History of technology - Source Engine. Creating your own RPG on the Source engine How to create a game on the source engine
Entwickler: Valve Betriebssystem: Microsoft Windows … Deutsch Wikipedia
Entwickler Valve Betriebssystem Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X ... Deutsch Wikipedia
Est un moteur de jeu créé par la société Valve Software pour les besoins de son jeu Half Life 2 (HL²). A la base, le Source engine est une refonte du moteur de Quake. C est un moteur complet qui gère graphisme, son et interactions physiques. Ces... ... Wikipédia en Français
Source logo and screenshots from the games Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2: Episode Two ... Wikipedia
Source engine Source engine est un moteur de jeu créé par la société Valve Software pour les besoins de son jeu Half Life 2 (HL²). A la base, le Source engine est une refonte du moteur de Quake. C est un moteur complet qui gère graphisme, son et… … Wikipédia en Français
Source Engine Source logo and screenshots from the games Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2: Episode Two ... Wikipedia
This is a selected list of Source engine Mods (modifications). This list is divided into single player and multiplayer mods. Contents 1 Single player mods 2 Multiplayer mods 3 See also 4 … Wikipedia
Source engine... Wikipedia
Engine... Wikipedia
Books
- Aircraft Propulsion, Saeed Farokhi. New edition of the successful textbook updated to include new material on UAVs, design guidelines in aircraft engine component systems and additional end of chapter problems Aircraft... Buy for 7717.99 RUR eBook
- Symbolic Mathematics for Chemists. A Guide for Maxima Users, Fred Senese. An essential guide to using Maxima, a popular open source symbolic mathematics engine to solve problems, build models, analyze data and explore fundamental concepts Symbolic Mathematics for…
- [surs] n. f. v. 1354; source XIIe; fem. de so(u)rs, anc. p. p. de sourdre 1 ♦ Eau qui sort de terre; issue naturelle ou artificielle par laquelle une eau souterraine se déverse à la surface du sol. ⇒ fontaine, griffon, 1. point (d eau).… … Encyclopédie Universelle
May refer to:Film and television* The Source (documentary), a 1999 documentary movie about the Beat generation * The Source (film), a 2002 science fiction movie, also known as The Secret Craft in the UK and The Surge for its American DVD... ...Wikipedia
Source. s. f. Endroit où l eau commence à sourdre, à sortir de terre, pour avoir un cours continuel. Claire source. live source. source qui ne tarit jamais. ce ruisseau ne provient pas des pluyes, c est une eau qui coule de source. trouver une... ... Dictionnaire de l'Académie française
N 1: a point of origin the source of the conflict 2: one that supplies information held the reporter in contempt for refusing to reveal her source Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam Webster. 1996 ... Law dictionary
Source, Origo, Scaturigo, Scatebra, Caput riuulorum, a surgendo. La source d une lignée, là ou toute la lignée rapporte son commencement, Genus. La source dont vient tout le mal, Seminarium. La source dont procede quelque tristesse, Fons moeroris … Thresor de la langue françoyse
N. 1. a spring, fountain, etc. that is the starting point of a stream 2. that from which something comes into existence, develops, or derives die; aus engl. source »Quelle«, dies über altfr. sure zu lat. surgere »entstehen« die Eingangselektrode beim Feldeffekttransistor … Das große Fremdwörterbuch
NOUN 1) a place, person, or thing from which something originates. 2) a spring or other place from which a river or stream issues. 3) a person, book, or document that provides information or evidence. VERB ▪ obtain from a particular source.… … English terms dictionary
- (fr., spr. Surs), 1) die Quelle, der Ursprung; bes. 2) die Handelsquelle (wo eine Waare aus der ersten Hand bezogen wird) ... Pierer's Universal-Lexikon
Books
- , Mode Peter George. The book is a reprint edition. Despite the fact that serious work has been done to restore the original quality of the publication, some pages may contain...
- , Andrew Cunningham Mclaughlin. Also Authored By Arthur Pearson Scott. The book is a reprint of 1918 (New York, London, Harper & Brothers, Publishers). Despite the fact that there was...
Source is the most popular game engine: at the moment when you read this article, more than a million people can play games written on it:
And this is not surprising: the engine was developed by Valve, which owns the largest gaming store - Steam, and its games are consistently at the top of the gaming top.
But, of course, the path to the top of fame was long: the history of the development of the Source engine began back in 1998, when Valve developers, finishing work on Half-Life 1, realized that they had a lot of developments that they would like to use somewhere. And it was then that the division into two engines appeared: GoldSrc, on which the current version of the game ran, and Source, which belonged to the future version of the game and had new, not yet debugged technologies. And that's why at E3, when Valve showed off the beta version of Half-Life 2, it was said that the game runs on the Source engine. This name stuck, and later GoldSrc completely disappeared.
Source Engine 2004 (Source Engine 6)
The first public version of the engine was released in 2004 along with the beloved shooter Counter Strike, which was named Source in honor of the engine. There were quite a lot of changes from the original version: clearer textures (512x512 pixels versus 128x128 in the original) and well-developed three-dimensional models. The engine's capabilities related to mirror reflections are widely used - for weapons equipped with an optical sight, you can see the environment (but not the models of other players) behind the player on the sight lens when it is not in a close-up state.
Sound effects now match the acoustic conditions, and support for 5.1 and 7.1 speakers has been introduced. New features of the engine helped make the maps more detailed: bottles and packages lying on the ground appeared. The physics engine, created on the basis of Havok, made it possible to improve the physics of grenade flight, explosions, and the effects of their destruction towards greater realism.
A little later that year, Half-Life 2 was released, which added to the above features: shader rendering (Half-Life 2 was one of the first games to use shader water) and facial animation (with support for precise synchronization of actors' speech with animation), and with the help of Havok the “rag doll” effect was obtained:
This version of the engine was used until 2005, and is currently outdated - all games written in SE 6 have been transferred to newer engines.
Source Engine 2005 (Source Engine 7)
An updated version of the engine, released in 2005. The main addition is support for High Dynamic Range Rendering, which the developers released to demonstrate in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast: this game is essentially a level that did not make it into the final version of Half-Life 2. HDR Rendering in Lost Coast includes several components :
- HDR Skybox is the result of overlaying multiple sky exposures to create the effect of changing exposure in real time. Over 16 different HDR Skyboxes were created for Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.
- HDR Refraction Effect - HDR light passes through refractive materials and takes on the properties of these materials (for example, when a beam of light passes through the stained glass windows in the monastery in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, colored reflections are cast on the floor).
- HDR Light Maps - light maps generated using the radiosity effect (light not only reflects from objects and enters the observer's eye, but also hits other objects, reflecting from them). You can notice, for example, inside the monastery in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, by the sun spots on the walls opposite the windows.
Source Engine 2006 (Source Engine 7: Base Source Engine 2)
The first version of the engine to have a development kit available to everyone - Source SDK Base 2006, which allowed many people to create their own modifications for Valve games. The engine has been slightly improved - it supports updated facial animation, multi-core rendering and updated HDR.
Since modifications created using the 2006 SDK are not compatible with newer versions of the engine, this version of the engine is still used by the authors of some mods, and it can hardly be considered current.
Source Engine 2007 (Source Engine 14)
A global release, it was first used in the collection of games from Valve - The Orange Box (it includes: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2). In this version, shader rendering was updated, dynamic lighting and shading were significantly improved, a soft particle system appeared (which greatly improved the quality of effects such as rain and fire), cinematic physics was added, as well as new facial animation (it was supported by hardware acceleration at video cards) and improved support for multi-core processors.
SE 14 became the first version of the engine to support consoles - The Orange Box was released not only for PC, but also for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Just like with SE 7, the modifications created in the SDK for the 14th version did not work on newer ones, so this version of the engine is still in use.
Source Engine 2008 (Source Engine 14: Base Source 3)
Version of the engine created for the game Left 4 Dead:
It improved the cinematic physics by adding:
- Dynamic destruction of game geometry - before this, destruction lines had to be specified by the map creator.
- Deformable objects - Previously, physical models could not be changed in any way except based on pre-calculated animation.
Source Engine 2009 (Source Engine 15)
The version that was released with the game Left 4 Dead 2, later all Valve games of that time were updated to this version. This version has updated all functions, significantly improved the particle system, facial animation, scaling and the ability to update.
Source Engine 2010 (Source Engine 17)
The first version of the engine, ported to macOS. Initially, The Orange Box game package was ported to the Apple OS, and later all new Valve games began to be released for both Mac and Windows.
Source Engine Multiplayer (Source Engine 19, 21 and 23)
Versions of the engine tailored for multiplayer games such as Dota 2 and CS: GO. Also in 2012, support for Linux appeared: the game Team Fortress 2 was ported to it, and later other Valve games.
Source Engine 2013 (Source Engine 24)
The current version of the engine that Valve has ported most of its games to. Among the changes: to optimize the use of disk space, it was decided to abandon the use of bulky .GCF files (archives with game resources) in favor of a file system codenamed SteamPipe. Games on the new engine are now installed in the Steam\SteamApps\Common directory, and game files are stored in .VPK files. For the games Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, a convenient system for adding custom content (mods) has been created: there is a custom folder, in which a folder with an arbitrary name is created, and classic folders of modification materials are added to it ( materials, models, etc.).
Compatibility with Linux was also improved, and in May 2014 Nvidia ported Portal and Half-life 2 to Android for its Nvidia Shield console (however, craftsmen were able to run these games on other devices running Android OS, but performance was low ).
Source 2
A fundamentally new version of the engine, released in 2015 by Valve along with the release of the updated game Dota 2 - Reborn. Alas, there was no technical presentation, we only know that the engine still runs on the OpenGL API (maybe the Vulkan API will be added in the future), and can also use as many processor cores as it has. Valve also promised that the engine would work better on older computers (RAM consumption was reduced), but Dota 2 Reborn turned out to be heavier than Dota 2 on Source Engine 24. Another important addition - VR support appeared, and the first demo game of The Lab for HTC Vive:
The future of the engine
Valve is silent about the further development of the engine, and this is not news for gamers (they are still waiting for rumors about Half-Life 3 and Portal 3, right?) So far, the second version of the engine is quite crude and requires improvement, and, obviously, Valve fix it corrects errors , and only Gabe Newell knows about future games and engine versions.
Valve logo
Developer: Valve Corporation
Engine series: Source Engine
Announcement date: 2004
Written in: C++
License: Proprietary software (Source Engine is the proprietary property of Valve)
Latest version: Source Engine 2
The source engine, which emerged from the shadow of such a giant as Valve, significantly exceeded the expectations placed on it and paved its own path to glory. Source developed by Valve Software, an engine based on the Qake Engine, put an end to old technologies and spurred the community to create a new era of engines. Gabe Newell's first statement after purchasing the engine: "When we sat down and looked at the engine, we realized that to create a great first-person shooter, you don't need to do innovative development in this area, in which everything has already been done by Carmack."
Fortunately, the engine did not fully satisfy all of Valve's needs; the developers were guided by the principle - we want something, we will make it appear in the game. Based on this, Valve greatly changed the engine so that the game would look not like Quake, but how the developers themselves want it.
The first versions of the engine even included support for dynamic lighting, but later, due to the insufficient power of computers at that time, it was decided to remove this technology. The graphics engine has been heavily redesigned so that Half-Life doesn't look like its direct competitor Quake. Half-Life had to not only look better than Quake, but also be technically better than Quake. Due to this problem, the release of Half-Life was delayed by almost a year. Half-Life was the first game in which NPC characters were divided into allies and enemies. Skeletal animation and facial expressions were also added to the engine - this is a truly brilliant innovation, this technology is now used in all physical models.
By giving models a skeleton, programmers can create character animation much easier and better, which also allows them to create various scenes in games faster and more beautifully. The innovation also affected facial expressions - if earlier the characters, as a rule, ventriloquized with their voices, now their faces have taken on a life of their own. This engine was later regularly reworked and improved, both by Valve and third-party companies. Valve themselves updated it using the Steam system. Gearbox has released several games on it, of which Half-Life: Blue Shift and Half-Life: Opposing Force are worth noting. The Gearbox modification added higher resolution textures, anti-aliasing, and improved the facial expression system.
For the release of Counter Strike: Condition Zero, a new version of the engine was developed jointly by Valve, Gearbox and TurtleRock, which added the ability to use highly detailed textures. Textures were superimposed on top of others and created a feeling of roughness of the plane, such as gaps, cracks, etc. Alpha textures were also added; such textures could be set to a degree of transparency, which is used in a number of scenes.
| History of the development of the Source engine |
A little history of development: it all started in 1998, when the developers, finishing work on their first game in the Half-Life series, realized that during the development process a lot of developments and details had appeared that they would like to introduce into the engine, but because... the game was already almost ready, they did not dare to introduce new solutions. In subsequent odes, the developers used terms to name the engine directly as “GoldSource” and “Source”. GoldSource was developed from the source code of the release version of the engine, and Src remained an experimental version and belonged to a future version of the engine.
Thus, the name Source began to be used to describe the new engine, and GoldSource became the name of the previous generation of technology. It is worth noting that the name literally means “source”, but the word source is also used in the phrase source code - source code.
The first game on the Source engine was the multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike: Source, released in October 2004. It became a kind of demonstration of the engine, which is why the name of the technology is inscribed in its name, being a version of the classic shooter Counter-Strike recreated with the latest graphics for that time .
A little later, the sequel to Half-Life was released - Half-Life 2, a story-driven sci-fi shooter that subsequently received many awards and was noted as having one of the most progressive graphics for its time. Half-Life 2 makes heavy use of the physics engine, which is based on Havok, licensed by Valve. Numerous puzzles based on playing with physical laws are built using the Havok Engine. Subsequently, the theme of puzzles with the laws of physics was interestingly developed in another Valve project - Portal, released in 2007, the main idea of the game is movement using teleports. In addition to its advanced physics model, Half-Life 2 featured the most advanced facial animation technology of its time. The graphics engine, using DirectX version nine, was also highly optimized and could run on older video card models, lowering its graphics quality and switching to earlier versions of DirectX, up to version six.
Subsequently, Source, whose structure is described by the developers as extremely flexible and modular, was used in most of the company's games, constantly undergoing modifications and improvements. Many modern effects were added, and various engine capabilities were expanded, including, for example, working with large locations, and new platforms were added to the list of supported ones. Initially, Source was available on Windows, later Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 were added, and since 2010 - Mac. Since 2012, Linux support was added, the first game Valve ported was Team Fortress 2.
| Source Specifications |
Source is a game engine, so it consists of various components, including: Physics engine, graphics engine, audio engine, etc.
One of the features of the engine is its character animation system, in particular, facial animation, which contains many tools for creating expressive facial expressions and accurately synchronizing the speech of actors with animation; The engine also features advanced gaming artificial intelligence, which can effectively control the player’s opponents or allies; it was one of the first to use complex shader effects; In games on the engine, shader water was actively used, reflecting the surrounding world.
The physics engine is based on Havok. It allows you to calculate many physical objects, such as rigid bodies, elastic bodies, ropes, surfaces, etc. It is possible to create realistic vehicles, from cars to hovercrafts and helicopters. To calculate the behavior of a vehicle on the road or in the air, many parameters are used, for example, the adhesion of the wheels to the road, the weight of the car. To give realistic body movement, “rag doll” physics is used; pre-created animation can be mixed with real-time physics.
With the development of Source, it was added: HDR rendering, dynamic lighting and shading with the ability to self-shadow objects, soft shadows from (there is the ability to use traditional light maps), multi-core rendering for multi-core processors, and a developed particle system.
| SDK tools |
Source SDK is a set of utilities for creating modifications on the Source engine, available free of charge to players via Steam. The set includes: a map editor - Valve Hammer Editor, a utility for creating facial animation of models - Faceposer, a program for viewing models in .MDL format - Model Viewer.
In addition to the three main utilities, the set includes a utility for unpacking base files when creating a new mod, as well as source code files for libraries of some Valve games, which allows you to manually create games with changed characteristics without decompiling the engine. However, knowledge of the C++ language and compiler is required to compile new files.
Below are the various internal versions of the Source engine, with a list of games that used that particular version of the engine:
Early versions (2003) - an early version of the engine was used in the leaked beta version of Half-Life 2 in 2003, the game was visually similar to Half-Life on GoldSource and did not contain many technologies. On another version of the engine, already close to the one that debuted with Half-Life 2, the game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was created.
VTMB Source Engine 2004 (Source Engine 6) is the first release version of the engine, first used in Half-Life 2. Initially it supports scaling, upgradeability, shader rendering, facial animation, and dynamic lighting. Until 2005, used in: Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life: Source. Updated to Source Engine 7.
Source Engine 2005 (Source Engine 7) - updated version. Compared to its predecessor, it supports High Dynamic Range Rendering; to demonstrate new lighting technologies, the developers released Half-Life 2: Lost Coast; in essence, this game is a level that did not make it into the final version of Half-Life 2. The engine is considered obsolete and is used in : Half-Life 2: Lost Coast; until 2006, used in: Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Day of Defeat: Source; until 2010 in Half-Life 2; until 2014 - in Half-Life: Source.
Source Engine 2006 (Source Engine 7: Base Source Engine 2) with development kit: Source SDK Base 2006 - the third version of the engine, on which several games were released. It was also the basis for a number of Valve's multiplayer games until 2010. It has been updated to support updated facial animation, multi-core rendering, and updated HDR. A large number of modifications were released for this version of the engine, in addition, mods released for earlier versions are compatible with this version, which do not work on later versions, so it is still used by mod authors. Used in Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, SiN Episodes: Emergence, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic; until 2009 it was used in Day of Defeat: Source; until 2010 in Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, Garry's Mod.
Source Engine 2007 (Source Engine 14); with development kit: Source SDK Base 2007 - the fourth version of the engine, greatly improved and updated, used for the first time in Valve games from The Orange Box collection. Shader rendering was updated, dynamic lighting and shading were significantly improved, a soft particle system was also introduced, and cinematic physics was added, a feature that significantly expanded the use of the physics engine. The engine contains significant changes since Source Engine 7, so game modifications released for earlier versions are not compatible with this and later versions. Used in Black Mesa; until 2010 in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source.
Source Engine 2008 (Source Engine 14: Base Source 3) - another version of the engine with improved cinematic physics and some visual effects (for example, depth of field); used in Left 4 Dead.
Source Engine 2009 (Source Engine 15) is the sixth, highly modified version of the engine. All functions have been updated, the particle system, facial animation, scaling and the ability to update have been significantly improved. Released with Left 4 Dead 2, earlier Valve games were later updated to this version. Used by: Left 4 Dead 2, Zeno Clash, Postal III, since September 2010 the following games have switched to this version: Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half -Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, Team Fortress 2.
Source Engine 2010 (Source Engine 17) is the seventh version of the engine. Used in: Day of Defeat: Source, Bloody Good Time.
Source Engine 2011 - used in Portal 2, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, The Stanley Parable.
Source Engine Multiplayer (Source Engine 19) - a version of the engine adapted for the needs of multiplayer games; before 2010 they used: Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Garry's Mod.
Source Engine Multiplayer (Source Engine 21) - used until 2012: Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Garry's Mod.
Source Engine Multiplayer (Source Engine 23) - improved work with the Big Picture Mode feature on Steam; until 2013 it was used in: Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Garry's Mod.
Source Engine 2013 (Source Engine 24); with the Source SDK Base 2013 toolkit - one of the latest versions of the engine to which Valve has transferred most of its games. Among the changes: to optimize the use of disk space, it was decided to abandon the use of bulky .GCF files (archives with game resources), in favor of a file system codenamed SteamPipe. Games on the new engine are now installed in the Steam\SteamApps\Common directory, and game files are stored in .VPK files. For the games Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, a convenient system for adding custom content (mods) has been created: there is a custom folder, in which a folder with an arbitrary name is created, and classic folders of modification materials are added to it ( materials, models, etc.). Added compatibility with Linux. Since 2013 used in: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, Garry's Mod, Tactical Intervention, Alien Swarm.
| Source 2 Engine |
Valve officially announced Source 2 at the GDC 2015 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 3rd. According to Valve, Source 2 will be "available free to all content developers." A similar announcement was recently made by Epic Games, whose Unreal Engine 4 no longer requires a monthly subscription to use.
“With Source 2, we want to increase the productivity of creative people,” Valve lead programmer Jay Stelly said in a press release. - With user-generated content becoming increasingly important, Source 2 isn't just for professional developers. It allows players themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite projects."
Valve's distribution model looks much more interesting compared to its competitors, the engine is free for everyone, but if you want to make a game on Source 2, be kind enough to sell it through our Steam platform. Source 2 is a powerful tool that can satisfy the needs of any developer, detailed engine specifications have not yet been announced, as well as an announcement date, but versions with support for the Vulkan API are mentioned - a new development by the Khronos Group, which will allow game creators to squeeze the most out of the most modern computer hardware. Not a single project on Source 2 has been announced yet, but there is a video circulating online in which, at a closed presentation to the developers, the game Dota 2 was shown running using Source 2. Now every user with a Steam account has the opportunity to run Dota 2 on Source engine 2.
Valve made great efforts to not be like everyone else, and in the end they received a unique technology that was ahead of its time. Despite the rather long existence of the Source engine, the games do not look bad and did not hinder the developers in implementing their ideas. All thanks to constant updates not only of the games, but also of the engine itself, as evidenced by the many Build versions of Source. Games created on Source are not only the legendary series that every gamer has heard of Half Life, Portal, Left 4 dead, but also games that have turned into e-sports disciplines Counter Strike: Global offensive, Dota 2. At the moment, Valve are the organizers of the championship with the largest prize fund ($13,000,000) and it is still growing. Now with the announcement of Source 2, the question is up in the air whether this will be a breakthrough and a new era for games or just another technology, of which there are quite a lot at the moment. At a minimum, the monetization of the engine is very impressive, and the Steam Machines console, controller, Steam Link, Steam Lighthouse (a device for a virtual reality helmet) speaks of Valve's intention to penetrate into all areas related to computer games. Well, we can only wait until we can enjoy the results of Valve’s labors and fully experience the next gene of the computer entertainment industry.
The history of the Valve team, their first epic creation - the game Half-Life - and its sequel and numerous variations on the theme is a rather controversial thing.
On the one hand, this is a continuation of the history of the Quake engine, since Half-Life began precisely when the founders of Valve licensed it from id Software (this happened even before the very idea of the project and the game script crystallized). Therefore, the saying “on someone else’s hump and on to heaven” involuntarily comes to mind.
On the other hand, Valve made a tremendous contribution to the development of 3D shooters: their merit lies not so much in the technological improvements of the engine (although there were some, and quite significant ones), but in an innovative approach to the design of games of this kind. Half-Life has become famous for its scripted “cinematography” - when the player does not just rush around the level, shooting everything that moves, but finds himself a witness and participant in some global and not so global events, which he is not always able to influence.
As a result of this, as well as the titanic work of the artists, a game was released that is so different from Quake that it is difficult to believe in any relationship between them.
Screenshot of Half-Life. A crowbar as the first - and for a long time the main - weapon. Let's get some headcrabs here!
Development history
That first Half-Life, which we all know, is, in fact, according to its creators, Half-Life 2 (and the game released under this name is de facto Half-Life 3).
The fact is that, despite the enormous work done, the creators of Half-Life came to the conclusion at some bleak moment that the resulting design was simply no good. Only the fact that Valve's founders - Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington - had "deep pockets" saved the situation. In fact, they paid the developers money from their own accounts.
Newell and Harrington at the time were Microsoft veterans who had made good careers at the company (Newell actually says to himself that he was “the producer of the first three releases of Windows”) and earned a million-dollar fortune there. Their former colleague Michael Abrash, who by that time had left Microsoft for id Software, inspired Newell and Harrington to do a similar thing - to try their luck in the gaming industry. Which is what they did.
Thanks to Abrash, by the way, they were able to buy the Quake source code from id Software, and also receive some valuable advice. They then recruited a diverse team of developers; some of them were literally pulled out of college, and instead of working part-time delivering pizza, they started programming and drawing.
Day of Defeat is one of the most popular mods for Half-Life. Low polygons are not a hindrance to a beautiful picture.
And only after the team took shape did Newell and Harrington begin searching for a publisher. The main problem turned out to be precisely this: no one knew them and few people even wanted to deal with them. Salvation came from the most unexpected side: the contract with them was signed by none other than Mr. Ken Williams, the founder of Sierra Online (Ken's wife Roberta Williams is the actual creator of the Quest genre, by the way). Sierra was going through difficult times at that moment; in fact, there were no 3D shooters in its catalogue; Doom was of little interest to Williams, and then he realized that he had missed the mark and began looking for someone who could make a shooter for Sierra. Found.
Sierra was very liberal towards novice game makers. Valve completely missed all development deadlines (a year after work on the game began, it was decided to remake it almost from scratch - for the game publisher this decision was extremely bleak, since it directly cost them money). However, Valve did not lose Sierra's support, and shortly before the successful completion of the development process, the publisher achieved absolutely unimaginable hype around a game that had not yet been released.
As a result, Half-Life is a three-dimensional shooter with a great plot about the unexpected consequences of a scientific experiment, a wildly scary - both for those times, and even for today - atmosphere and graphics that left no chance for most of its contemporaries (with fairly decent system requirements, we note), - literally becomes a legend; what are 50 different “Game of the Year” awards worth...
And a lifelong registration in folklore:
In the photo, in fact, the Large Hadron Collider. Sapienti sat.
Counter-Strike, Blue Shift and others
Probably everyone has heard about Counter-Strike, an anti-terrorist team shooter. A little less people have probably heard about things like Day of Defeat (a team game like CTF - Capture the Flag - on the theme of the Second World War) and Team Fortress.
Counter-Strike. No comments.
All of these are mods for the game Half-Life, which were originally created by third-party developers. In the end, however, Valve simply hired both the creators of Counter-Strike and the authors of Day of Defeat.
The differences between these games and the original Half-Life are quite significant in technical terms: just look at the (relatively) realistic shooting weapons, whose behavior is modeled from real examples - the Kalashnikov AK-74 assault rifle and the large-caliber Desert Eagle pistol in CS, the German MG- 42 in Day of Defeat.
“Classic” CS and DoD, despite the release of new versions based on the Source engine, are still played by thousands and thousands of players.
The GearBox team has also developed two mods (more precisely, Expansion Packs), in which events in the Half-Life game receive an alternative development.
And this is new content, in particular, a new hostile race in Opposing Force, and in Blue Shift there is also a significant graphics upgrade: the polygonality of models of people and monsters has been doubled (both in the add-on and in the original game), as a result of which the humanoid the characters began to look like people after all (however, the system requirements doubled).
Screenshot of Blue Shift. The polygonality of the models has been doubled compared to the original game.
Over time, CS also underwent an upgrade - in any case, the polygonality of the characters has clearly undergone a good “mesh lift.”
Technical aspects
As already mentioned, the engine that formed the basis of Half-Life - GoldSrc (this is its internal name) is a modified Quake Engine, or rather its modification of QuakeWorld.
At the same time, at the last stages of development, fragments of Quake II code were added to the source code, but in very small quantities.
According to some reports, Valve has rewritten about 70% of the Quake Engine source code.
One of the key improvements was skeletal animation for characters (it was not present in Quake). Valve's plans for skeletal animation caused such skepticism among potential future publishers that some, having heard about it, refused to talk further at all. Then, apparently, they bit their elbows.
Skeletal animation allowed for very smooth animation, much smoother than in other modern 3D shooters.
Another not-so-typical step was support for simultaneous software rendering, as well as 3D acceleration via Direct 3D and OpenGL interfaces (now this is the norm).
The “artificial intelligence” of the monsters underwent serious development - they could “think tactically”, interact with each other, and they also really wanted to live. So it was extremely difficult to fight them - it really turned out to be a battle for life and death. As they say, “Oh, if only a headcrab were your main trouble there...”
Finally, an important achievement for those times was the Decals system for displaying, for example, bullet holes, blood stains, water splashes, some kind of mold growing before our eyes, etc. In essence, these are nothing more than additional textures that can be drawn at a tiny distance from any already textured surface, so that it appears that a new texture has appeared.
Fans of CS and DoD know that you can leave “your” logo anywhere in the game, and that when a grenade explodes, a dark spot appears on the ground - these are Decals.
The grenade mark is Decal.
Well, it should be said separately about the DSP software built into the game, which calculated the acoustics of each room in real time, based on its volume and the material from which the walls were made. Thus, a pistol shot in a large metal hangar or underwater will sound completely different than a shot in a room with concrete walls. It must be said that the fearful atmosphere for which Half-Life is famous is largely created by the soundtrack.
With it, the need for background music simply disappears, so there is no music at all in the game.
Source Engine: Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source and others
What is now called the Source Engine, in fact, was originally a “fork” in the development of the main Half-Life engine - GoldSrc. The names GoldSource and Source were used only internally for a long time, but Source eventually became the official public name.
The giant Half-Life 2 was built on it.
The first game ends with some incomprehensible G-Man “hiring” the main character, Gordon Freeman, and putting him into hibernation until the right moment.
The right moment comes a decade or two later, when the Earth has undergone a full-scale alien invasion. Guess who is sent to fight them.
The beginning of the game takes place in a certain Eastern European city, City-17; Such a “strange” choice of starting location is due to the fact that the art director of Half-Life 2, Viktor Antonov, spent his entire childhood in Bulgaria, and his colleagues felt that the Eastern European neighborhood of modern and historical architecture was just what was needed.
Half-Life 2. City 17.
In general, the gameplay of both “Half Lives” is similar (unlike the graphics), but in the details there are a lot of differences: many puzzles are associated with realistic physics, and the main weapon that you will have to wield is not a crowbar, but a “gravity gun”, which allows drag or throw objects of almost any size and weight from place to place. Sending an entire car to the heads of a pack of armed opponents - what could be better?
While the development of the first Half-Life took two years, which was considered a very long cycle, work on the second Half-Life continued for six years. At the very last stages, it would seem, disaster overtook Valve: in 2003, a German hacker broke into the company’s internal network and stole the source code for Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source and a compiled early version of the game.
Significant changes had to be made to the game to avoid the appearance of a heap of cheats and - potentially - malware that exploits the game code. As a result, the development of Half-Life 2 stretched for another year.
The FBI was on the hacker's tail, they identified him and were going to lure him to the United States under the pretext of... employment as a network security specialist at Valve. He, the fool, believed it and was already preparing to fly to the States, but then the German authorities themselves took him by the gills, having found out about the Americans’ plans.
But when the game came out, there was a friendly howl of enthusiasm. One publication gave the game as many as 11 points - out of a possible 10 (without comments). Well, millions of copies and downloads were not long in coming.
It must be said that Half-Life 2 was initially deprived of a multiplayer component; instead, gamers were immediately offered Counter-Strike: Source, and only a few months later Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was released.
Counter-Strike: Source. It’s more pleasant to admire the beauty than to shoot terrorists.
Based on the same engine, both Day of Defeat: Source and the new Team Fortress were released very quickly. CS:S and DoD:S, however, turned out to be largely different games, so not every doc from CS 1.6 showed the same success in CS:S. At least at first.
Technical features of Source
- Rendering using Direct 3D interface versions 7-9 with Shader Model 3 support
- Physics engine responsible for the realism of the interaction of in-game objects (a highly modified version of the Havok engine adapted for online use)
- Skeletal animation for characters with support for inverse kinematics.
- Motion blur simulation.
- Facial animation and lip-syncing technologies, so that when speaking they move in full accordance with what the character is saying. Lip-syncing is localizable, so game characters can be made to speak any language.
- Dynamic lighting and shading.
Day of Defeat: Source. Someone's going to screw me right now.
In 2005, the engine also received support for HDR rendering, and in 2007, support for “soft particles”, multi-core processors and hardware support for facial animation.
Since the Source Engine is entirely modular, improvements can be made to it on the fly. Valve has long been distributing its games through the Steam content delivery system, and the engine is also updated through it.
Valve seems to have gone a little crazy with the modular principle: even sequels to Half-Life 2 began to be released in separate episodes. In 2005, a “technical demonstration” was released - Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, in which HDR rendering technology was tested; Then came Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two, separate "chapters" - with new gameplay and new enemies, increasingly smarter.
The Source engine has caused some dissatisfaction among modders; firstly, all the program code for the mod has to be written in C++, otherwise the engine will not understand it in principle (although with the release of Left 4 Dead 2, partial support for scripts in the Squirrel language appeared). Understanding the game SDK turned out to be a very difficult task, which modders were also not very happy about (as were some commercial licensees of the engine).
