC's will refuse to take stupid orders

      I believe Warcraft already had that feature. You know, the one where you'd try to flank the enemy, but because your troops think your orders are stupid, they instead find a really good shortcut that involves going in head-on single file towards a large number of enemies.

      --

      It would be cool if it didn't suck.
  2. Re:Hmmm by Weyland+Yutani · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www2.ati.com/developer/gdc/D3DTutorial10_Ha lf-Life2_Shading.pdf

  3. Unscripted... by th1ckasabr1ck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When the HL2 source was leaked, it became evident that many of the things Valve claimed were not scripted actually were. Keep that in mind and take this with a grain or two.

    1. Re:Unscripted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.