Ryuug4
03-04-2014, 10:43 AM
https://i.imgur.com/etyTBGQ.jpg
Valve is pretty good about letting people work with their properties, up to and including allowing a fan-made total conversion of their first game to be made in the engine from their second. After the better part of a decade in development, though, that project — called Black Mesa – has yet to be released in its entirety. However, even if all you’re doing is making upgraded models, textures, and lighting effects, making a video-game takes time. That being the case, don’t think that the images below are from a genuine mod or upcoming project. A user called Logithx at the website Polycount has posted a personal art project that aims to recreate the opening scene of Half-Life 2 in Epic’s Unreal Engine 4.
As a pure art project, this won’t run afoul of any copyright issues, and it can serve as a stark reminder of just how far graphics have come in the past 10 years. Though the creator points out that many of the effects are still in their infancy, the impact of two generations of rendering technology is very apparent. The scene is also unfinished, still lacking interiors for the trains and other details not visible here. Logithx is apparently hard at work fixing that problem, though, so further screens (and perhaps a walkable map) shouldn’t be too far behind.
https://i.imgur.com/FUmUsMs.jpg
The scene has been chosen well to show off some of the newest features of the Unreal Engine. Though the indoor environment obscures any near-infinte draw distances, it does allow for complex shadows and lighting effects from the interplay of artificial light sources and sunlight streaming through windows in God-rays. It also contains a fair number of additions on the part of its creator, since much of the detail now modeled in Unreal 4 is only implied in the Source Engine version. Notably, the windows are actually transparent now, rather than self-illuminating planes. Almost all of the detail in the upper half of the train station is extrapolated from grainy, distant bitmaps into detailed models and textures.
https://i.imgur.com/MQ0bvSC.jpg
The original Source engine, which powered Half-Life 2, its expansion episodes, and the Left 4 Dead games, is one of the most licensed game engines of the last generation. In terms of AAA graphics-intensive games, its main rival was in fact earlier iterations of Epic’s Unreal engine. Valve is itself hard at work on a next-gen game engine, assumed to be named Source 2, and Gabe Newell has confirmed that Valve is simply waiting for the right game to accompany its release. Right now, the best bet is Left 4 Dead 3.
geek.com (http://www.geek.com/news/this-is-what-half-life-2-would-look-like-in-unreal-engine-4-1590023/)
polycount.com (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2037585&postcount=3431)
Valve is pretty good about letting people work with their properties, up to and including allowing a fan-made total conversion of their first game to be made in the engine from their second. After the better part of a decade in development, though, that project — called Black Mesa – has yet to be released in its entirety. However, even if all you’re doing is making upgraded models, textures, and lighting effects, making a video-game takes time. That being the case, don’t think that the images below are from a genuine mod or upcoming project. A user called Logithx at the website Polycount has posted a personal art project that aims to recreate the opening scene of Half-Life 2 in Epic’s Unreal Engine 4.
As a pure art project, this won’t run afoul of any copyright issues, and it can serve as a stark reminder of just how far graphics have come in the past 10 years. Though the creator points out that many of the effects are still in their infancy, the impact of two generations of rendering technology is very apparent. The scene is also unfinished, still lacking interiors for the trains and other details not visible here. Logithx is apparently hard at work fixing that problem, though, so further screens (and perhaps a walkable map) shouldn’t be too far behind.
https://i.imgur.com/FUmUsMs.jpg
The scene has been chosen well to show off some of the newest features of the Unreal Engine. Though the indoor environment obscures any near-infinte draw distances, it does allow for complex shadows and lighting effects from the interplay of artificial light sources and sunlight streaming through windows in God-rays. It also contains a fair number of additions on the part of its creator, since much of the detail now modeled in Unreal 4 is only implied in the Source Engine version. Notably, the windows are actually transparent now, rather than self-illuminating planes. Almost all of the detail in the upper half of the train station is extrapolated from grainy, distant bitmaps into detailed models and textures.
https://i.imgur.com/MQ0bvSC.jpg
The original Source engine, which powered Half-Life 2, its expansion episodes, and the Left 4 Dead games, is one of the most licensed game engines of the last generation. In terms of AAA graphics-intensive games, its main rival was in fact earlier iterations of Epic’s Unreal engine. Valve is itself hard at work on a next-gen game engine, assumed to be named Source 2, and Gabe Newell has confirmed that Valve is simply waiting for the right game to accompany its release. Right now, the best bet is Left 4 Dead 3.
geek.com (http://www.geek.com/news/this-is-what-half-life-2-would-look-like-in-unreal-engine-4-1590023/)
polycount.com (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2037585&postcount=3431)