49 thoughts on “Half-Life: Alyx In-depth Breakdown”

  3. 37:10 The wires are most-likely DX-12's "rope/vine/wire" geometry. There is a specific type of object, used for creating these "fast geometries", where you don't have to create the actual geometry, you just have a series of starting and ending targets, with a shell-form material. (Cylinder base) Which it uses to clone a semi-interactive stream of geometry. It can sway in the wind, move when a blast happens near it, get destroyed into particle-shards and drape along other geometry in the scene. They used this a LOT in games like GTA for power wires. They used these a lot on any games with jungles, as vines or rope structures. etc… I would not doubt if they used those, as well as cards, for the smaller wires that seem to wrap around them. However, I do believe the thicker wires are actual wires. They also auto-LOD and auto-Tessellate, without a need for extra code to be added to the game-engine. (That is why you see them a LOT in time-demos, as well as particles 2D, 3D and volumetric ones.)

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  4. 22:20 There is a point where she holds her hands up. I would be curious to know if that was scripted, or if that was an "in game action". If a designer actually sees this… Please, make things like this in VR. We have to break-away from just button-pressing and take advantage of our own actual human input. It is not the same as using your hands to just aim a weapon or grab a door handle. Holding your hands up, to initiate a surrender or a plea for your life, should be a strategic action. Just as pointing at things, to reply, "He went that way!", or "Go there!" Waving away smoke and webs. Waving hello, as a sign of neutrality. Holding your head/ears to drown out noise. Grasping your stomach, to fake an illness. Holstering your weapon to your hip or chest holster. Holding your hands out, to gesture "Stop". Shaking small creatures off your hands, too small to actually fight otherwise. Gesturing "come here", with the extension of your arm and flip-of your wrist. All great ways to interact, which improves immersion, instead of killing it, with another assigned button on a keyboard or joy-stick.

    P.S. Time for "Glove controls", to actually make a come-back. Velcro-movable "anywhere" buttons and fore-arm interfaces so we add more actual immersion into games like this. It isn't expensive to sense finger and wrist manipulations anymore. This is all standard and cheap technology that doesn't require bulky equipment to function. (Talking to you too, VR makers… Where are the goggle/helmet buttons for in-game use? Night-vision, UI-toggles, Zoom control, Helmet-of/on, head-lamp… It's four simple buttons or clickable scroll wheels, which can aid in counter-balancing the goggles weight, with an excuse for existing in the physical world.)

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  6. So now that Black mesa is nearly finished i have one question

    What is your team's next project? Would it be a Half life 2 Black mesa style remake? Something unique that is not a remake? Or is crowbar collective only here to make Black mesa? You guys are great it'd be sad to see you go.

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  8. sadly its only for vr, and just imagine trying to release a game that's gonna be a massive fail in the gaming community where most people don't have vr, aint noone gonna waste 150 dollars only to play this.

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  11. You said to correct you if you're wrong about the resolution, so I guess I'll do that.

    the resolution you quoted is pretty close, but the refresh rate isn't. Most VR headsets operate at 90Hz. The Index offers options for 120Hz and an experimental mode that's not fully supported that can run the displays at 144Hz.

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  12. FYI Steam VR Environments has a source 2 SDK, you can see a lot of the features you've brought up and the engine is hands down amazing to use

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  13. I wouldnt mind if they borrowed others tech and modified it for half life 3 to surpass other gfx giants like crysis 3 or battlefield 5 but source 2 is not yet in the same league as unreal engine and many other competing engines, maybe source 3 would be but valve knows how much improvement engine would need in order to be innovative and compete on the market like in 2003, so thats why we will never see new real breaktrough classic like hl2, they would need help from the outside to build something innovative in all departments especially in technology like they used quake engine for half life,

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  14. Iirc, doesn't Eli Vance ask Alyx to make some tea right after she says "prepare for unforseen consequences"? That's specifically a teacup she's placing on the table. Just a thought.

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  16. i hope there will be some kind of a patch to avoid using VR…many of us just dont have VR goggles 🙁 we are also all in hopes for Half-Life 3 🙂

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  25. I though maybe there might be some climbing elements in the game. In Half Life 2 Alyx constantly scales structures and an entire building at one time. At 23:48 that yellow rail looks like it could almost be interact-able, like she seems boxed in by the other railing and might have to mount the yellow railing, jump onto the tracks and get across to that room on the other side. Just an idea.

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  26. 14:55 Cyrillic says "Intend", 5th letter is kind of hard to see, could be something else
    Edit: my guess is it says интендант(intendant) which means manager

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  27. Higher tier game studios getting into VR and doing it at this level is how VR is now becoming the new official gaming industry!!

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  29. Finally someone reacts to this trailer that understands something of game development. I dont regret subscribing to you guys 😀

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  30. It disgusts me on how less attention you guys get with that fucking gorgeous remake of the best game ever made of yours…valve should hire and promote everything you guys do. And your channel deserves 100 times of your actual subscriber right now …and if I could, I wouldve bought black mesa 3 times….Oh and it was so awesome of you guys that you put that Coffe cup voiceline from jolly into Black mesa 😀 l love and will support everything you guys do <3

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  31. I'm not a developer, so I could totally be wrong, but I don't think the tower is a painting, at least not as I understand you.

    The problem with tricks like that in VR is that, while they work in 2D, VR is a 3D medium so you can see when something is flat. It's not something we can really sort out looking at a 2D trailer though.

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  33. Everything looks so real, and then the faces stick out like cartoons. Amazingly rendered cartoons. Stark contrast from the HL2 G-Man.

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  36. If you think Valve wouldn't have us dropping from a height when picked up by a barnacle, just check the Valve Index Controllers tutorial software. They have NO problem dropping people from a height! 😀

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  37. Is this Adam-Bomb from the discord server?
    hello
    Also tell Stormseeker (C. Horn) that the pizza is ready

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  38. I'm thinking that the enemy around 5:20 could VERY WELL be a re-imagined version of a stukabat, Which was an enemy that got cut from half-life 1.

    The wing and large tail fit well, and alyx rushes over to peek at it after hearing a sound i would definitely describe as a caw of some sort.

    It doesn't seem to be an immediate threat, and is more scurrying around. It's on the ground, so something may have struck it down from it's preferred position hanging or in the air.
    The things that don't support it would be the fact that the new creature has a more muted color, and obviously has got itself a pair of back-legs.

    I wonder if IT has electricity, or if that was just the enemy at 35:00 knocking it down.
    For those who haven't seen it, Wiki page for the creature: https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Stukabat

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  39. don't really need to gush too much about the texture mapping and blending, that is tech they later added into Half Life 2. So I would say at this point it's pretty par for the course, along with it's limitations.

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  41. Perfect video.. Dont worry about liking or subscribing? Jusy because you said that and your so nice i have to subscribe (i am so tired of "smash that like button and subscribe" 3 minute rant… Cant wait for thr game!

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  42. HLA is not a game. It's an interactive advertisement of Valve Index. HL3 is never going to happen. Valve is a business, not a game developer anymore.

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  43. Black Mesa team, thanks to you guys I don't feel like it's been 12 years or whatever since the last Half-Life experience. Seriously Black Mesa is an amazing experience and has kept me feeling like the series is alive and well. Hope good things keep coming.

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  44. Having the audio turned on for the video you were shuttling was really annoying – made this vid very difficult to tolerate.

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  45. for valve to make no games for almost 10 years then drop a VR game, more specifically, a VR HALF LIFE game on us out of the blue says alot.
    valve could kick off new era of gaming and bring us into a VR generation if they pull this off and keep going.
    They could do for VR what halo CE did for consoles.

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  47. Ok, maybe I'm crazy, but could that be Gordon at 34:43? He was in some kind of suspended state between HL and HL2 and finger nails grow sabout 3mm a month? And also the line from vortigaunt "Alyx Vance alone cannot prevent his faith" at the same time we see that "thing". I mean if they are trying to save Gordon in order to save Eli. Or maybe i'm way off.

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