HL2: Lost Coast article on bit-tech

Justin Meisse

Check it
Looks like they improved their skin textures too, or that old guy had access to some cleanser. Best part is, it will be a free download via steam.

46th Avenue

nice yea ive been hearing about that but i havent seen any screenshots untill now. thanks for the heads up -46th

pogonip

Man that game looks freaking nice...some of the backgrounds would be photo real if not for the hard edges ..

Daz

Cool thanks for sharing. Beautiful stuff. This should renew interest in the game. Look at that mans ear and other geometric detail. Looks like his face is now normal mapped which I dont remember noticing in characters faces in the main game. Could benefit from some self shadowing though. Still, he looks like a big improvement in the chars to me. Less 'photo-slapped' looking for sure.

RazorBladder

Indeed, as far as I can remember, Hl2 contained very little normal mapping.
Seeing the features they're listing and the beauty of the screenshots themselves is really impressive, practically boosted the engine by 100%
Hope it delivers

iMag

razorbladder: hl2 contained alot of normal mapping set mat_normalmaps to 1 to show them (I beleive that's it. the autocomplete will finish it if you go mat_n)

Daz

There was no normal mapping on human characters faces. 'aint nuthin going on here but a photo slapped on a model:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/screens.html?page=297

The fisherman from Lost Coast looks way nicer than the stuff I saw in game.

FatAssasin

Check out the video:
http://www.fileplanet.com/152748/150000/fileinfo/Half-Life-2---Lost-Coast-Movie

Daz

wow HDR yumminess. Nice.

46th Avenue

the video just makes it look that more kickass the stainglass with the light coming through it is amazing this is going to make hl2 look 10 times better.

oXYnary

I ve wondered about this. With digitally made images. How would one mimick hdr? change the levels and save those out as hdr substitutes?

pogonip

That video * drool * ..yet it still cannot touch the unreal engine 3.0 stuff , but will be nice to play with until 3.0 comes out

Hollowmind

I've decompiled the models and textures for a few of the HL2 characters. They do have normal maps on their faces. It's just really, really subtle. It's not like Doom 3 where the normal map makes up most of their detail. The normal maps were mostly used to give the faces a slight bumpiness. Looks like they used the Nvidia Photoshop plug-in or something to make them out of a bump map instead of making high-poly meshes to generate the normal maps.

Anyway, that Lost Coast map does look nice. I bet that lighting would make my aging vid card explode though.

Eric Chadwick

[ QUOTE ]
I ve wondered about this. With digitally made images. How would one mimick hdr? change the levels and save those out as hdr substitutes?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's one way.
http://www.forwardgames.com/research.htm#FDRI

Eric Chadwick

Have people here seen the Ps3 demo showing Alfred Molina's face? Another pretty HDR example. Nice facial animation too.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/615/615000/vids_1.html?fromint=1

Of course, we'll never see a face like this in a real game, but it does make a nice presentation.

FatAssasin

Did you see the PS3 subsurface scattering in the E3 presentation? Looks pretty sweet, but I'll be interested to see how much of this new tech actually makes it into games.

Back to HL2, they really nail the environment lighting, in both the original and Lost Coast. The new tech is cool, but you still need an eye for lighting to really bring it out. I keep getting the urge to back to HL2 and just walk around and live in that world again. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there hasn't been another game that made me want just revisit it again, almost like going back to a favorite vacation spot. I remember playing it almost like I was actually there.