So what is Valve doing about...

[1Luc1]

Hello community,

I just saw a amazing trailer from the game Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. As you may know it uses the Unreal 3 Engine. Which is quite amazing I think.

I have read a little interview from Doug (Don't ask me where i read it). He said that they wanted to create a kind of modular engine. So easy implementing of new technological things will be more easy. As they showed already with HDR.

But if i compare the source engine and the unreal engine (or the new CryENGINE 2) all i can say is OMG the newer engines look so cool and realistic. And what was this engine called...source...or what`?

But don't think I hate the source engine. Hey, i realy love it. It's a realy amazing engine for MOD - Developer - Teams. And there are also alot of nice MODs out there and they used the source engine better as Valve.

And also the community did a awesome job. For example the parallax occlusion Shader they have implemented.

So I started this thread to want to know what you think valve is going to implement next?
Or what do you think about this new engines situation?

PS: Sry for my bad englisch and if this thread is in the wrong section pls move it.

 

[Pesmerga]

Source was made a few years ago, and it's a perfectly good engine. It does a lot more than pretty graphics, and doesn't require quad 7800's to play. It's easily moddable, easily mappable, and is backed by the best distribution service for games, Steam. The rendering engine itself can be improved upon, Valve simply haven't found a need to do that yet.

 

[Ennui]

Hello community,

I just saw a amazing trailer from the game Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. As you may know it uses the Unreal 3 Engine. Which is quite amazing I think.

I have read a little interview from Doug (Don't ask me where i read it). He said that they wanted to create a kind of modular engine. So easy implementing of new technological things will be more easy. As they showed already with HDR.

But if i compare the source engine and the unreal engine (or the new CryENGINE 2) all i can say is OMG the newer engines look so cool and realistic. And what was this engine called...source...or what`?

But don't think I hate the source engine. Hey, i realy love it. It's a realy amazing engine for MOD - Developer - Teams. And there are also alot of nice MODs out there and they used the source engine better as Valve.

And also the community did a awesome job. For example the parallax occlusion Shader they have implemented.

So I started this thread to want to know what you think valve is going to implement next?
Or what do you think about this new engines situation?

PS: Sry for my bad englisch and if this thread is in the wrong section pls move it.

Whoa, so did the Dreamscape mod get their parallax mapping from this guy (since I've seen those textures before) or vice versa?

Also, Source is very much a modular engine. HDR was the first large example of this - but Source will be, and is being, continuously upgraded to keep up with the times.

It's still very much state-of-the-art.

 

[jondy]

Valve simply haven't found a need to do that yet.

That's not completely true... HDR was a huge push on their front, and they've also announced motion blur and implemented a beta of the new color-correction in counter-strike. Gabe also hinted at the possibility of Image-Based Rendering and in the latest IGN interview it's confirmed that Episode 2 will boast new source technologies and ideas-

I can’t yet reveal any details of Episode Two, but yes - with each episode we will be focusing on a different gameplay element while advancing the story and integrating the latest technology available via Source. With Episode One, the gameplay focus is on Alyx and her abilities, the story advance is related to the aftermath of HL2, and the key tech features leveraged are HDR and commentary. For Episode Two, we plan to have something new in each category.

 

[^Ben]

Source at the moment is perfect, it perfectly balances features to eyecandy.

Take for example Doom3 which was released at about the same time, that game was ugly and was a hog that limited the actual game that could be created. Same with FEAR it was a hog and IMO had a very bland and grey enviroment that limited the developers to what they could do.

But if you look past the renderer(which everybody seems to be fixated on, but in reality is only usually about 15% of the codebase for an engine) And take for example the networking component of Source, it is currently the best out there and I doubt that Unreal(going on all the previous engines) is going to top it. I can go on with all the systems in Source and they are all top notch and are going to take a while to get beaten and that's assuming Valve will not update anything which they will.

So just chill, Valve will update when the time is right and they can get the best out of the hardware for the requirements of the actual games they need.

 

[1Luc1]

Whoa, so did the Dreamscape mod get their parallax mapping from this guy (since I've seen those textures before) or vice versa?

Also, Source is very much a modular engine. HDR was the first large example of this - but Source will be, and is being, continuously upgraded to keep up with the times.

It's still very much state-of-the-art.

Well I don't know...i don't think so he is just improving....

But what i know this looks amazing ingame and there are still some little bugs.
Just download it here and have fun with it.
http://s4.11mbit.in/Ps2d51c91791799bCnFKHs34674f6CnOL0sy4f60rpPrx3ejBHs2u0bg/q785Oza7
It includes two dev.maps...i love it...

cya

 

[Epsi]

Exactly, who knows what deep in Valve's Source engine labs they might be working on as we speak. They're going to have their eyes on the future. Things like DoF, Colour correction, etc. etc. are already done and finished and in the engine, and at least with the Colour correction, already shipped. Who knows how long they've been working on those! I would not be surprised at all if they were already working on DX10 support and features in Source.

 

[FictiousWill]

1. There's no such thing as a non-modular engine. Class-based object-oriented code isn't just the industry standard, it's all there is outside of Fortran or Qbasic. Calling the engine modular is like selling a car on it's awesome 'replaceable tires' features.

2. Source is quake2 with skeletal animation, havok, and more texture memory. Source may have been released in 2004, but it's 2001-2002 technology. If that.

 

[63]

Dreamscape has Relief mapping.

 

[Przemek]

FictiousWill - actually, HL2 is Quake 1 engine. Source engine was based on HL1 (ofcourse, Valve said they wrote Source from scratch, but when you are making a new version of your program and want to remake it from scratch, you dont restart completely - you progressively replace old code and add new. Some of the old code remains unchanged - if something works well, why change it?).

HL1 was based on Quake 1 engine - there is an article about it on VERC.

Ofcourse, Source has very little to do with Quake 1 engine today, but many things are only slightly modified (ie. extended Q1 BSP, models with skeletal animation + additional stuff for facial animation).

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Source is quake2 with skeletal animation, havok, and more texture memory. Source may have been released in 2004, but it's 2001-2002 technology. If that.

Doom 3 is Quake with skeletal animation, bump mapping and realtime lighting.

UE3 is Unreal with realtime lighting.

Look! I can do gratuitous understatement too!

 

[Insano]

Doom 3 is Quake with skeletal animation, bump mapping and realtime lighting.

UE3 is Unreal with realtime lighting.

Look! I can do gratuitous understatement too!

QFE.

 

[GardenFreshmint]

Source makes good heads !!!

 

[99.vikram]

1. There's no such thing as a non-modular engine. Class-based object-oriented code isn't just the industry standard, it's all there is outside of Fortran or Qbasic. Calling the engine modular is like selling a car on it's awesome 'replaceable tires' features.

Gee, thanks for explaining what OOP is
Having objects does not make an engine modular. It means new features like HDR and bloom can be added with minimal changes to the existing engine architecture. That's how they can incorporate new image rendering technology without a complete overhaul.

Source is more flexible than the other engines we've seen in the past two years (incl. FEAR and Farcry) and it's easily moddable and mappable. It's also the most efficient engine in years. I got it to scale down to work on a 1999 rig. Beat that, sucka :sniper:

2. Source is quake2 with skeletal animation, havok, and more texture memory. Source may have been released in 2004, but it's 2001-2002 technology. If that.

ALL engines are 1999 technology with better physics, better graphics, better lighting and so on. What's your point?

 

[Naudian]

BIA:HH looks like shit imo.

Go Crytek & Valve!

 

[Epsi]

Yeh, the guts of most engines are pretty similar because mathematically and algorithmically there's generally only one best way to do things!

From personal experience it's very easy to write code that whilst object-orientated, is also the most non-modular garbage you have ever seen in your life. In theory, you could replace components, but you'd probably break it horribly. You have to have real engineering discipline to make something modular so it's extensible without breaking older code. I mean, enabling HDR in DoD:S/Ep1 but with the side effect of breaking HL2 would be very very bad! Most people would just freeze HL2 onto the old version of the code, but Valve seem to be a ton more ambitious than that.

 

[jondy]

BIA:HH looks like shit imo.

Dude.... what?

It's not the best looking nextgen game around, but it is pretty

 

[Dekstar]

Dude.... what?

It's not the best looking nextgen game around, but it is pretty

I bet I could fool most of my friends into thinking that was a reinactment photo, not an in-game render.

 

[Space Farm]

It's still very much state-of-the-art.

If they could implement a decent lighting system it would be.

 

[Pesmerga]

mother ****in nothin

 

[Space Farm]

Also how many other games, not made by Valve, are using the source engine?

 

[Cole]

With the games were talking about:

It isn't as a big of list as UE3 but theres quite a list.
UE3 being most used engine
then source
then doom 3's engine.
CryTek is like last....

 

[Space Farm]

I thought only Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is using Source.

Edit: No wait there are three games in total.

 

[^Ben]

How many UE3 games are out?

What are the specs on these games, etc etc, It's easy to write something really nice but only be able to run on a subset of hardware.

THat's the nice thing about Source, it's getting constantly upgraded so it looks good and it runs on alot of hardware systems.

 

[Insano]

Also how many other games, not made by Valve, are using the source engine?

The less important ones are in italic.

Valve:

Half-Life 2 (one version for PC and one for Xbox)
Counter-Strike: Source
Day of Defeat: Source
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Team Fortress 2 (assumed it's still in development)

Unannounced Valve game on Xbox360

Half-Life: Source
Half-Life: Deathmatch Source

Third Party developers:

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Twilight War: After the Fall
SiN Episodes
Alien Swarm: Infested
Kuma\War
Realms of Valhallon: Age of Nations
They Hunger: Lost Souls
Twilight War: After the Fall
Garry's Mod (his upcoming game since it uses Source engine)

Unannounced Kuma Reality Games title
Unannounced Turtle Rock Studios game
Unannounced Warren Spector game

DinoHunters (http://www.thedinohunters.com/)

 

[1Luc1]

Weha, ok you are write there is a lot of potential in the source engine. I just have found some screenshots from Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and this game looks realy amazing. I realy have to post those images sry for that but they are amazing....

:O

and if you want more here are also some : NICE

 

[Drackard]

Is that similar to Oblivion gameplay wise ? as in a first person lushus looking rpg ?

 

[Insano]

Is that similar to Oblivion gameplay wise ? as in a first person lushus looking rpg ?

You bet your sweet ass it is.

 

[Drackard]

ooo, my god i cannot wait for that now, although i still have to actually complete a ton of other games first :| i'll still get it though looks sweet as !

 

[Cypher19]

I actually seriously question how valid of an idea it is to have the kind of evolutionary development of the engine that Source utilizes, because every revision they make must retain backwards compatibility for old maps. It's possible this will result in Source getting really bloated simply because it has to maintain that compatibility all of the time (kind of like what happened with Windows)

Chances are though, in the next year or so, Valve is going to seriously lag behind in graphics technology (hell, they are already). UE3, Crysis, idNext, etc. all have far more advanced technology and I'll be shocked if Valve is able to update their engine fast enough to keep up with the very accelerated pace we're going to see in graphics in the next year. Adding things like film grain isn't going to cut it, especially when that's just a single post-process shader that any other well developed engine could included in a matter of hours.

 

[Asknoone]

I actually seriously question how valid of an idea it is to have the kind of evolutionary development of the engine that Source utilizes, because every revision they make must retain backwards compatibility for old maps. It's possible this will result in Source getting really bloated simply because it has to maintain that compatibility all of the time (kind of like what happened with Windows)

Chances are though, in the next year or so, Valve is going to seriously lag behind in graphics technology (hell, they are already). UE3, Crysis, idNext, etc. all have far more advanced technology and I'll be shocked if Valve is able to update their engine fast enough to keep up with the very accelerated pace we're going to see in graphics in the next year. Adding things like film grain isn't going to cut it, especially when that's just a single post-process shader that any other well developed engine could included in a matter of hours.

I honestly could couldn't care less if Valve didn't even bother to update Source. Graphics is where it matters least to me in games, and even though Valve may ultimately lag behind - it honestly doesn't bother me. Because where other developers are ahead in graphics, Valve is light-years ahead in terms of gameplay, story, atmosphere and design. Which to me, is what matters most in a game.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Valve are seriously looking into Image-Based Rendering for a future direction, which is very interesting indeed.

 

[Epsi]

It's possible that Valve are working on bits of advanced graphics technology right now for Source that are above and beyond anything we've yet seen, just keeping it strictly under wraps until it's ready for prime-time.

 

[Insano]

Valve are seriously looking into Image-Based Rendering for a future direction, which is very interesting indeed.

Could you give some more explenation on the technique of Image-Based Rendering, because I've heard it a couple of times, but I have no idea what it technically means.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I'm not entirely sure, but from what I read (and I can't recall where I read it now), the gist was that only the immediate scene was actually rendered as polygons, distant objects were actually images. Or something like that.

 

[Vegeta897]

I honestly could couldn't care less if Valve didn't even bother to update Source. Graphics is where it matters least to me in games, and even though Valve may ultimately lag behind - it honestly doesn't bother me. Because where other developers are ahead in graphics, Valve is light-years ahead in terms of gameplay, story, atmosphere and design. Which to me, is what matters most in a game.

Quoted for truth a thousand times over

 

[Sufferin-rebel]

I'm not entirely sure, but from what I read (and I can't recall where I read it now), the gist was that only the immediate scene was actually rendered as polygons, distant objects were actually images. Or something like that.

Take it like this, Remember HL1 Alt Ending, when you chose not to work for the G-man, and you ended up in a area with 6 grunts and the rest behind them were 2d sprites...

in a way that is a cheap way of Image Based rendering..

cause a 999454954 polygon combine solider in a far far off distant will just be a waste on ya machine.. but to keep the polygon as simple as 1000, and it will look exactly the same from the far-away view you are in.. the more you get closer the object the more the polygon count goes up.. Something similar to that anyway.. Its basically a way to make your machine alot easier to run the game

 

[Vegeta897]

Take it like this, Remember HL1 Alt Ending, when you chose not to work for the G-man, and you ended up in a area with 6 grunts and the rest behind them were 2d sprites...

in a way that is a cheap way of Image Based rendering..

cause a 999454954 polygon combine solider in a far far off distant will just be a waste on ya machine.. but to keep the polygon as simple as 1000, and it will look exactly the same from the far-away view you are in.. the more you get closer the object the more the polygon count goes up.. Something similar to that anyway.. Its basically a way to make your machine alot easier to run the game

I don't see what's so different about this than LOD (Which HL2 already has and uses) with just an extra step, a sprite. I actually thought they already had this in.

 

[jondy]

It's possible that Valve are working on bits of advanced graphics technology right now for Source that are above and beyond anything we've yet seen

It's not possible, it's happening... episode two features new technology and a trailer for ep.2 is sitting in the Episode 1 GCFs right now

 

[Cypher19]

Valve are seriously looking into Image-Based Rendering for a future direction, which is very interesting indeed.

That technique has existed for a long time actually. It's called "impostors" and Far Cry used it for a lot of its vegetation, and Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike used it to handle the hundreds of ships it could display. Not a new technique, and not a very revolutionary one either.

I honestly could couldn't care less if Valve didn't even bother to update Source. Graphics is where it matters least to me in games, and even though Valve may ultimately lag behind - it honestly doesn't bother me. Because where other developers are ahead in graphics, Valve is light-years ahead in terms of gameplay, story, atmosphere and design. Which to me, is what matters most in a game.

It's ironic that you mention atmosphere there, while in the same breath totally downplay the significance of graphics. If anything, graphics (both from a technical AND artistic standpoint) practically define the atmosphere of a game. Do you think that Doom3 would have been just as terrifying and exciting (minus the repetition and at times predictability of the game) if it had HL2's totally precomputed lighting system?