At GDC 2004 there was a paper by Garry McTaggart on HL2's shading model. http://www2.ati.com/developer/gdc/D3DTutorial10_Half-Life2_Shading.pdf
For all those who are interested in shading / lighting , please read it, its a usefull resource and can shed some light on the algos used by Source Engine lighting model. The paper is dated 24 May 2004 , so I really doubt the Source Engine changed this model up to date. You will see that the technique for lighting the world is not real time radiosity, rather a interesting derivative of classic VRAD bassed solutions. @ " G-Man's eyes utilizing "realtime radiosity lighting"." Hmmm , I dont think so. Those WEB pages and sites reproduces a flawed technical statement. Check the paper above, it will enlight you how dynamic geometery is shaded in Source Engine. While it looks extremly cool, it uses a solution which SAMPLES at run time data from stored by the off-line radisoity preprocessor. And depending by the desity off the data stored by the radiosity solution, this can or not result in accurate dynamic model lighting. Im sure it looks great most of the time, and results in great lighting effect. @ Until we see the SDK, we really won't know to what extent the realtime radiosity exists. A SDK containing game code wont enlight us on this subject. Anyway, a person which played HL2 , and with minimum 3D knowledge, can easily verify this claim. @ If the engine truly does support it, but only to the extent of making a video and not gameplay Well, realatime means interactive frame rate at very minimum. If I make a movie with radiosity using the 3d engine and each frame took hours to draw.... well ... ----- Original Message ----- From: "HoundDawg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 4:48 PM Subject: RE: [hlcoders] Realtime radiosity & Source ? > > http://www.valvesoftware.com/sourcelicense/enginefeatures.htm > > states that the Source engine supports realtime radiosity > > lighting. This is obviously false and Valve should take it > > out from their web page. > > A simple search on Google will provide multiple website and forum posts that > mention G-Man's eyes utilizing "realtime radiosity lighting". > Unfortunately, this may not have been a very good example or use, since it > was just a video anyway. I don't recall any real-time dynamic lighting in > the game at all. > > You can easily see the difference between HL2 and another game that really > has it, like FarCry (FC). I saw the same typical light in HL2 that I saw in > FC when I first started playing the HL2 SP. Like in FC, I wanted to test > this in HL2, so I shot the light. Nothing. No physics movement. No > lighting changes. The light didn't even break or shut off. Just a solid > model with a pre-rendered light source. So, nothing different here from > HL1. > > Until we see the SDK, we really won't know to what extent the realtime > radiosity exists. If the engine truly does support it, but only to the > extent of making a video and not gameplay, the marketers can include that > into their list. Sure, a coder could test it and be severely disappointed > in the scope of limitations. > > Hopefully, we'll get the SDK this week and then we'll start seeing the > "thank you" messages and the disappointments. Either way, this list will > get pretty active real soon. Possibly beating all the other lists combined > for awhile. > > - HoundDawg > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
