Wednesday, September 14 2005
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast - [Computer Games]
Submitted by Buzzons on 9/14/2005 4:48:33 PM 9 Comments
"Hi. This is Gabe Newell and welcome to The Lost Coast. In this tour, we're going to be talking about a new graphics technology we've been developing called High Dynamic Range, or HDR. We'll also be giving you some insight into the design and production challenges we faced during the construction of The Lost Coast."
Thus begins Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, as introduced by Valve founder and Managing Director, industry legend Gabe Newell. At the kind invitation of Valve, we flew to Seattle to meet the development team behind Lost Coast and talk about HDR, performance, image quality, as well as their up-coming release of Day of Defeat: Source. We also had the opportunity to play through the Lost Coast and performance test it.
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is Valve's reply to a series of What If questions: what if there were no limits? What if we didn't have to make sure people with mid-range systems could enjoy our games? What if the system requirements knew no bounds?
Following the release of Half-Life 2 worldwide on 16th November 2004, a group of programmers and artists at Valve sat down to create the ultimate level, incorporating ultra high resolution textures, models and adding High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDR) to the Source engine. Their aim was to create a technology showcase: a no-holds barred level that would set new standards in image quality and realism; something to really push even the highest of today's high-end systems.
