Half-Life and its sequels, the best games ever

[alopes]

Heres is some information about the Half Life game and its sequels.

For those who like to play computer games, and never played Half Life, you are losing the best games ever made for computers.

The Games of the Serie, maded by the Valve company are:

Half-Life - 1998
Counter-Strike (multi-player) -1998
Half-Life Opposing Force - 1999
Half-Life Blue Shift - 2001
Half-Life 2 - 2004
Half-Life 2 Episode one - 2006
Half-Life 2 Episode two - 2007
Portal - 2007
Team Fortress 2 (multi-player) - 2007



Here is some information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2

Half-Life - often abbreviated as HL or HL1 - is a sci-fi first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software, first released by Sierra Studios on November 19, 1998. Designed for PCs running Microsoft Windows,[1] the game uses a heavily modified version of the Quake engine, called GoldSrc.[3]

In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a recently graduated theoretical physicist who must fight his way out of an underground research facility whose teleportation experimentations have gone terribly wrong. On its release, critics hailed its overall presentation and numerous scripted sequences,[4] and it won over 50 Game of the Year awards in 1998-99.[5] Its gameplay influenced first-person shooters for years to come, and it has since been regarded as one of the greatest games of all time.[6]

With over eight million copies sold since, Half-Life is the best-selling PC first-person shooter to date.[7] The Half-Life franchise has seen over 15 million sales.[8]

The game was also released for the PlayStation 2 on November 15, 2001.[2] A Sega Dreamcast port was made, but was cancelled just 2 weeks before release. The fully-playable Dreamcast version has since been leaked onto the Internet.[9]

The titles of Half-Life and its expansion packs are all named after scientific terms. Half-Life itself is a reference to the half-life of a quantity (such as a radioactive material), the amount of time required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value. The Greek letter lambda, which features prominently on the game's packaging, represents the related decay constant, as well as the Lambda Complex featured in the game. Opposing Force, while it could be named because the player assumes the role of one of the enemies in the original game, is also a reference to Newton's third law of motion, while Blue Shift refers to the blue shifting of the frequency of radiation caused by the Doppler effect, in a similar parallel reference to the blue color of the security uniforms.

[DehdaR]

I played Half Life 1 and Half Life 2, although I haven't played the Orange Box, I think they're milking their success, because no new engine has been made and the graphics looks all the same.

[Mohmar 'Deathstrike']

There is also a PS2-only game called Half-Life: Decay, which has a coop campaign in which you control Colette Green and Gina Cross, an electrical engineer and a physicist.

[alopes]

Well not exactly the same graphics engine, i will post its qualities below.
Among its new features there are,
2.1 High dynamic range rendering
2.2 Facial animation 2
2.3 Facial animation 3
2.4 Soft-Particle system
2.5 Full-screen motion blur
2.6 Dynamic lighting and shadowing 2
2.7 Landscape and Flora Rendering
2.8 Cinematic physics
2.9 Multiprocessor optimizations

Yes, it isn´t comparable, in some aspects, with the last top First Person Shooters engines like the ones that are used to make the games like " Crysis, Bioshock, Stalker, BlackSite Area 51, Call of Duty 4" and others to come but,

one can´t forget that the quality of playability, interaction, inteligent puzzles, believable characters are also very importante for a game to be a sucessfull entertaiment.

Source engine

The Source engine is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. Its unique features include a large degree of modularity and flexibility, an artist-driven, shader-based renderer, accurate lip sync and facial expression technology, and a powerful, efficient and completely network-enabled physics system.

Source supports both 32-bit and 64-bit environments and the Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 platform (launched with The Orange Box). It debuted in October 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source.

Rendering

Shader-based
Up to DirectX 9 with Shader model 3.0
OpenGL support on Playstation 3[citation needed]
3D skybox; an area can be displayed as a skybox at up to 16x its actual size with full 3D parallax.
High dynamic range rendering (see High Dynamic Range Rendering section)
Animation
Any animation can merge seamlessly with any other animation at any time.
Inverse Kinematics to ensure that characters' limbs react to environments

Networked physics

Originate from Havok 2 physics engine
Highly-tuned by Valve
Processor-efficient
Software only
Fully networked with low bandwidth requirements
Vehicle physics including torque, power, gears, tire material, suspension and mode.
Audio
Full DSP system
Full Surround sound support
Software only
Scalability
Supports DirectX 6 and upwards [2]
Modularity allows for all current and future Source projects to scale back to DX6 if they desire

Facial expressions
Full range of human and non-human facial movements
Based on Professor Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding System
Over eighty-four "digital muscles"
Lip-sync
Works in tandem with facial expressions
Auto-generated, but completely configurable
Stored in sound file itself for localization

Modularity and notable upgrades

Source is designed from the ground up to be highly modular. This allows for the easy upgrade and modification of certain features without breaking other areas of the engine, or breaking engine continuity (that is to say, there need be no 'version jumps' from 1.0 to 2.0). When coupled with Steam, these updates can be distributed retroactively and automatically. For instance, if Source is upgraded to support hardware physics, every Source title on Steam will instantly benefit. Entirely new features such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) Rendering have been shown to require developer input, however.


High dynamic range rendering
First seen in Day of Defeat: Source, then shortly after in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, HDR was the first major instance of Source's modularity in use. However, whilst in theory all Source engine games and mods were able to use HDR immediately after its release, the game code required to 'hook in' to the new system was not made available to modders until eleven months later, on August 4 2006. Official licensees and Valve themselves have all made use of the technology since its release.

Facial animation 2

When Half-Life 2: Episode One was released on 1 June 2006, it introduced the second version of Valve's proprietary facial animation system. Ken Birdwell explains the upgrade's features in the game's commentary track:

“ When we designed the Half-Life 2 facial system back in 2000, our goal was to get a natural-looking performance at a moderate distance. For Episode One, we wanted to extend the characters' facial systems to support more intense performances with a wider range of facial expressions, that would hold up better at close range. These facial improvements included increasing the detail around the eyes and mouth, increasing the number of facial shape targets — think of these as movements of muscle groups — by about 50%, rewriting the rules that control how these shapes blend, and increasing the intensity of many of our existing shapes.

Facial animation 3

The 14 May 2007 "Meet the Heavy" Team Fortress 2 trailer revealed the third iteration of Source's facial animation technology, hardware accelerated on video cards. Valve's accompanying press release reads:

We are pleased to announce that the next generation of facial animation technology for Source will be released in Team Fortress 2. By leveraging the rapid pace of advancement in PC graphics, videogames can now match and actually surpass the facial animation used in feature film and broadcast television production. We've released a video of this real-time, in-game, in-engine facial animation in action in support of ATI's launch of the Radeon HD 2000 series. By running entirely on the GPU of the videocard, the facial animation not only looks dramatically better, but frees up the CPU to perform other tasks like physics or AI.[3]

The animation system was first released in Team Fortress 2.

Soft-Particle system

During the July 2006 Electronic Arts Summer Showcase press conference, Gabe Newell mentioned that a new "soft-particle" system will be introduced into the Source Engine in the upcoming title Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It was first demonstrated in the July 19 Team Fortress 2 teaser, which showed a remarkably realistic flamethrower in its closing moments. The system is primarily designed for multiprocessor systems.


Full-screen motion blur

Team Fortress 2 was the first Source game to offer full-screen motion blur.[4] The blur is not the same as the "cinematic" blur used to render Valve's various trailers, and only appears when the player's view is moved at a high speed (e.g. when spinning around). The same effect was also added in Episode 2 and Portal.

Dynamic lighting and shadowing 2

A new dynamic lighting and shadow mapping system has been developed for Source, complementing the once limited existing system.[5][6] It launched with the various other new Source features that were developed for Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

In previous Source games, "dynamic" shadows (primarily shadows cast by physics props) will fall in a predetermined direction, manually set by the level designer. With Dynamic Lighting and Shadowing 2, a similar system will be employed — props will usually cast shadows in one general direction — but technology has been developed (and used, albeit sparingly, throughout the upcoming Source games) that allows a level designer to enable certain light sources to cast completely dynamic shadow maps. Currently, only one of these shadow-casting light sources is allowed to be visible to the player at one time, a limit imposed at the engine level.

Another improvement with the Dynamic Lighting and Shadowing 2 system is the introduction of flashlight shadows. In previous Source games, the player's flashlight only illuminates an area; with Lighting and Shadowing 2, the flashlight casts dynamic shadows from and onto all nearby objects and geometry, including transparent materials such as chain-link fences, trees and foliage. Flashlight shadows have been enabled for Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but are not available in Team Fortress 2 or Portal (the two other new games being released by Valve alongside Episode Two), simply because flashlights are not used in those games.

A breakdown of the new lighting system's capabilities is shown below:

Dynamic Lighting and Shadowing 2

Realtime shadows in a map cast in a predetermined direction unless near a light source specifically enabled to cast realtime dynamic shadows in the level editor.
Shadows cast by models can self-shadow and cast shadows across other objects, if near a light source specifically enabled to cast realtime dynamic shadows in the level editor
Any object can cast multiple dynamic soft shadows, if near a light source specifically enabled to cast realtime dynamic shadows in the level editor.
The player's flashlight casts shadows from models, world geometry, and transparent surfaces onto other models and geometry.


Landscape and Flora Rendering

Large, open natural environments with heavy foliage, traditionally a weakness for the Source engine, is supported as of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Valve is using alpha-to-coverage for anti-aliasing the alpha textures used to approximate the leaves of foliage.

Cinematic physics

During the July 2006 Electronic Arts Summer Showcase press conference, it was revealed that former Weta Digital employee Gray Horsfield, special effects destruction lead on The Return of the King and King Kong among other roles, is building a "Cinematic Physics" system for Source. GameSpy described the new system in their conference report:

“ The idea behind this is to give players the opportunity to experience in-game physics in action on a grander scale. As an example of Cinematic Physics in action, a clip from Half-Life 2: Episode Two was shown of a huge bridge collapsing across a vast ravine. ”

The system appears to add the following features to Source's physics simulator:

Deforming objects — before, physics models could not be modified except through animation
Dynamic crumbling of brush geometry — before, lines of separation had to be specified by the mapper
Cinematic Physics supports a keyframe system, [7] but its exact nature is currently unclear. It could be that an animator creates a largely complete but low-detail sequence which then sees details added by the physics system, or it could be that an animator creates a handful of single-frame states which are then used as motion targets for the ensuing simulation (in a manner not dissimilar to the Endorphin NaturalMotion technology).

Either method results in a drastic reduction of developer input, thus allowing the creation of far more complex scenes than before with the same budget. It is currently unclear both whether or not keyframes are strictly required, and what number are needed to create a scene as complex as the bridge collapse demonstration.


Multiprocessor optimizations

As a part of the Source engine's transition to next-generation consoles, multiprocessor optimizations have been added, resulting in faster processing on PC hardware with dual or quad core systems and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. [6] Gabe Newell:

“ Yes. We definitely think that content needs to move forward. For example, one of the things we're reacting to is the speed at which microprocessors are coming out. So, Intel has very aggressively moved up delivery of desktop processors with four different cores; we'll have support for that in Episode Two, and we'll definitely go back to affect, you know, Episode One or Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike Source, so they can take advantage of that. We'll definitely try to keep the existing games — especially the multiplayer games — current as technology evolves.[8] ”

Valve has demonstrated the new multi core optimizations[9] which use a multi-threading style they dub "hybrid threading." A Source multi-threading update and benchmark are expected to be released at some point, though a date for either and the content of the benchmark are currently unknown.[10]


Future technology

Deformable physics bodies

The upcoming version of the source engine will include support for physics-based animation for simulation of things such as floppy clothing, flexible hair, and better blending of ragdoll physics with predefined animation.[11] Previously, Source's physics system could not deform objects except between bone connections.


[edit] Unconfirmed future technology

[edit] In-game development tools
At release, Team Fortress 2's cache files contained leaked code for several in-game development tools:[12]

Source Filmmaker

The tool used to create Valve's promotional trailers. Users can record themselves as many times as they want and overlap the results, creating the illusion of there being many actors in the world at once. A "Publish to Steam" button is available from the main menu. Supports all of the engine's Cinematic effects.
Material editor
A material-editing IDE for tweaking the properties of a texture's 'proxy' Material file. Does not allow for the editing of texture data itself.
Actbusy editor
Another script-file IDE, this time used to tweak the game or mod's AI Actbusy routines.
Commentary editor
A third script IDE, used to tweak Developer Commentary.
Particle editor
A visual editor for Source's soft particle system, which was also introduced with TF2.
VCD Block Editor
Purpose forgotten!
The leaked code has since been both removed from the cache and disabled from running should the user supply backed-up versions of the various libraries.

Cinematic effects

With color correction and film grain already released, [13] Valve intends to add other cinematic effects such as depth of field to Source when hardware is able to render it to their satisfaction. The effects are accomplished with an accumulation buffer for quality, creating enormous overhead; for instance, twenty to thirty motion blur frames need to be rendered for every one frame that the user sees. For a constant frame rate of thirty frames per second, a video card is required to produce between six hundred and nine hundred frames per second. This causes late 2005-era hardware to require a full two seconds to render each frame. [14]

Motion blur and depth of field can be seen in several of Valve's promotional videos, including:

The Day of Defeat: Source video Prelude to Victory
The initial Portal trailer [1].
The Team Fortress 2 trailer Meet the Heavy

Image-Based Rendering


Image-Based Rendering is a technique in which 2D elements are manipulated to appear in a 3D world. In the context of a 3D game, it delivers a significant performance boost by replacing 3D geometry that is far enough away for the transition to be imperceptible with a 2D image. Implementation of the technology in this role can be found applied to Rome: Total War's soldiers, Far Cry's forests[15], and various objects in Guild Wars' environments, such as buildings and flora.

The technology had been in development for Half-Life 2, as a 2003 interview with Driverheaven.net shows, [16] but was cut. It was mentioned again by Gabe Newell during 1UP's 'Valve week': [17]

“ There's this technology that was really exciting that I’d like to see us get into production, which is a different approach to rendering complexity: Moving things into and out of an image domain and then seamlessly interpolating between those motions as you move around. So that everything close to you is physical and geometry, and everything really far away from you is an image, but you have no way of telling that if you do it properly and things can fly out and come back. ”

The June 2006 Day of Defeat: Source update included an "image-based texture blending shader", [18] and Half-Life 2: Episode Two's expansive environments seem ideally suited to the technology, but it has yet to be dated or even officially announced.


File streaming

One of the technologies developed for Half-Life 2's Xbox release was file streaming, wherein a map's resources could be loaded as the player moved around in it rather than in one operation before playability. [19] With the system in place, loading times were reduced to as little as fifteen seconds. The system expanded on the caching system already implemented. There is no time frame for its release, as implementing such a system on the potentially infinite variations of PC hardware setups in use poses serious performance problems (see Stutter section).

[alopes]

By Mohmar - There is also a PS2-only game called Half-Life: Decay, which has a coop campaign in which you control Colette Green and Gina Cross, an electrical engineer and a physicist.


You have played it Mohmar?
That is one that i haven´t played, it´s stange that is for PS2 only since Valve have it´s main public market on PC.

A cooperative Half-life game must be very enjoyable to play.

[Mohmar 'Deathstrike']

You have played it Mohmar?
That is one that i havenīt played, itīs stange that is for PS2 only since Valve have itīs main public market on PC.

A cooperative Half-life game must be very enjoyable to play.I haven't unfortunately. Maybe some day I'll buy a PS2 just to play that one game :D And I agree it is strange that it wasn't released for PC. You could play the coop over a network with a friend I guess.

[QQ阿]

I'm not a big fan of Half-Life, but gotta love Counter-Strike.