Half-Life 2 or Mod Life 2?

mayro

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I have seen things, a great many things. I dont know if im the first to say this, but doesnt it seem that Half-Life 2 is lacking? Before you think this is a rant thread this isnt, its a observation that you may agree with.

Modifications are where this game is, we all know that the first halflife was a great success because of its modability. Has anyone noticed that in the pictures that we have seen that the models of atleast the weapons arent as high of detail as they could possibly be? Dont they seem a little bland? The charecter models are awsome but this is the first time something like that has ever happend so they are showing it off... The reason im bringing up the weapon models is that from the pictures i have seen from the mod teams makeing their weapons and prepping them for when halflife 2 comes out they seem to look alot better. It looks like they took alot more time on their weapon models. Take that zombie mod for instance, have you seen their old style truck?

I think the reasoning behind this is so that the game will be able to be ran on all types of systems, but do you see them haveing a special pack for people with high def computers? I have just gotten into 3d modeling "thxs halflife2.net mod form" and where i can see thing's can be difficult, makeing weapons is not.

The question boils down to... Do you think that valve could do a better job on the weapons or atleast have some reasoning behind why they seem to be lacking in detail when the rest of the game is butiful? or Is it the models i have seen for their mods in such high detail that they will never work in the game from being to high in "poly count?".
 
Um, you do know that HL2's weapons are rendered in real time, and the mod team's aren't....
 
But wouldnt a computer with 2 gigs of ram and a x800 xt yata yata be able to handle something of that nature?
 
Uh, no.

Quite simply.. unless you like rendering one frame at a time. Nothing can render at that speed and at that quality.
 
Valve has to make sure their game runs on a multitude of systems. Thus they have to aim for a middle ground in model detail.

That said, I think that we will indeed see some superior products come from the mod community. But it will probably take a few years, just like NS for hl1.
 
What you've seen isnt the final. The models are very very detailed (load up even the crowbar from hl2 in HLMV and you will be amazed by the little scuffs and dents in it), I just think they want to surprise us and turn on all the goodies at the end :)
 
mayro said:
But wouldnt a computer with 2 gigs of ram and a x800 xt yata yata be able to handle something of that nature?

No - they're rendered frame by frame in a 3D editing program using techniques that simply cannot be done in real time at the moment and with an insane amount of polies.

Now you haven't shown us any specific pictures, but in general those models have extremely high quality textures, along with ray-traced lighting and other fancy tricks.
 
"What you've seen isnt the final. The models are very very detailed (load up even the crowbar from hl2 in HLMV and you will be amazed by the little scuffs and dents in it), I just think they want to surprise us and turn on all the goodies at the end "

You got the leak or something?
 
Whatup1049 said:
What you've seen isnt the final. The models are very very detailed (load up even the crowbar from hl2 in HLMV and you will be amazed by the little scuffs and dents in it), I just think they want to surprise us and turn on all the goodies at the end :)

And I join you in this ignorant bliss, and hope not to get dissappointed when it finally does come out. So here's to us who think they're just going to shut us all up and surprise the shit out of us. :cheers:
 
If there is one thing HL2 does not suffer from.... its "lack of detail"....


:hmph:
 
I had just seen all the works that have been in action for half life 2, the weapons just look better :)

Is their a way to record the uber model and just have it run not as a model but more like a video? Like is player uses action one then run video 1?

I know that isnt a very detailed explenation but isnt it possible? Kinda like a movie?
 
mayro said:
I had just seen all the works that have been in action for half life 2, the weapons just look better :)

Is their a way to record the uber model and just have it run not as a model but more like a video? Like is player uses action one then run video 1?

I know that isnt a very detailed explenation but isnt it possible? Kinda like a movie?

What? I think you're very confused. Try researching a bit about modeling and how game engines render in real time.
 
mayro said:
I had just seen all the works that have been in action for half life 2, the weapons just look better :)

Is their a way to record the uber model and just have it run not as a model but more like a video? Like is player uses action one then run video 1?

I know that isnt a very detailed explenation but isnt it possible? Kinda like a movie?

Mmmmmmmno.

You're right about one thing... you're definitely new at modeling. :burp:
 
What Mayro was suggesting sounds oddly similar to the way old 2.5D games like Doom I/II handled weapons, an animated 2D sprite.
 
I personally think the weapons look great.
 
Neutrino said:

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAahahAH! every time i see your avatar I think of the movie it came from :). god now I feel like watching it, do you have a link?


oh yeah and no... that wouldnt work....
 
Remember that Valve was a little known company with little money when Half-Life came out. Their time and budget probably limited their weapon modelling and textures. Now, they have loads of money, and they're putting it towards the right things.
 
mayro said:
I had just seen all the works that have been in action for half life 2, the weapons just look better :)

Is their a way to record the uber model and just have it run not as a model but more like a video? Like is player uses action one then run video 1?

I know that isnt a very detailed explenation but isnt it possible? Kinda like a movie?

its a bit more dynamic than that, a movie wouldnt capture the different angles of the weapon in 3D because its not dynamic. (real time manipulatable), it would look unwholely unrealistic, and the enviroment lights wouldnt touch it, it would look odd, .. lol.

you can clearly see when the player turns with any weapon, it bobs off to the opposite side of the direction of the motion, this changes the perspective of your view on the weapon. so it needs to be optomised and in real time for a more realistic looking object.

you also cant see this, but the other side of the weapon (that you cant see) doesnt exist atall, the backfacing polygons you cant see are deleted, for the optimisation purpose. As its also pointless modelling and mapping stuff your not going to see in game.

their are two seperate weapons, modelled for each weapon the 'pick up weapon' (low poly)

and the hud model (the higher poly), but im sure you know all of this :). seriously its quite hard to fathom the amount of modelling and texture work going on in a game like this,, its truely massive. and it all has to be done perfectly to give the programmers as straight forward a time as possible
 
My friend was complaining about some of the weapon models, character models, and sounds. I think everything looks pretty damn good..
 
riTuaL said:
My friend was complaining about some of the weapon models, character models, and sounds. I think everything looks pretty damn good..

Tell your friend to make weapons in real-time and then talk if he is able to even achieve something 1/1000 good of that...
 
the OICW looked a bit bland but as a rule they look awesome, get them in game and they shall undoubtably all be something special.
 
Some of the weapons in HL2 have upwards of 2000 polygons. That isn't far off of the character models in UT2003. How much more detail do you want?
 
breadbomb said:
Remember that Valve was a little known company with little money when Half-Life came out. Their time and budget probably limited their weapon modelling and textures. Now, they have loads of money, and they're putting it towards the right things.
Are you kidding? When HL1 came out those feelslikeaneternity years ago it's viewmodels totally owned it's time D:
 
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