Want to play with some real-time path tracing in Half-Life? Well, a modder is doing just that and has released a small teaser to show it off.
The work is actually based on an existing effort, which will bring Vulkan Ray Tracing into Xash3D FWGS, a game engine that's compatible with classic Valve games designed for modding. The modder going by sultim_t, mentions their work will see the source code released when the mod is ready. They said it will provide hardware accelerated ray tracing with the possibility to "calculate global illumination, reflections, refractions, soft shadows and other visual effects with interactive framerates".
Until it's out, you can see what they showed off below:
Direct Link
They say Half-Life: RAY TRACED will be out in 2022 for "Windows", but that's never stopped us before has it? Given the source code will be out, it hopefully won't be too difficult to get it working, especially as the existing work it's based upon is cross-platform.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
heidi.wenger Jan 10, 2022
To be honest, the difference does not look as striking as with Quake 2. I think this shows just how good the "fake" lighting can look if done right.
That depends highly on the situations. The indirect lighting at 0:36 makes a huge difference.
The way it says "2022 on Windows" seems to suggest that they might have plans for other platforms, but not definitely ready in 2022.
That's not how I understood it. I understand it as "release date is 2022, and platform is Windows".
The way it says "2022 on Windows" seems to suggest that they might have plans for other platforms, but not definitely ready in 2022.
That's not how I understood it. I understand it as "release date is 2022, and platform is Windows".
Yes, I realize that it could be interpreted that way also. That's why I used such indeterminate language as "seems to suggest that they might." You could very well be correct that they have no plans beyond the Windows version.
UnixOutlaw Jan 11, 2022
I assume an NVidia RTX is required for any realtime ray tracing?In quake 2 RTX, ray-tracing was also on the GTX 1060, but there was 1 FPS. :) In real time only on RTX and Radeon 6000.
Textures and models need improvement.
Last edited by ikiruto on 11 January 2022 at 5:54 am UTC
I assume an NVidia RTX is required for any realtime ray tracing?Note the quote says "interactive" frame rates, not "real time". A web site is "interactive", if hardly anywhere near "real time".
I have no idea how close this mod is to being "real time", just throwing this out as a caveat ;)
To be honest, the difference does not look as striking as with Quake 2. I think this shows just how good the "fake" lighting can look if done right.
Was about to say the exact same thing - really impressive how little this changes the look&feel.^^
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