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Half-Life 2 - Lost Coast Details
Eurogamer.com has some more details on the mini-expansion cum tech demo that is "The Lost Coast". The release will be specifically for high-end PCs, and is intended to show off the places that Valve can stretch the Source technology into. From the article: "If you jump out of a dark space into a light area you're going to be blinded. It's going to be really bright until your eyes adjust. It can be used the other way around, too. Hide from a monster in a dark area and it will take a couple of seconds to go from a silhouette to detail..."
Perchance I am mistaken, but where are these "amazing" screenshots? Oh that's right, they're in the magazine that I have to buy to view.
So what do I call an article that raves about something that I can only actually see if I pay money? An advertisement.
How about we start labeling this fluff for what it is?
Theres some concept sketches up on IGN heres the link http://media.pc.ign.com/media/492/492830/imgs_1.ht ml
the concept sketches are in the center..the others I believe are just typical halflife2
The release will be specifically for high-end PCs
Great! I look forward to playing this in 5 years when the components become affordable. That is if Steam is still running...
No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
Actually yes it is...I can't remember specifics.. but I had the misfortune of watching Attack of the Show on what used to be TechTV. They previewed the technology and it was quite amazing. The light is just hotter (if you understand hot in terms of light) than light without that technology. Very interesting stuff, but hard to describe until you see it.The flashbang effect is a whiteout, that fades back in. this is totally different.
Is this really any different than flashbang grenades we've seen in CS?
;-)
Yes. Very different.
I've posted links to it before, but here's a great demonstration of high-dynamic-range lighting, albeit taken to GPU-bullying extremes.
Basically, lighting in current games has very little range. A seemingly 'dark' room may actually be only slightly dimmer than the bright summer day 'outside'; in the case of lightmaps, it goes from 0 (pitch black) to 255 (as bright as possible). If you've had any experience with photography, you'll know that real life has a much greater range - for example, this was several thousand times brighter than this.
HDR can give back that variation, with lightmaps (or whatever) done with floating point, for a lighting range of 'well, lots'. Various post-processing effects are possible, such as 'bloom' and true motion-blur (specular highlights don't get turned into grey for each sub-frame) - basically, it's a much more realistic model of how light works.
Because output to the monitor is still 0-255 per channel, it gives the player an 'eye' which automatically adjusts to the ambient brightness. So, if you immediately step from a bright, sunny day into a dark monastery (for example), your eyes will need time to adjust.
Hmm. Someone needs to do a Thief-style game with HDR...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I've been saying for some time I'd like to see a FPS incorporate light discipline and sound discipline - in other words, standing in a doorway with bright light behind you makes you a good target for the bad guys, waving your flashlight around needlessly lets the bad guys know where you are, making lots of noise lets the bad guys know where you are....
Imagine having to dive from a brightly lit room into a dark room quickly (in order to not get shot when you are in the door), then having to wait for a while to let your eyes adjust, then flipping a light switch and watching the bad guys shoot out the lights....
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