VRMag, an online magazine in photographic virtual reality, has published a review of Half-Life 2, but instead of the usual in-game screenshots the author has opted for panoramic 3D shots.Using Garry's mod for the Source engine, the reviewer froze surrounding NPCs and spawned a vehicle to chauffeur him around City 17 in order to obtain the choicest of pictures.
The images are further improved using Neotokyo's HDR Bloom Mod by making use of the Bloom effect.
Generally, before releasing games, publishers and developers give game portals some screenshots where you can see the graphic features of the in-development game, and perhaps some game action. I wanted to go further and highlight the architectural and photographic aspects of the game, which I demonstrate with QTVR images shot during game play, the first time (that I'm aware of) that this has been done.
In 1998, when Half Life was first published, it was the first storytelling game of the entertainment history; a movie-like game, where just the intro took about eight minutes of titles of the cast and the directors, moving you on a train while exploring your way to the MENSA base station. Valve worked very hard on the game-rendering engine, resulting in spectacular simulated worlds presented in HL2; today, it is probably the state-of-the-art in real-time rendering systems.
Read on
Check out the panoramic 3D shots of various Half-Life 2 locations. (Quicktime required)
Related:
Half Life 2 In The Real World
Legend Counter Strike Mapper Springs Back
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast - More Details Emerge
Retail Valve Games to Continue
Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast - New Screenshots and Movie
More Half-Life 2: Aftermath/ Lost Coast Details
Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast
Discussion >>
