shadows in screenshots

[biked]

I have not seen the movie's yet, but some screenshots seem to have realy strange shadows(directions)
look at this one:
http://www.halflife2.net/image_files/Halflife06.jpg

 

[FireBall]

yeah we know about that

 

[Kongo]

Yeah.. two different directions..hmm

 

[EVIL]

Will be fixed.. I am sure of that.. you wont spend 5 years developing an engine and then make the content sucky therefore waisting development times.

 

[Vertigo]

Considering how those are screenshots from a September build, I'd put my money down saying it'd be fixed. They usually put finishing touches like shadows last, so I'd say they're working on it now.

-Vert

 

[RoyalEF]

The screenshots appear to be from an earlier build since that particular problem doesn't occur in the movies.

You might also notice in the background is a truck with a soldier standing in the shadow of the truck. The Soldier shadow's overlays the truck's and makes them darker(not how shadows actually work). That is present in the movie and may not be fixed. It may have been the easiest way to implement shadows.

In the movies there are objects without shadows--which I expect is likely to be the same in the game. There is a lampost and tree in the same scene as you posted that lack shadows, while most other things have them.

They also appear to be using the light_environment as the source of sun, since shadows change angles within the City 17 square. It like the sun is right behind the building in the corner. Again, not how it works. Sun shadow should be uniform since the source of light is 93 million miles away and you have to go prety far for a different angle to be noticeable. Maybe they can fix that.

 

[EVIL]

One thing that bugged me in the e3 demo vid, was when the player moved from a sun to shadow, it SUDDENLY goes in the shadow.. not like for example ut2k3 where you see the shadow and licht parts move on your weapon. I hope it will be fixed. because it was pretty anoying IMO.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well Valve never promised us shadows like Doom 3 has them. Again, you guys just assumed that they will be like that.

 

[RoyalEF]

I don't expect the on/off brightness on the player models to be fixed. I think that approaches lighting in a fully dynamic/real-time way and the engine wasn't built with that in mind. When the tram car is travelling forward the inside windows flash bright and dark as well.

Maybe HL3 will be built on some variant of the Doom3 engine and you'll get all the dynamic lighting built in.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Did you guys now, near 50% of Doom 3 engine was given away to the shadows. Talking about heavy...

 

[TrueWeltall]

If my new comp can handle it ill play with shadows on But most of the time i dont, gets annoying imo.

 

[Vertigo]

Meh. I really don't care that much about the graphics in any case. They're amazing and all, and that's a plus, but I'm hoping it's not just completely relying on graphics like Unreal 2 or (I'm assuming) Doom 3. I'm hoping it'll give more of the great gameplay and story line (and any other innovative features along the way) that Half-Life gave us. HL2 seems a lot like what Halo was (and that's a good thing), but a step further -- great graphics, great gameplay. Nothing overly revolutionary (besides the facial expressions and such), just wonderfully melded together gameplay aspects. And that's what I hope it will be.

-Vert

 

[worldspawn]

i think the game is going to have things that blow us away.. and minor errors which we all complain about and knowing valve will probably be patched. (if they don't need total reprogramming of the engine to fix, in which case they probably totally overlooked them during the development process due to how much easier it is to let shadows make other shadows darker, instead of rewriting a large block of the code..) ... one thing is sure, the gameplay and storyline will be the best ever created.

 

[Straylight]

It looks to me like the shadows of buildings and stuff are going one way while the player and vehicle shadows are going the other. If you look the shadows that are out of place are the APC thing, the charracters on the fire escape, and the soldier on the ground. All of their shadows are going one way and the "terrain" shadows of buildings and stuff are going another but it looks consistant.

In the e3 "human allies" clip you can see them all (charracter and terrain) going in the same direction so I guess it's fixed.

In the same clip you see the charracters suddenly going from light to dark like EVIL said but you can see on the alyx and gman clips that parts of the charracters can be at different levels of brightness and that they self shadow. I think it means that you will only not get the shadows from the map playing across your charracter like they will/did doom 3 or splinter cell. But you can always hope that it can still happen You never know.

-Straylight

 

[NiteStalker]

Originally posted by Mr.Reak
Did you guys now, near 50% of Doom 3 engine was given away to the shadows. Talking about heavy...

Strange, because I compared the shadows in both games.

In HL2 they look good (except that direction thing, but it can be another light source or something). They look realistic.

In Doom3 they are totaly black, no fade or something, not realistic.

 

[neva]

D3 isnt really that nice.. really.. Compered to HL2..
HL2 has awsome shadows.. much better then Doooooom III

 

[Grimsrud]

You cant really compare D3 shadows with HL2 shadows. There is no competition. The HL2 might use their shadow better (I dont agree) but the engine for drawing shadows in D3 is state of the art - no one even comes close. But then again, HL2 will be a much more fun game.

 

[loque]

doom3 imo jsut shows what can be done with enough power and resources to sort out light effects...did it improve the game in a way that will make 2 milj. people buy the game ? no dont think so...will hl2 be bought buy 2 milj people ? HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!! :ahum:

 

[EVIL]

one thing I dont understand with doom3.. they made all the cool lighting things so you can hide in the dark, and then carmack says that the demons can look in the dark, so all the dark shadows are way unessesary

 

[Mr.Reak]

I think Doom 3 will outsell HL2. Why? Well because Doom is such name, that even people who don't play games at all, know what Doom is all about.

 

[bonanzaguy]

nah i dont think so... i mean you could say the same about half life. people might not know anything about it but they've probably heard the name somewhere along the road. and as for people who dont really play games much, they're a much smaller group of people that would buy the two games compared to the group that plays games alot and know what they're doing

 

[RoyalEF]

Originally posted by NiteStalker
In Doom3 they are totaly black, no fade or something, not realistic.

No they aren't! Outside in direct sunlight they are very dark, but hard sunlight creates dark shadows. Inside the shadows are normal. The game, even the orginals, were always dark, gloomy, bloody.

I will be curious what else the engine is capable of doing. They seem to provide for deformable objects (doors and railings getting bent). They have a physics engine, ragdoll as well as objects (the grate gets banged up and goes flying).

In an earlier D3 trailer they showed blood pooling out in a growing puddle on the floor, I wonder how well D3/HL2 each handle moving/flowing liquids. I've always found water to be poorly done. Even in the HL2 tech demo, the water was constantly refracting and rippling, but it was not interacting with the physics of the player. I didn't see ripples wading out from the player's movement. ANd much of the refraction seemed totally random and constant, as if the Earth were constantly shaking and vibrating the water.


I think people forget that HL is based upon an ID engine, as well as many others. ID is making an engine that many future games will be based on. That is how ID has made a lot of their money. That is why they went for unifed lighting, to eliminate the need to code for basic lighting in the future. It is a basic display element like color. And this accomplishment leapfrogs over all the competitors. I imagine more licensed games will be based upon D3 than Source.

 

[[Matt]]

Originally posted by Mr.Reak
I think Doom 3 will outsell HL2. Why? Well because Doom is such name, that even people who don't play games at all, know what Doom is all about.

I dont belive so. HL1 outsold all the previous doom games combined... HL2 will sell by the bucket load also!