No Gordon player model?

B

Bennus

Guest
I know its hard to say, and well we'll just have to wait till 30th september, but is gordon planning on being invisible?
Or will he have a player model, that we can see in mirrors, or true reflections (i mean refelctions that show everything)

But so far we can go on something, i know there's another thread detailing this, but can anyone go through that 600MB video frame-by-frame through the tech demo bit with the camera, becasue there is a orange thing, but if its the flames then Gordon is invisible. I personally dont have the vid :( , so i can't do it. I don;t think its impossible to do it frame by frame (you'll be surprised what some people can do)

I do hope there is a player model, for immersions sake (like Thief 3) - but if there isn't it means no mirrors or the like :(

can anyone put this potential niggle to rest?
 
well there were a player model in HL1 and that game didn't even have mirrors(I would guess that HL2 has them somewhere, but who knows)

and if they're putting in HL2 DM then there will most likely be a Gordon Model...
 
i dont think there will be, since that would ruin the immersion. it'd be similar to hearing gordon speak.
 
Even if there aren't mirrors, I bet that the water reflects some....hopefully it'll reflect Gordon's model maybe?
 
although no one can verify until sept 30, having no gordon model would be like having no crowbar, or having no duck-jump.

there will be a gordon model
as for ruining immersion, the whole idea is to make you feel like you are gordon... and gordon has a reflection, and its not you.. if it were you then this would be your story, its not.. its his, they want you to feel as though you are him.
and at the very least it will be a multiplayer model.
I can promise you there will be a gordon model, its logical.

yup IM redundant
 
if you're going to use that logic, then why not have gordon speak? if you're supposed to feel like gordon, then it would only seem natural.
 
Originally posted by Sparky the Fox
if you're going to use that logic, then why not have gordon speak? if you're supposed to feel like gordon, then it would only seem natural.
Click to expand...

no...because he might say something that you wouldn't say...or have an attitude or character that isn't you...or act in a way that isn't you...I've found most game were your dialoge is chosen for you(without having any choice whatsoever) quite annoying. old game to prove this example "Evil Island" except for being an overall crappy game...you can't choose your dialoge, this is especially bad because it's a RPG, but I've found that it doesn't really matter the genre of the game...having a fully prescripted dialoge is bad.(they might of course do something like Unreal2, but that was crap...because it was like 3 choices and they didn't make any difference in the end)

having a mirror image wouldn't change much except making the game more realistic and immersive...
 
Originally posted by Sparky the Fox
if you're going to use that logic, then why not have gordon speak? if you're supposed to feel like gordon, then it would only seem natural.
Click to expand...

you misinterperate what I mean by my logic remark, because as space said, having set dialogue is a lot more restricting, than seeing the obvious representation of your character in said game.
 
i see. well, personally, when i play games, i get the feeling that i myself am there, so seeing a reflection of someone else ruins it. guess i'm just weird though :dozey:
 
naw I understand what you mean man :)
its just common place for games to include a model of their lead character.
now wether or not you will see yourself is left to be erhm.. seen lol
although the model will exist, and be used in mp most definately, I doubt you will see much of yourself in singleplayer.
(I intend to play it co-op though :), I hope coop is included although if not I would do it my damn self):cheers:
 
Originally posted by Sparky the Fox
i see. well, personally, when i play games, i get the feeling that i myself am there, so seeing a reflection of someone else ruins it. guess i'm just weird though :dozey:
Click to expand...

you could always make a custom model with a picture of your face on it...:dork:
 
Hmmm you are gordon freeman. I'm not sure how you can get around that fact. Are your arms covered in an orange hazard suit? You see his hands holding the weapons so I don't think they have any reason to leave out his reflection for the sake of "playing the game as you."

Furthermore, on a personal note I would find playing the game as Gordon Freeman the Vampire would challenge my "suspension of belief."

But fear not. There are a few times when you should see your own (or others') reflections but don't in the movies so perhaps only the world geometry is reflected and no player models (and therefore neither are you.) This could simply be a limitation of the engine.

-Straylight
 
i see it now, it does kinda make sense. But i'm just wondering: what's worse? running past a mirror seeing no one, or running past the mirror and seeing Gordon (and stop to check yourself out ;) ) I mean really, valve can't leave out mirrors, not that they intend to, but not with this sort of tech.
A part of my brain has come up with an answer to the first part - i'd say that seeing no-one is better, 'cause if the developers are lucky you might not even notice.

Oh btw, i checked the vid with the Hydra in the sewers and Gordon drops down from a point onto water, and there was no refelction - although the water reflected eveything else, like the model of the combine. Which means that there is no model in the tech demo of the E3 vid, cause Valve hadn't put it in yet - simple logic :)
 
Nope. The engine is perfectly capable of rendering player models/other characters... At least in water, and most likely windows as well.

Take a look at this picture
 
Yup, windows as well, remember the official vid, and the scanner thing passing infront?
 
Let me clarify. I guess the engine can't reneder refledtions of players off everything that should reflect them and still run on an average comp.

For example you should see yourself in the computer screen you knock over at some point but you never do (at least as far as I can see.) This is of course assumeing that Sparky isn't right about them intentionally leaving gordon out.

Oh btw, we've never actually seen a render of gordon at all have we? So it could be they just havn't modled him yet. I would be supprised but it's possible.

-Straylight
 
lol, it would be pretty bad if they hadvn't yet rendered Gordan. I mean it should be one of, if not the first ingame model that you would make. Then again maybe they havn't decided on what he will look like yet (what he is wearing).
 
I'm sure there are several. HL2 has been in developement for five years and I'm sure they have redone all the player models a few times as comps could handle higher and higher polycounts. I mean we even have hints that the SMG changed from an MP5k to an MP7 durring the developement. If they were in the process of updating charracters it wouldn't supprise me if gordon wasn't done first because hes not as visible but still must be well made because you will see his reflection up close.

-Straylight
 
I think it can be concluded that there will be a Gordan player model, but it will only be seen in reflections and in multiplay (if it is decided to include the model as a playable character).
 
Gordon the Vampire? Or will he just be floating orange arms holding weapons? Seriously, you already see your hands and it would break the "immersion" too seriously if he wasn't reflected.

-Straylight
 
on an unrelated topic, i'm interested as to how gordon moving through the water will look. will the water splish and splash around him, and ripple etc? i tried to catch a glimpse on the 600 meg video but there's no real indicators.
 
Oh: here is a mirror you’re defiantly not in:

I'm not saying that it gordon doesn't show up in reflections just that if I were to bet, I would bet that he does in the final game. The e3 demos were not complete in many ways and adding a complicated player model you don't see very much anyway could be one of them.

[edit] The mirror is on the edge of the first pane.

-Straylight
 
about that computer monitor thing... i'm not sure how advanced source's light engine is; i just think it'd be easier to use a cubemap on something like a little monitor rather than try to get surface translucency/diffusion right so it looks like it should.

and, from what i've seen of the technique for the water effects, i'm wagering that there will not be rippling/parting like the vertex shader water in morrowind. they said something about using a bump-map to render the refraction and whatnot. my only complaint with this method is that i haven't seen any calm or still-standing water. all of what i've seen has been like there were 200mph winds with thousands of whirlpools going on at once.
 
you will notice that when he wack the zombie into the water there are small amount of water ripling...
 
aaah that's good news indeed. what would be even niftier is if there were weather effects and the water reflected it. rain = drops, wind = waves... i don't think we're that far off from seeing it at least in a limited form...
 
I can imagine you would see simple ripples in the water if it rains. However I think wind is still a bit far off to be implemented into a game.
 
In all honesty, not really. Once you figure out a realistic effect (in this case, how much wind at speed x affects the water), you can get it in. Most physical properties can be done without an obscene amount of effort. Sure, it'll take time, but what doesn't? The only problem is optimization. The way I picture it would take a large chunk of performance to get it working. You can get wind going at angles affecting water, too. Ah, the wonders of tangents, sines and cosines...

-Vert

EDIT: Heh, forgot about the main topic all together. Anyway, I'm not sure if you'll be able to see the Gordon reflection in mirrors or not. I mean, it's logical, but...I don't know. It's hard to put my finger on why, but it's just this sense that they won't. I mean, I saw the monitor's reflection, and I didn't give it a second thought about having a reflection of Gordon. It just seemed so natural...I suppose it's because seeing Gordon might ruin the whole immersive feeling. He may not *look* like some people would like to, so they'd think "What the hell. This is stupid". It seemed natural to me that they didn't have the model...it's just weird. Like I said before, I can't put my finger on why, but it just seemed...natural. Heh, this post is long enough to warrant another signature.

-Vert
 
the "mirrors" in original halflife were just dull, didn't reflect anything, which looked kinda stupid.
it will be interesting how they deal with the whole mirror issue this time around.
 
There were mirrors? Where?
...
Was it in the dressing room area above the sinks? If so, I can't even remember there being mirrors...Anyway, were they just gray slabs?

-Vert
 
Originally posted by Vertigo
EDIT: Heh, forgot about the main topic all together. Anyway, I'm not sure if you'll be able to see the Gordon reflection in mirrors or not. I mean, it's logical, but...I don't know. It's hard to put my finger on why, but it's just this sense that they won't. I mean, I saw the monitor's reflection, and I didn't give it a second thought about having a reflection of Gordon. It just seemed so natural...I suppose it's because seeing Gordon might ruin the whole immersive feeling. He may not *look* like some people would like to, so they'd think "What the hell. This is stupid". It seemed natural to me that they didn't have the model...it's just weird. Like I said before, I can't put my finger on why, but it just seemed...natural. Heh, this post is long enough to warrant another signature.

-Vert
Click to expand...

I might agree with you if you didn't see your hands holding the guns. Therefore you already look like Gordon. If they wanted to give him no charracteristics whatsoever they could easily just angle the weapons in such a way that you never saw hands or anything.

Also, you might not notice your lack of a reflection in a computer monitor or some liquid (I didn't notice this at all until this post) but if they ever put an actual mirror in the game it would look very odd if you wern't in it.

On the other hand it would also look really odd if you looked down and saw your reflection in some water below you but no legs leading to it.

Perhaps they put this "feature" in for that other source game about vampires lol.

Anyhow, I vote for gordon reflecting but I guess it's just a personal prefrence.

-Straylight
 
You can also watch the camera sequence and see that when the little bug brakes it and it turns around you cant see gordon.
 
I seem to recall reading somewhere-- or maybe it was in the Valve developer interview video-- that they ran out of time when developing HL1 and weren't able to include a Gordon model. So contrary to what has been said earlier the Gordon model wouldn't be one of the first they would develop, but the last! This makes sense, as everyone has noted, it hardly makes a whit of difference to the gameplay experience. So I really doubt they would have had a Gordon model ready for E3, but it still could be in the final game.
 
That's a good point djkanuk !
:cheers:

-Skull
 
And *shock horror* thats the reason we had no cut-scenes in HL, and then Valve found out it was better that way (yeah, i read the same thing as you djkanuk:) )
 
What about the playable Gordan Freeman model in Half Life DM
 
I'm sure if you do get to see Gordon in HL2, he'll still be wearing his HEV suit helmet, so you won't actually get to see him in the flesh at all.
 
From Computer Games, June 2003:

"Once again, players will experience the entire game exclusively through the eyes of Freeman, with no third-person view cutscenes or mission briefings. Laidlaw admits that they weren't convinced that sticking with the first-person view throughout the first game was the way to go, and in fact, one of the reasons it ended up that way is because they never had time to make a Gordon Freeman model without the suit. He says there are limitations to this approach but that it forces them to make some interesting decisions to compensate. 'we just scratched the surface [in Half-Life] of things we could do with narrative.' Laidlaw says"

Sounds like we could be seeing a Gordon model...
 
There is certainly a Gordon model in the SDK that shipped with HL1. It has no AI and no scripted death sequence etc. so it can't be used for much more than multiplayer or cutscenes (the female HEV model was used - as a hologram in HL and as a worker delivering 'the sample" in Blue Shift).

The mirrors in HL1 were made using the polished metal texture. This was done because HL1 can't handle refections. If you want to do reflections it takes a lot of work and scripting and you can't reflect the player as his motions are unpredictable. The reflections in the floor in Blueshift were done by reducing the opacity of the floors and placing an inverted copy of the room underneath (complete with scientists walking on the ceiling).
 
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