Half Life 2

[Hamel]

There is no editor for HL that is above a piece of shit.

If that's your definition, then show me a FPS level editor that's NOT a POS.

Doombuilder. UnrealED.

[Crayz9000]

Doombuilder. UnrealED.

Never used the first. I've used the second, but I didn't have enough time to invest to see how its inside-out approach to level building really works.

The biggest problems I've encountered while using Worldcraft3/Hammer is designing outdoor levels; if you don't box it just right, you get light leaks galore. But that's also partly the fault of the HL/Quake engine design philosophy.

[2000AD]

Watching the E3 video today i noticed that there's a little box that says "auxiliary power" that pops up just above the health and HEV suit metres. I wonder what that's about?
(IIRC it pops up during one of the strider videos (1st i think) and just after the bit when the guy gets sent flying by a laser guided rocket (the bit with the big magnet crane thing))

[Spyder]

Doombuilder. UnrealED.

Never used the first. I've used the second, but I didn't have enough time to invest to see how its inside-out approach to level building really works.

The biggest problems I've encountered while using Worldcraft3/Hammer is designing outdoor levels; if you don't box it just right, you get light leaks galore. But that's also partly the fault of the HL/Quake engine design philosophy.

I've used RED for Red Faction which uses the same philosophy and it's cool having it so that when you create a box it's pretty much a room. The problem though is when switching from hollow to solid objects, and then back again when you want to carve up the solids. You had to pay close attention to which order the brushes were being applied.

[McNum]

Auxillary Power is probably just like the flashligt in HL1. Only in HL2 you'll get to use it for more than a simple flashlight.

[SPOOFE]

::sigh:: How come in all these games you can't use a flashlight for more than five minutes? I've had flashlights - cheap, crappy ones - on for HOURS at a time. Is it really that important to add just one more difficulty to the game? Isn't it hard enough being almost entirely in the dark with just a tiny spot of light to serve as illumination?

Oh well... I guess it's balanced out by the fact that you can just turn the gamma way, way up.

[Alan Bolte]

Yeah, that's stupid. They totally need to eliminate that.

[McNum]

It IS kind of strange that a state of the art HEV suit that even has some degree of personal shield can't suppot a flashlight for more than a few minutes at best.

I guess light was a lower priority than having a female voice tell you that how bad your internal injuries from combat are. I mean, combat is an often ocurring laboratory hazard, but you'll never need some light in a lab.

[Pu-239]

There is no editor for HL that is above a piece of shit.

If that's your definition, then show me a FPS level editor that's NOT a POS.

http://cubeengine.com/

In game editing, with multiplayer editing too. Open source, too.

[Crayz9000]

I guess light was a lower priority than having a female voice tell you that how bad your internal injuries from combat are. I mean, combat is an often ocurring laboratory hazard, but you'll never need some light in a lab.

Labs are supposed to be well-lit, duh

And knowing what internal injuries you have would probably be of more use in a lab than in combat. That way, when something blows up and smashes into your chest, the computer can tell the ER techs what's wrong.

[Shinova]

It's also a rechargeble light, but I suppose you could think of it this way:


Given that it's a controlled (usually) laboratory environment, it's doubtful there's any reason to use a flashlight for more than 5 minutes or so. Also a flashlight that lasts four hours could conceivably need at least an hour to recharge also, so after the first four hours you can recharge for a minute, but you'd get less than a minute's worth of charge. So by that concept, just having a flashlight that has five minutes charge but two minutes or so recharge time could make sense in comparison to a flashlight that lasts hours.


Or maybe HL2 won't even have a flashlight possibly.

[InnocentBystander]

::sigh:: How come in all these games you can't use a flashlight for more than five minutes? I've had flashlights - cheap, crappy ones - on for HOURS at a time. Is it really that important to add just one more difficulty to the game? Isn't it hard enough being almost entirely in the dark with just a tiny spot of light to serve as illumination?

Oh well... I guess it's balanced out by the fact that you can just turn the gamma way, way up.

Mabye it's one of those kenetic batteries that has a 5 minute charge, then requres 5 minutes or so of shaking to recharge, they sell them at the sharpre image, big waste of money.

[Hotfoot]

Mabye it's one of those kenetic batteries that has a 5 minute charge, then requres 5 minutes or so of shaking to recharge, they sell them at the sharpre image, big waste of money.

Nah, those are actually good in emergency situations or for wilderness hiking. The time spent shaking it is less than the time the light remains active. That way you're not ever stuck looking for batteries though, which can be a damn useful thing.

Of course, I've got my belt light which runs pretty well on just four AA's, and has a regular flashlight and a flourescant tube. Lasts for hours, and it's very, very bright.

Now here's the thing. Flashlights don't just illuminate a tiny little spot, especially if you are in a small enough enclosed area. Light will scatter from the point of focus all over the place. They should find a way to model that into a game. Additionally, they should make a game where your flashlight is also your melee weapon. Get a 6D cell Mag Lite and go to town.

It wouldn't be too hard to show the actual decay of batteries, either. Over the course of several hours of use, the light slowly gets dimmer and dimmer, until it starts to flicker and go out. Then you would have to put in new batteries, assuming you had any, and go from there. Make downsides to having the flashlight on all the time. For example, make a smaller headlamp available when you have a gun out, won't illuminate as well, but lets you shoot people. Then have the big-ass Mag Lite, which doesn't let you hold a weapon, but lights the place up much better than the headlamp. Also, put in a flashlight with a flourescant lamp, so you can search in detail in smaller areas.

Make it so that enemies respond to seeing the light, and will work to ambush you or attack you if they see it. In a dark room, it makes you a highly visible target, so on and so forth.

[Rye]

There is no editor for HL that is above a piece of shit.

If that's your definition, then show me a FPS level editor that's NOT a POS.

Build.

Heh, I loved that once I got used to how to use it.I can still remember the tags for the doors, say if you wanted a doom-style lifting one, on a red sector press "t" and then "20" and enter. You then had to go back into first person view and lower it with page down though.

Opening doors was tag 23, those were a bastard to get a hang of.

[Shinova]

Now here's the thing. Flashlights don't just illuminate a tiny little spot, especially if you are in a small enough enclosed area. Light will scatter from the point of focus all over the place. They should find a way to model that into a game.

That technique is called global illumination in the CG industry, and implementing it into HL2 with current hardware will reduce the game's FPS to way below 1 FPS, and each frame would take almost minutes to render.

I suppose they could "cheat" global illumination by making nearby light soures a fraction brighter with the flashlight on but this would be hardly consistent over the entire game.



The point is Hotfoot, you won't be seeing that even in the next five years.

[Hotfoot]

That technique is called global illumination in the CG industry, and implementing it into HL2 with current hardware will reduce the game's FPS to way below 1 FPS, and each frame would take almost minutes to render.

I suppose they could "cheat" global illumination by making nearby light soures a fraction brighter with the flashlight on but this would be hardly consistent over the entire game.



The point is Hotfoot, you won't be seeing that even in the next five years.

I dunno, it would occur to me that a similar effect could be simulated by making the point the flashlight is aimed at a light source on it's own. It may not be perfect, but I'd think it would be better than the current systems in use, which are pretty much all or nothing.

Given the lighting effects seen in the Unreal 3 engine tech demo, I daresay we may see something like that quite shortly.

[Uraniun235]

Heh, I loved that once I got used to how to use it.I can still remember the tags for the doors, say if you wanted a doom-style lifting one, on a red sector press "t" and then "20" and enter. You then had to go back into first person view and lower it with page down though.

Opening doors was tag 23, those were a bastard to get a hang of.

Remember that gigantic README that came bundled with it? I actually printed it all out! I had the sense, though, to hook up our ancient dot-matrix printer to do it rather than the bubblejet.

[InnocentBystander]

Mabye it's one of those kenetic batteries that has a 5 minute charge, then requres 5 minutes or so of shaking to recharge, they sell them at the sharpre image, big waste of money.

Nah, those are actually good in emergency situations or for wilderness hiking. The time spent shaking it is less than the time the light remains active. That way you're not ever stuck looking for batteries though, which can be a damn useful thing.

Of course, I've got my belt light which runs pretty well on just four AA's, and has a regular flashlight and a flourescant tube. Lasts for hours, and it's very, very bright.

Now here's the thing. Flashlights don't just illuminate a tiny little spot, especially if you are in a small enough enclosed area. Light will scatter from the point of focus all over the place. They should find a way to model that into a game. Additionally, they should make a game where your flashlight is also your melee weapon. Get a 6D cell Mag Lite and go to town.

It wouldn't be too hard to show the actual decay of batteries, either. Over the course of several hours of use, the light slowly gets dimmer and dimmer, until it starts to flicker and go out. Then you would have to put in new batteries, assuming you had any, and go from there. Make downsides to having the flashlight on all the time. For example, make a smaller headlamp available when you have a gun out, won't illuminate as well, but lets you shoot people. Then have the big-ass Mag Lite, which doesn't let you hold a weapon, but lights the place up much better than the headlamp. Also, put in a flashlight with a flourescant lamp, so you can search in detail in smaller areas.

Make it so that enemies respond to seeing the light, and will work to ambush you or attack you if they see it. In a dark room, it makes you a highly visible target, so on and so forth.

That reminds me of AvP 2, in single player the shoulder lamps were really cool, but it never came over into multiplayer, not even the light. It should also be noted that in HL1, when you turn on your flashlight other people see you as a bright lightsource (which makes it very useful in some Sven Coop maps acutally).

And just to interject, perhaps that Aux power is what powers the zero-point gravity gun? Then again, it doesn't really matter, modders can do whatever they want. Now, someone go and make me and SDGOD mod, and don't forget the capital ship combat