derby
Newbie
- Joined
- May 17, 2003
- Messages
- 437
- Reaction score
- 0
1) Hammer has been improved, rewritten and (I hope) a lot of the bugs have been fixed. A solid tool is the most essential part of working with maps.
2) Poly-counts are higher. Scalable level of detail will (hopefully) allow larger, more detailed environments. No longer does the map maker havce to crawl around his map with r_speeds on trying to get the poly count down.
3) New texture system. Using bump maps (and gloss maps, Gabe talked about source supporting specular highlights) more realistic textures can be created. Image trying to create a car. Before even using photgraphs for textures would not look too realistic. Now image a flat coloured texture, with a bump map for the lines in the bodywork, and a glossmap so the paint looks shiny and metallic.
4) Your PC is probably faster. Assuming you've had an upgrade in the last 5 years, you'll now have more RAM, maybe a larger harddrive. This will allow you to work faster, and I hope compile times wont have increased more than your processor speed.
5) You're more experienced. Some of the skills you (possibly) learned from scratch canm be applied to HL2. The new hammer looks similar to the old one, so anyone that used the old one gets a head start.
6) There's a larger community now. More people are interested in HL2, the will be more people to get help form etc.
7) The new physics engine will mean much less scripting. No loger will you need 3 or 4 entities to make something break realistically. Now it will all be done for you.
8) Cos Gabe said so. And we believe what he says. Especially as it involves HL2
9) New AI and acting system will reduce the ammount of scripting that needs to be done for NPCs as well as enemies.
10) Ok, so I only got nine. But it sounded better to have ten reasons why.....
Most of this is admittedly speculative. However there's nothing really wild in here, it all seems reasonalbe. Some points (such as 4)) are debatable, but I'm posting this here mainly to reasure people who seem to be intimidated by Source.
2) Poly-counts are higher. Scalable level of detail will (hopefully) allow larger, more detailed environments. No longer does the map maker havce to crawl around his map with r_speeds on trying to get the poly count down.
3) New texture system. Using bump maps (and gloss maps, Gabe talked about source supporting specular highlights) more realistic textures can be created. Image trying to create a car. Before even using photgraphs for textures would not look too realistic. Now image a flat coloured texture, with a bump map for the lines in the bodywork, and a glossmap so the paint looks shiny and metallic.
4) Your PC is probably faster. Assuming you've had an upgrade in the last 5 years, you'll now have more RAM, maybe a larger harddrive. This will allow you to work faster, and I hope compile times wont have increased more than your processor speed.
5) You're more experienced. Some of the skills you (possibly) learned from scratch canm be applied to HL2. The new hammer looks similar to the old one, so anyone that used the old one gets a head start.
6) There's a larger community now. More people are interested in HL2, the will be more people to get help form etc.
7) The new physics engine will mean much less scripting. No loger will you need 3 or 4 entities to make something break realistically. Now it will all be done for you.
8) Cos Gabe said so. And we believe what he says. Especially as it involves HL2
9) New AI and acting system will reduce the ammount of scripting that needs to be done for NPCs as well as enemies.
10) Ok, so I only got nine. But it sounded better to have ten reasons why.....
Most of this is admittedly speculative. However there's nothing really wild in here, it all seems reasonalbe. Some points (such as 4)) are debatable, but I'm posting this here mainly to reasure people who seem to be intimidated by Source.
.......ah well
