social.noyu.me

i feel like visiting the train station at the start of half-life 2 again, so here's another, tinier screenshot thread

this guy? he didn't see me get on.

this is a really nice train interior.

the kind of photos i take when i visit a train station

so much love was put into this place. here's one way you can tell: the map doesn't stop at the edges of the playable area! i noclipped past the fence for these screenshots, and just look at all this detail. it's amazing. i've been here before in the map editor, but not in-game.

feeling very welcomed rn

ahh, all that extra detail is so you can look out of the windows as the train pulls into the station. they didn't have to do that, but i'm glad they did!

also, hey, here's the train interior once the other passengers have gotten off. once you get off, you can't get back in

i think i rose and shone a little too brightly

once you notice it, it might bother you: i suspect the roof of the train station was a compromise for polygon count. the roof looks like it's meant to be curved, like many real-life stations. look at the textures on breen's far left and far right, for example.

the way the triangular shape is supported by arches feels architecturally plausible but the more i look at it, the less realistic it feels

on the other hand, those supporting arches are quite elaborate. quite possible i'm wrong.

i noclip'd up to the catwalk above the tracks (one of valve's less implausible catwalks imo) and from here you can really appreciate the beauty of Source's baked lighting. look at how the light comes in through the roof, and the opaque parts cast long shadows over the station <3

i seem to find older games with elaborate baked lighting more visually appealing than newer games with elaborate dynamic lighting. perhaps it's because it's carefully placed for artistic effect, like in photography, and it has that wonderful soft fall-off at the edges.

it's a trade-off of course. in Final Fantasy XIV, there's dynamic shadows everywhere, so they can respond to the angle of the sun and make the world feel less static, which is cool. on the other hand, many angles are visually unappealing, and it being real-time reduces fidelity

interestingly, those two techniques are like polar opposites when it comes to how much texel density they need. nobody likes a shadow map that isn't razor-sharp, but if anything a baked lightmap looks best when it is quite blurry

(i know there's other kinds of dynamic lighting)

these trade-offs suit those games' worlds. the Source æsthetic is defined by built environments, and humans struggle in darkness, so they build things that only look good when lit up. FFXIV, on the other hand, has lots of natural landscapes. https://social.noyu.me/@hikari/statuses/01H22Y8RGFMH9E389Y8DCAES57

there are no purely technical choices, huh. everything is also an artistic consideration.

oh my god there's so many interactible objects in hl2 from the very first moment. i just never thought to press the use key until "pick up that can"

…i wonder how it's like, playing this game as an american. to me, city 17 feels like a normal city. if all you've ever known is asphalt grids, maybe it feels hyper-foreign?