the "depressing" washed colors make the game feel more interesting, just looking at the cs trailer from 2012, the washed colors are giving u a lot of vibes
6:44 honestly, the "5:30am pre-sunrise" look is pretty sick. It would be cool to see that on a map, it would give a feeling of quiet cold sleepyness whereas the normal look feels energetic and loud in the warm afternoon lighting
Old lighting gives a grungy look in dark corners. While the new look is more accurate, I wouldn't mind more dirt and grunge textures and decals to account for the new lighting. Some wear and tear would do a lot to counter criticism 😏, but maybe it'd hurt visibility so idk
@@ububububububububub1667i’m really hoping we get ANY cool shit for casual. GO had a huge focus on comp play, to the point where it did away with some of the fun stuff. i’m hoping 2 can be a nice in-between
I don't think bright/crisp/realistic/high-quality graphics matter as much as visual clarity and consistent art direction. I know a lot of people say this and it's kinda repetitive at this point, but you can have a game with low-poly visuals and 64x64 textures and still have it look good with readable enemies and objectives. Tag: The Power of Paint is a game that I hold exceptionally close to me even after all these years. Almost all of the graphics are either black-and-white, chromatic, or flat red/green/blue. The game definitely looks flat and unrealistic, but with the three main paint colours each representing a different ability when you interact with them (red = more speed, green = more jump, blue = stick to walls), you're very easily able to figure out what everything is at a glance.
Exactly, look at god of war ghost of sparta imo that game looks amazing even today and it was achieved on such low powered hardware because of art direction.
Never expected to see Tag: The Power of Paint come up in a conversation surrounding Counter-Strike's graphics. I love games with environments that follow those clean, minimalist looking color schemes as much as I do places in real life. Though even the dirtier and grimier games from the low poly years have still maintained good readability, something like Unreal comes to my mind.
@@gangutbayern246 Dude, Ultrakill is the bomb. Raise the roof, yo. The game's visuals come straight out of the PSX era but still has incredible stylization with all of its creative enemies, weapons, sound design, UI elements, and just aesthetics in general. Alongside its nutty gameplay. Because, y'know. Good game is good.
One of my big takeaways from this is how lighting works in CS2. It very much looks raytraced, while still retaining the performance of being (mostly) pre-calculated. Valve really does have some clever tactics up their sleeve
5:00 The reason that the outside is so dark when standing inside is likely due to automatic exposure. Sometimes games will automatically set a "longer" exposure when you are indoors to make it easier to see, the downside of this is that when there is something like an open door or window, it is noticably very bright. It does, however, feel more realistic since it emulates your eyes adjusting to light.
For CSGO's Lighting, its a mix of the dark and edgy lighting era of video games with today's modern colorful/realer lighting we usually see in maps now and in my opinion surprisingly looks great when done
don't forget, the original Half Life map editor had global illumination baking built into it! I remember in the late 90's baking GI into maps I made, and that's why over the past 20 years I'm constantly disappointed in games that come out without baked GI
Thx philip for the hammer editor tutorials, ive recently gotten interested in starting to make CS maps as a new hobby, ive been wanting to quickly learn the basics and get up to speed so im ready to join the hype when CS2 rolls around, your vids have greatly helped me to get started
The worst thing in CSGO were one way smokes, thats just a game breaking issue that they had in a most competitive FPS for 10 years which is bizzare to me and the other worst thing was visibility, for example connector on Overpass where I gamble as a T every time watching it from baloons
I'd argue that not being able to see your enemies, even though they stand right infront of you, because they blend into the background, isn't a bad game mechanic in on itself. Not everything needs to be a reaction&precision game. Why not a game of witts&deceit or hide&seek? edit: just don't monetize perks&advantages (in my opinion)
@@chaosxepsilon6833 well that's just stupid, not being able to see another player doesn't have anything to do with being deceitful or even wit, you just can't see them, simple as that, I've been using 150%-200% vibrance since 2017 on cs because of how terrible the visibility are
@@chaosxepsilon6833 it's not even hide and seek. Some areas are just so dark that naturally the CT blends in with the shadow which is not the intended way to play the game anyway
The art style is still pretty faithful, so changing some saturation and brightness doesn't bother me. Would love to see future maps make use of updated lighting engines, taking place in the early morning or at night with additional light sources baked in
I feel like the CS 1.6 versions of maps actually are more realistic in terms of lighting in some ways (e.g. if you're in a shaded area, bright outside areas look much brighter). I feel like CS2 is going less for realistic lighting and more for lighting everything well enough to try and fix the existing problems with distinguishing players (plus a shift in artstyle that we've already been seeing in the non-default player models in CSGO)
I love 1.6 but yeah there were some maps where you couldn't tell friend from foe in the dark cs_prodigy prime example but it was also a different time back then where things were more gritty and experimental not with all the quality of life updates and general audience considerations.
Yeah I hate how CS seems to be on this trend of leaning towards a Pixar aesthetic. The darker washed out semi-realistic graphics of the late 90s and early 2000s is so far removed from what Counterstrike has become now, its really disappointing in my opinion. Ghost Recon, Rainbow 6, Counterstrike... they all have become infected by this tongue-in-cheek cartooniness that is so over done it is becoming tired and predictable. Keep the bright flowery Pixar stuff out of my beloved military shooters.
I think the only problem to me is that maps are a bit too similar with the lighting. I would a map like office or aztec to be a different type of bright
@@Askemanden Also it is not like this could never change, at any point Valve could go "Okay, this update let's shift the mood of the environment to a different time of day".
The light are too much yellow in Mirage update CS2 and there are some leaked images that look the same on the other maps, different from previous showed.
@@FormulePoeme807 Yeah like, how is a super clean industrial complex realistic? Also some very minor complaint: In the original CS:GO trailer Nuke was showcased as a map set in Germany. Nowadays it doesn't really look like that anymore.
Can we talk about that massive change to long hall on Italy with what looks like a new connector to mid. Hopefully they intend to make more hostage maps suitable for competitive and available to play. I’m newer to csgo and have never gotten to play 5v5 on assault or italy.
Honestly even though I started on GO I always thought that counter strike source’s maps looked the best. Something about the warm lighting and good art direction that still left a lot to imagination captivates me, without it going overboard on bright colours and saturation like later GO maps
So the main thing I learned in this video is that you can get 90% of the results you'd get with raytracing using rasterized techniques and the game will run much faster as a result
Basically anyone who knows shit about algorithmic efficiency will say that ray tracing is unbelievably wasteful an effect for almost unnoticeable dynamism visually. Theres 2012-2015 ish games that killed their performance with just normal dynamic lighting that didn't need to be there. Why would you look at that and think to add something as overly expensive as ray tracing? The only really logical use for ray tracing is in a limited way with reflections. You can get almost identical results with much cheaper effects and it wont quadriple the render time.
@@fearedjames it's not wasteful, its perfectly useful for lining Jensen's pockets. Jokes aside, raytracing does still have practical applications in cg films where renders can take as long as the film studio needs before the movie's scheduled for release.
So long as you’re ok with every large shadow casting prop being bolted to the floor. That’s fine for a competitive game like Counter Strike but limiting for a single player game where you expect more environmental interaction, the whole design of the game has to be built around a largely static environment to get the best out of pre-baked lighting.
oh man, showing the maps from CZ. I never played CZ for very long, but it was nice that it included some new maps that eventually died and were forgotten.
Notably though, that mod for HL1 received a lot of criticism for how absurdly bloomy and bright it made the game. It's an aesthetic choice, one which drastically alters the way Half Life 1 was supposed to look with the original art direction. I think, with some exceptions, there are plenty of perfectly reasonable ways to recapture the look of baked lighting from original 1.6, Source, and GO maps with newer lighting systems. After all, a lot of how the ground reflects sunlight IRL depends on what kind of sunlight it's getting - how the sky looks that day, what color it is, etc.
Finally new 3kliks video!!! As a side note, I think CS2 uses a larger colorspace, that's why the maps don't look blown out. In order to simulate the sun, it needs to be really bright, so the colors need more bits to represent all the light values. It would be nice if you could get in touch with the developers and ask some technical questions about the new engine calculates light. IMO, CS1.6 and CS:GOs ray traced versions look so blown out because the color space is limited and the game can't represent both really high brightness AND deep shadows at the same time. It would be nice to have some more contrast in CS2 though as the colors look kinda flat, like what you would get by filming in a raw format with a dslr. Also, would be a cool adition to have color profiles in video settings like "Flat","Saturated", "Warm" etc
real life is pretty bright sometimes, some houses in my neighbourhood are a sandy color and cs2 captures the brightness and how vibrant it is in the summer pretty well
personally the bright colors are a little off, the CSGO maps feel gritty and lived in, and I kinda like that, but the only one that I think is over the top is some of the lighting on Nuke, it seems a bit TOO bright. otherwise I don't mind it
In 1.6 rt version there is auto exposure that makes outside very bright when standing inside ct spawn which is realistic since you can't compare intensity of artifical light and sun light on a sunny day, while cs go and cs 2 have constant exposure so they have to make inside brightness comparable to outside.
I think he missed the point; it wasn't glowy at all. CS2 everything was basically lit to the same level as if glowing, whereas 1.6rt had a healthy amount of contrast where inner areas get progressively darker. He mentions that there's some artificial lighting in the cs2 one but that little globe shouldnt make as much light as the sun. It's as if the lightbounces in CS2 never drop in intensity as they reflect. That outdoor scene with the statue the sun would overpower any reflected green from the grass, and it's absurd that the top of the head would green up.. He's fishing for excuses on why it's "accurate" but it really does look worse. Other than the shadows, you could probably just do away with the lighting and just have ambient lights and it'd look very similar :| just the fact that you need ambient occlusion to compensate for areas light shouldnt reach means the lighting system is not working 100%
My only complaint right now is the lighter colors look TOO vibrant. Like if you play for a long time you'll start to get eye fatigue. However, I don't have access to the Beta, so I'm only going off the videos and photos I've seen. When i first saw A site mirage I thought "wow... that's really bright and vibrant. Almost painful." But I'm open to it. I'll give it a shot when the game releases. I'm still VERY optimistic
Personally, I am very happy with dark areas being made brighter to improve visibility, but I think in turn it's been overdone in the normally-bright areas.
Valve's engines always have this odd feeling in the presentation, that instantly makes them recognizable. Be it GoldSrc, Source or Source 2, you can usually tell pretty easily. It really is a weird phenomenon.
textures are looking insane in 1.6 raytraced... from far view, they have really good bump mapping, and from close view, they have this pixelated details that i instantly fell in love into with this plus lightning effects.
Yeah, unfortunately, Dust 2 just doesn't LOOK ray-traced in CSGO2. It just looks more natural in CSGO. Sometimes artificial shadows add more than realistic lighting.
I remember, that Aztec supposed to be Grey-Green, Prodigy - Purple/Blue/Grey, Storm - brown, Survivor - white, Assault - blue all the way, and at different times of day... And only Dust 1-2, Arabstreets and a couple of others were supposed to be yellow/orange. In CSGO EVERY map has some sort of yellow, dusty filter in it, which I hate. It brings joy to my eye, that colors are finally back, and environment on each map is gonna be different color-wise.
I like early csgo maps colours, from 2013, dust2 gray, nuke gray, mirage gray, cache gray, inferno gray, militia green but dim. Cobblestone was also green and dim. Looking at anubis now makes my eyes burn
I feel most maps have lost their ambience and atmosphere, it's like they have been cleaned and polished waay too much that they lost their distinguishable character.
Everything kind of feels like an Overwatch map now imo with how washed out and bright the lighting feels. I still prefer the 2013/2014 look of the game.
5:47 i wonder if the color bleeding may actually ruin the vision of the map makers. if they thought italy (real italy) looked a certain color, would the resulting purple color cancel out their vision? is this something that cs2 mappers may need to think about?
Everyone remember that episode in SpongeBob when he just got normalified? That's what CS2 feels like, I'm not complaining about the fact that I can actually see player models properly especially CTS on overpass, but it just looks so smooth and basic, not a fan I still prefer the old feel, wish they would combine both of them for a mid-ground
I think they had to bump the brightness for the visibility/blending problems they created with the player skins, it was pretty bad in some areas. I would still prefer a toggle off for showing default only skins, but valve shows an unwillingness to do so.
The washed and dark colors are mostly going to be missed because of the nostalgia factor, I alrady feel nostlagic when loading up a game on old Nuke. For the sake of visibilty a more colorful game is definitely not a bad change.
ngl i felt like old csgo nuke have more personality and aesthetics, but also i think csgo/cs2 should add an option where players can have compvision (competitive vision) where everything is so bright and colorful and ones that stick to the dark and gritty aesthetics, its just like tf2 pyrovision except its for graphic preference
One thing to note about this comparison is that the baked lights on 1.6 (and earlier and later : p) had quite a few knobs you could turn. So light could bounce more, or less, shadows could be softer or harsher, the light of the sun and shadows could change, you could add ambient light, brightness, gamma, etc, etc. All of this was under the artistic control of whoever was compiling the map and was taken in consideration when authoring textures and setting up lights. Swapping the lighting for ray-tracing just throws away all of that artistic intention, to a point I don't think it's fair to say it's "more accurate", since it's not what the maps were developed for to begin with: they were made to look as intended on the rendering system of the time, not as real places to be simulated by the engine. You definitely could make bright and saturated maps in the old games, so the artistic intention is clear.
Phillip what's your opinion on the new loadout system? Personally I think limiting options like that is never good and without huge rebalancing it will result in a lot of forgotten weapons unfortunately
I would like them to at least tweak some of the contrast in the lighting, dark coreidors are just so bright right now that it just doesn't even look right or realistic, it's just BRIGHT bright, besides that though, the slight bit of colorful bounce lighting is welcome and the lighting itself is much better obviously, just these things that need and deserve tweaking for the final release
The better and brighter lighting in CS2 is literally THE new feature for me. I'm highly visually impaired and I can barely play CS:GO on master guardian elo. This will change a lot for me, can't wait to get my hands on it.
As good as the newer and updated maps look, I miss the grittier look and feel of older games/maps. I won't mind the new versions of cs2 as long as they don't look too cartoony.
The maps are fine, is just that when the characters are paired with them, it becomes cartoony. I feel that Valve needs to update at least the faces to something like HL:A level detail.
To me, I do believe color change does lowers the vibe of a hostage situation or a literally boming attack, but it does lighten up my gaming mood and will be willing to play longer
I think the astethic looks cool but I liked when the colors were “grey and Matt down” since then I could adjust my preference with nvidia and to how I liked it, but now I guess I have to do vice versa
man you or your father's music you use in the background, it feels like the Emotional End of a Movie. you make it seem so Dramatic it makes you cry for no reason 😂 great work
I'm not a huge fan of the more colorful and cartoony look counter strike is adopting. The gritty, tactile, and dirty feel of CS:GO's artstyle at launch, while definitely worse for gameplay, feels SO much cooler to me. I understand the reasoning behind the changes, but I still prefer the older style.
I prefer moody 1.6 aesthetic with all its dark night maps and dogs barking in the background. But I grew up in the times when dark and edgy was all the rage so I can't judge too much.
Super fascinating, also reassuring to see Valve promote this vid on the official CS account especially when the vid explicitly mentions mods and fan demakes of CSGO maps.
FYI, Half-Life: Ray Traced has a hardcoded small bounce limit, which is probably why it matches CS:GO more than CS2, when it does. Otherwise the sun is just that much brighter in there than in CS2. Oh and also, there's a (minor?) bug in HLRT with how sky light ignores surface albedo, so green grass may appear purple if the sky is purple, even though green grass can not reflect red and blue.
i dont necessarily think the change is worse, but seeing some variety in weather would really be interesting. Office was like the only map to have white overcast skies, every other map is just pure sunshine. Weather can completely change the feel and atmosphere look of the surroundings, so something like early morning/sunrise, rain, overcast can make a map look brand new. Unfortunately (atleast for my taste) CS has become very e-sports focused, so things like night time matchmaking could never be possible. Just takes the beauty and dynamic away and be left with "now go clutch 1v5 kek"
Looks like they're trying to be Valorant. In the name of visibility, I say Valve should replace all the level geometry with white cubes and also add thick bright outlines around every player.
Been thinking of this before seeing this video. Main thing is that brightness is GOOD if enemies stay dark and distinguishable, but it does not need to be gaudy and kitschy with SATURATION. Brightness good, excess saturation not so good.
There really has to be a point where yet another remake of a game does add different visual themes like this. So long as the older games still have some players, everyone can be happy.
The probably with CS2 isn’t a lack of brightness, but a lack of contrast. CS2 looks rather flat, with outdoor areas being only marginally brighter than indoor areas. Valve’s mapmakers seem to have a serious fear of dark shadows, because there are practically none in either of the playable CS2 maps we have had thus far.
hey Phillip, I just wanted to chime in and let you know that i’ve been watching your videos for quite a few years now, and that i can attest that your witty, informational yet engaging style has only matured and improved over time. i think one is able to stand out for the quality of their work if we are able to enjoy said quality independently of whether or not the work relates to something we are interested in, which is inherently bound to capture our attention, and i think that’s the case here. a lot of my younger years were spent cozied up some place watching TH-cam video essays. most of the content i consumed back then revolved around things which I’ve now either grown out of or simply don’t engage with much anymore, and when this element is factored out of the equation, it’s up to the videomaker to reel you into the topic and connect the dots; to illustrate with words and visualise with editing, and to bring the viewer standing outside of the subject into it, invest them. id be lying if i were to say i’m your biggest fan, that i watch all of your videos all the time, or even that i play CSGO nowadays, because i rarely do really - but you are one of those content creators that I’ve continued following despite this because I’ve grown to appreciate the simple but carefully crafted way in which you go about exploring specific, obscure and seemingly mundane things and poking at them to show us that there’s always more under the surface. I would have never for the life of me wondered how pre-baked map lighting in GoldSRC differs from its Source counterpart, and more importantly i don’t think i would have ever cared - but the skill lies in the fact that i now do, and that ultimately comes down to the raw ability to explain and to interest the viewer. and so, the nostalgic feeling of coziness emerges in me again, as i follow along with the same involvement i had when i watched sitting in the school bathroom stalls during break time. sorry for the long comment, i hope you keep going 3kliksphillip, peace
I feel as an odd one out in saying that I really like CSGOs gritty color palette. Having the entire game feel grudgy is odly refreshing nowadays. Literally every, single, other FPS are either bright and colorful or bland and realistic, so having one that actually feels dark is so fresh.
@@legitplayin6977 I mean art style and rendering. Though those games aren't necessarily bright, they're not stylized or gritty, if that makes sense. They still fall into the same pile as all "realistic" games IMO. I'll edit my comment.
Well I didnt pass colorblind test so for me even looking for cursor on three screens is kinda hard. Every step that improves visual clarity helps me a lot looking for the enemies.
I feel Source has imbued this style of lighting for eons that people consider is as "realistic" when in reality, Source 2's the one that gets it right. However, I suppose it won't hurt for CS2 to have this CSGO option, or even downright tweaking each of the map's aesthetic to that of CSGO's. It seems what sets the mood for the game is the dark, gritty, and contrasty nature of the lighting. Though I have to agree, CS2 _does_ look a tad bright at times where it shouldn't be.
I miss the old, more gritty style of CS:GO. Before the Dust2 overhaul, before panorama. It seemed more serious. Now CS2 is more colourful than a playground!
I think the first comparison in D2 CT spawn has RT 1.6 being so bright because of some HDR effect, allowing the bright outdoors area to be "overexposed"
@@lufetm Yeah its difficult, I think one thing they can change without impacting visibility is the viewmodels though. When you’re in the shade they look all washed out and grey. Hard to describe really
Theres something so charming about HL1/1.6 era textures lit with proper RT. I can never get enough of it and I'll always take it over some new gen hyperrealism
Yes. We will finally see players in connector on Overpass
W
1 smoke and all the map is smoked
@@liranp5901I think they toned down the smoke this morning if the TH-cam video I watched was accurate
Through from ivy, out middle and through our connector like a speed demon.
In RTX.
yipeeee!!
It adds more visual clarity and less depressing washed colors make me feel better playing even if I'm losing
A bit too bright for me
Maps look better for sure, but it has had the opposite effect on weapons as they look flat and washed out now
@@A-BYTE64 Lower your monitor brightness then
the "depressing" washed colors make the game feel more interesting, just looking at the cs trailer from 2012, the washed colors are giving u a lot of vibes
Its literally a terrorist situation why would it not be depressing
6:44 honestly, the "5:30am pre-sunrise" look is pretty sick. It would be cool to see that on a map, it would give a feeling of quiet cold sleepyness whereas the normal look feels energetic and loud in the warm afternoon lighting
Militia?
some cs source maps give me a similar vibe
More like a sunset than a sunrise. And what did you mean is "pretty sick"?
Yea like the Ts and CTs had a nice cup of coffee and a light sweater on before they had to head off to the battlefield
@@engven2453 if you’re asking about like the term itself “sick” in this context is just an english phrase for something being really cool
Old lighting gives a grungy look in dark corners. While the new look is more accurate, I wouldn't mind more dirt and grunge textures and decals to account for the new lighting.
Some wear and tear would do a lot to counter criticism 😏, but maybe it'd hurt visibility so idk
Maybe we could even see the green and overgrown Cache we never got in official matchmaking!
Definitely miss the old "grunge" already, gotta give it some life
@@deRNmEpRrMm looks terrible in my opinion.
Seeing the different sun positions on the maps made me think that it would be pretty cool for maps to have a randomized time of day for that match.
night maps with flashlights would be a fun casual gamemode
maybe not in competitive, but in casual that would be so cool to have!
@@ububububububububub1667i’m really hoping we get ANY cool shit for casual. GO had a huge focus on comp play, to the point where it did away with some of the fun stuff. i’m hoping 2 can be a nice in-between
@@morgboat744 yeah
A hammer 2 editor video would be super sick hope its coming
Can't wait to get my hands on hammer 2. Also can't wait to learn source 2 basics with 3kliksphilip :D
Isnt it available through hl alyx
I don't think bright/crisp/realistic/high-quality graphics matter as much as visual clarity and consistent art direction. I know a lot of people say this and it's kinda repetitive at this point, but you can have a game with low-poly visuals and 64x64 textures and still have it look good with readable enemies and objectives.
Tag: The Power of Paint is a game that I hold exceptionally close to me even after all these years. Almost all of the graphics are either black-and-white, chromatic, or flat red/green/blue. The game definitely looks flat and unrealistic, but with the three main paint colours each representing a different ability when you interact with them (red = more speed, green = more jump, blue = stick to walls), you're very easily able to figure out what everything is at a glance.
Exactly, look at god of war ghost of sparta imo that game looks amazing even today and it was achieved on such low powered hardware because of art direction.
@@mthacks4297 Put the recent Ultrakill in. It's the literal definition.
Never expected to see Tag: The Power of Paint come up in a conversation surrounding Counter-Strike's graphics. I love games with environments that follow those clean, minimalist looking color schemes as much as I do places in real life. Though even the dirtier and grimier games from the low poly years have still maintained good readability, something like Unreal comes to my mind.
@@mthacks4297 or batman arkham knight
@@gangutbayern246 Dude, Ultrakill is the bomb. Raise the roof, yo.
The game's visuals come straight out of the PSX era but still has incredible stylization with all of its creative enemies, weapons, sound design, UI elements, and just aesthetics in general. Alongside its nutty gameplay. Because, y'know.
Good game is good.
One of my big takeaways from this is how lighting works in CS2. It very much looks raytraced, while still retaining the performance of being (mostly) pre-calculated. Valve really does have some clever tactics up their sleeve
5:00
The reason that the outside is so dark when standing inside is likely due to automatic exposure. Sometimes games will automatically set a "longer" exposure when you are indoors to make it easier to see, the downside of this is that when there is something like an open door or window, it is noticably very bright. It does, however, feel more realistic since it emulates your eyes adjusting to light.
For CSGO's Lighting, its a mix of the dark and edgy lighting era of video games with today's modern colorful/realer lighting we usually see in maps now and in my opinion surprisingly looks great when done
don't forget, the original Half Life map editor had global illumination baking built into it! I remember in the late 90's baking GI into maps I made, and that's why over the past 20 years I'm constantly disappointed in games that come out without baked GI
Thx philip for the hammer editor tutorials, ive recently gotten interested in starting to make CS maps as a new hobby, ive been wanting to quickly learn the basics and get up to speed so im ready to join the hype when CS2 rolls around, your vids have greatly helped me to get started
for me personally it doesnt have to be BUT you need to see your enemies clearly
Yeah but I feel like I can already see the enemies good at long ranges
The worst thing in CSGO were one way smokes, thats just a game breaking issue that they had in a most competitive FPS for 10 years which is bizzare to me and the other worst thing was visibility, for example connector on Overpass where I gamble as a T every time watching it from baloons
I'd argue that not being able to see your enemies,
even though they stand right infront of you, because they blend into the background,
isn't a bad game mechanic in on itself.
Not everything needs to be a reaction&precision game. Why not a game of witts&deceit or hide&seek?
edit: just don't monetize perks&advantages (in my opinion)
@@chaosxepsilon6833 well that's just stupid, not being able to see another player doesn't have anything to do with being deceitful or even wit, you just can't see them, simple as that, I've been using 150%-200% vibrance since 2017 on cs because of how terrible the visibility are
@@chaosxepsilon6833 it's not even hide and seek. Some areas are just so dark that naturally the CT blends in with the shadow which is not the intended way to play the game anyway
The art style is still pretty faithful, so changing some saturation and brightness doesn't bother me. Would love to see future maps make use of updated lighting engines, taking place in the early morning or at night with additional light sources baked in
I feel like the CS 1.6 versions of maps actually are more realistic in terms of lighting in some ways (e.g. if you're in a shaded area, bright outside areas look much brighter). I feel like CS2 is going less for realistic lighting and more for lighting everything well enough to try and fix the existing problems with distinguishing players (plus a shift in artstyle that we've already been seeing in the non-default player models in CSGO)
I love 1.6 but yeah there were some maps where you couldn't tell friend from foe in the dark cs_prodigy prime example but it was also a different time back then where things were more gritty and experimental not with all the quality of life updates and general audience considerations.
CS2 is brighter indoors because well... They literally added lights
Yeah I hate how CS seems to be on this trend of leaning towards a Pixar aesthetic. The darker washed out semi-realistic graphics of the late 90s and early 2000s is so far removed from what Counterstrike has become now, its really disappointing in my opinion. Ghost Recon, Rainbow 6, Counterstrike... they all have become infected by this tongue-in-cheek cartooniness that is so over done it is becoming tired and predictable. Keep the bright flowery Pixar stuff out of my beloved military shooters.
@@connected_user my thoughts exactly
CS2’s aesthetic is quite nice, but I wish it felt less “flat”. Give it just a dash more contrast, for depth.
I think they dont do this because they're worried about it looking cartoony
I really like the gritty aesthetic of css, and cs2 just looks too clean and nice.
I think the only problem to me is that maps are a bit too similar with the lighting. I would a map like office or aztec to be a different type of bright
Yeah some maps lose their vibes, many maps in CS2 by pictures also look to have the same skybox
@@ViSomBusar Just hope ancient or aztec is that weird swamp green it has
Well we haven’t seen all the maps yet. They will probably have different lighting.
@@Askemanden true just something I'm afraid of
@@Askemanden Also it is not like this could never change, at any point Valve could go "Okay, this update let's shift the mood of the environment to a different time of day".
The light are too much yellow in Mirage update CS2 and there are some leaked images that look the same on the other maps, different from previous showed.
Hmm no it look good enough to look like real life. But the lack of rock,dirt,dust for the ground making it very flat unlike dust2
I don't mind the brightness too much but a lot of areas seem way too clean now in my opinion
other maps look good, dust 2 could be toned down
Yeah, Nuke and Overpass look way too clean
Meanwhile some maps like Dust was turned full desertic and it take away from it ngl
@@FormulePoeme807 Yeah like, how is a super clean industrial complex realistic? Also some very minor complaint: In the original CS:GO trailer Nuke was showcased as a map set in Germany. Nowadays it doesn't really look like that anymore.
In my opinion, sometimes CSGO has unecessary visual information that hurts gameplay.
@@TRRDroid they changed it a while back, its not 2012 anymore lol
8:56 i didn't know Gordon Freeman was transitioning
good for her! she looks radiant lol
Can we talk about that massive change to long hall on Italy with what looks like a new connector to mid. Hopefully they intend to make more hostage maps suitable for competitive and available to play. I’m newer to csgo and have never gotten to play 5v5 on assault or italy.
01:14 damn that transition. Philip is trying to level up his game.
Honestly even though I started on GO I always thought that counter strike source’s maps looked the best. Something about the warm lighting and good art direction that still left a lot to imagination captivates me, without it going overboard on bright colours and saturation like later GO maps
This isn't good art direction. This is being half flashed constantly.
@@mlgmcdonaldsland7063 Try going outside at least once in your life
@@TheRadioSquare that's a pretty sad response tbh. Obvious projection. "YOU DISAGREE WITH ME??!?!? You just never go outside"
@@mlgmcdonaldsland7063 You do never go outside. If you did, you wouldn't find normal lighting to be blinding.
@@TheRadioSquare You must stare directly into the sun when you imagine what going outside would be like by peering out your window
So the main thing I learned in this video is that you can get 90% of the results you'd get with raytracing using rasterized techniques and the game will run much faster as a result
AO isn’t necessarily a cheap effect in terms of performance, but it definitely gets the job done quicker than RT could in CS2
Basically anyone who knows shit about algorithmic efficiency will say that ray tracing is unbelievably wasteful an effect for almost unnoticeable dynamism visually.
Theres 2012-2015 ish games that killed their performance with just normal dynamic lighting that didn't need to be there. Why would you look at that and think to add something as overly expensive as ray tracing?
The only really logical use for ray tracing is in a limited way with reflections. You can get almost identical results with much cheaper effects and it wont quadriple the render time.
@@fearedjames it's not wasteful, its perfectly useful for lining Jensen's pockets. Jokes aside, raytracing does still have practical applications in cg films where renders can take as long as the film studio needs before the movie's scheduled for release.
@@ikiwyu Its perfectly good for pre-rendering yes.
So long as you’re ok with every large shadow casting prop being bolted to the floor. That’s fine for a competitive game like Counter Strike but limiting for a single player game where you expect more environmental interaction, the whole design of the game has to be built around a largely static environment to get the best out of pre-baked lighting.
0:21 i was expecting a case opening montage
Atomic Amnesia already started playing in my head
oh man, showing the maps from CZ. I never played CZ for very long, but it was nice that it included some new maps that eventually died and were forgotten.
Notably though, that mod for HL1 received a lot of criticism for how absurdly bloomy and bright it made the game. It's an aesthetic choice, one which drastically alters the way Half Life 1 was supposed to look with the original art direction. I think, with some exceptions, there are plenty of perfectly reasonable ways to recapture the look of baked lighting from original 1.6, Source, and GO maps with newer lighting systems. After all, a lot of how the ground reflects sunlight IRL depends on what kind of sunlight it's getting - how the sky looks that day, what color it is, etc.
Finally new 3kliks video!!!
As a side note, I think CS2 uses a larger colorspace, that's why the maps don't look blown out. In order to simulate the sun, it needs to be really bright, so the colors need more bits to represent all the light values. It would be nice if you could get in touch with the developers and ask some technical questions about the new engine calculates light. IMO, CS1.6 and CS:GOs ray traced versions look so blown out because the color space is limited and the game can't represent both really high brightness AND deep shadows at the same time. It would be nice to have some more contrast in CS2 though as the colors look kinda flat, like what you would get by filming in a raw format with a dslr.
Also, would be a cool adition to have color profiles in video settings like "Flat","Saturated", "Warm" etc
real life is pretty bright sometimes, some houses in my neighbourhood are a sandy color and cs2 captures the brightness and how vibrant it is in the summer pretty well
personally the bright colors are a little off, the CSGO maps feel gritty and lived in, and I kinda like that, but the only one that I think is over the top is some of the lighting on Nuke, it seems a bit TOO bright. otherwise I don't mind it
In 1.6 rt version there is auto exposure that makes outside very bright when standing inside ct spawn which is realistic since you can't compare intensity of artifical light and sun light on a sunny day, while cs go and cs 2 have constant exposure so they have to make inside brightness comparable to outside.
I think he missed the point; it wasn't glowy at all. CS2 everything was basically lit to the same level as if glowing, whereas 1.6rt had a healthy amount of contrast where inner areas get progressively darker.
He mentions that there's some artificial lighting in the cs2 one but that little globe shouldnt make as much light as the sun. It's as if the lightbounces in CS2 never drop in intensity as they reflect. That outdoor scene with the statue the sun would overpower any reflected green from the grass, and it's absurd that the top of the head would green up..
He's fishing for excuses on why it's "accurate" but it really does look worse. Other than the shadows, you could probably just do away with the lighting and just have ambient lights and it'd look very similar :| just the fact that you need ambient occlusion to compensate for areas light shouldnt reach means the lighting system is not working 100%
It looks... plasticky? I don't like it. Bring back the mood lighting.
Now I won’t have to burn my eyes looking at my browser because I had to turn the brightness up to see people in certain spots
Yes so i can turn off the insane amounts of colour vibrance i put on to make csgo visible
Counter-Strike’s future is looking “Bright”… I will see myself out
8:45 that Frozen Lake skybox on Source 2 would be inspired by the Laguna del Inca, in Portillo, Chile, close to the border with Argentina
My only complaint right now is the lighter colors look TOO vibrant. Like if you play for a long time you'll start to get eye fatigue. However, I don't have access to the Beta, so I'm only going off the videos and photos I've seen. When i first saw A site mirage I thought "wow... that's really bright and vibrant. Almost painful." But I'm open to it. I'll give it a shot when the game releases. I'm still VERY optimistic
A video that actually shows gems among forgotten maps, how an amazingly well done map
Personally, I am very happy with dark areas being made brighter to improve visibility, but I think in turn it's been overdone in the normally-bright areas.
Valve's engines always have this odd feeling in the presentation, that instantly makes them recognizable. Be it GoldSrc, Source or Source 2, you can usually tell pretty easily. It really is a weird phenomenon.
textures are looking insane in 1.6 raytraced... from far view, they have really good bump mapping, and from close view, they have this pixelated details that i instantly fell in love into with this plus lightning effects.
they need to darken the colors and add some grit/dirt textures to compensate for the brightness
Yup. The texturing is very poor, If the map imported to Unreal 5 it will still look lacking Like its a preview model
Yeah, unfortunately, Dust 2 just doesn't LOOK ray-traced in CSGO2. It just looks more natural in CSGO. Sometimes artificial shadows add more than realistic lighting.
Nostalgia when you showed old and forgotten maps like de_tides
And de_truth. Classic Condition Zero maps.
Fam this game hurts my eyes. I never had this with any other game. It feels like I've been staring at the sun
I remember, that Aztec supposed to be Grey-Green, Prodigy - Purple/Blue/Grey, Storm - brown, Survivor - white, Assault - blue all the way, and at different times of day... And only Dust 1-2, Arabstreets and a couple of others were supposed to be yellow/orange. In CSGO EVERY map has some sort of yellow, dusty filter in it, which I hate.
It brings joy to my eye, that colors are finally back, and environment on each map is gonna be different color-wise.
office isn't very yellow
I like early csgo maps colours, from 2013, dust2 gray, nuke gray, mirage gray, cache gray, inferno gray, militia green but dim. Cobblestone was also green and dim. Looking at anubis now makes my eyes burn
7:57 nice bit of poetry/rap going on here
Lmao
I feel most maps have lost their ambience and atmosphere, it's like they have been cleaned and polished waay too much that they lost their distinguishable character.
U got a point
Everything kind of feels like an Overwatch map now imo with how washed out and bright the lighting feels. I still prefer the 2013/2014 look of the game.
@@sulphurous2656 +++
i still remember back then when csgo used to have gritty and dark aesthetics on their maps which it fits very well just like half life 2 and max payne
@@FrancisDoubleA griddy and dark
Looking back and seeing how dull csgo was makes me wonder how we played it like that everything looks so dark
5:47 i wonder if the color bleeding may actually ruin the vision of the map makers. if they thought italy (real italy) looked a certain color, would the resulting purple color cancel out their vision? is this something that cs2 mappers may need to think about?
Everyone remember that episode in SpongeBob when he just got normalified? That's what CS2 feels like, I'm not complaining about the fact that I can actually see player models properly especially CTS on overpass, but it just looks so smooth and basic, not a fan I still prefer the old feel, wish they would combine both of them for a mid-ground
awesome as always phillip. i could not imagine anyone else doing what you do for us.
I think they had to bump the brightness for the visibility/blending problems they created with the player skins, it was pretty bad in some areas. I would still prefer a toggle off for showing default only skins, but valve shows an unwillingness to do so.
The washed and dark colors are mostly going to be missed because of the nostalgia factor, I alrady feel nostlagic when loading up a game on old Nuke. For the sake of visibilty a more colorful game is definitely not a bad change.
Today will be tomorrow's nostalgia my friend :D
ngl i felt like old csgo nuke have more personality and aesthetics, but also i think csgo/cs2 should add an option where players can have compvision (competitive vision) where everything is so bright and colorful and ones that stick to the dark and gritty aesthetics, its just like tf2 pyrovision except its for graphic preference
@@nerovar23 Great saying :)
I just hate sunny desert day
@@FrancisDoubleA Then everyone will use it…. It’s disgusting. Just make colors realistic without artificial shine of superlighting same sun everywhere
mirage at 6:46 is looking like later evening. still warm after a hot day, as a refreshing humid breeze blows through.
The nostalgia I got from you going through some of the older 1.6 maps blew my mind. Banger vid.
One thing to note about this comparison is that the baked lights on 1.6 (and earlier and later : p) had quite a few knobs you could turn. So light could bounce more, or less, shadows could be softer or harsher, the light of the sun and shadows could change, you could add ambient light, brightness, gamma, etc, etc. All of this was under the artistic control of whoever was compiling the map and was taken in consideration when authoring textures and setting up lights.
Swapping the lighting for ray-tracing just throws away all of that artistic intention, to a point I don't think it's fair to say it's "more accurate", since it's not what the maps were developed for to begin with: they were made to look as intended on the rendering system of the time, not as real places to be simulated by the engine.
You definitely could make bright and saturated maps in the old games, so the artistic intention is clear.
Phillip what's your opinion on the new loadout system? Personally I think limiting options like that is never good and without huge rebalancing it will result in a lot of forgotten weapons unfortunately
What I'd enjoy is seeing those CS:GO maps in workshop that are night time and then ray trace those!
that'd be nice
Will you make guides for map making in cs2 when it comes out?
I would like them to at least tweak some of the contrast in the lighting, dark coreidors are just so bright right now that it just doesn't even look right or realistic, it's just BRIGHT bright, besides that though, the slight bit of colorful bounce lighting is welcome and the lighting itself is much better obviously, just these things that need and deserve tweaking for the final release
As I’m getting older I find it harder to see in dark areas so I quite frankly like the brightness increases.
A lot of players, myself included, already have similar colors to CS2 with monitor or graphics cards settings. So I think it’s great
The better and brighter lighting in CS2 is literally THE new feature for me. I'm highly visually impaired and I can barely play CS:GO on master guardian elo. This will change a lot for me, can't wait to get my hands on it.
0:21 man I almost fell into a gambling addiction and had the music playing in my head 😂
As good as the newer and updated maps look, I miss the grittier look and feel of older games/maps. I won't mind the new versions of cs2 as long as they don't look too cartoony.
The maps are fine, is just that when the characters are paired with them, it becomes cartoony. I feel that Valve needs to update at least the faces to something like HL:A level detail.
To me, I do believe color change does lowers the vibe of a hostage situation or a literally boming attack, but it does lighten up my gaming mood and will be willing to play longer
Are you a robot designed to compliment valve on their quest to better player retention? That was the most bot comment ive ever seen.
@@Gaminggagreel bot or not,that is just my opinion
But thats almost like complimenting EA for their great implementation of microtransactions on their games: "i will gladly pay". I dont know im sorry.
I think the astethic looks cool but I liked when the colors were “grey and Matt down” since then I could adjust my preference with nvidia and to how I liked it, but now I guess I have to do vice versa
It's a bit too over exposed for me, but perhaps it will look different in game once I can tweak some settings.
man you or your father's music you use in the background, it feels like the Emotional End of a Movie. you make it seem so Dramatic it makes you cry for no reason 😂 great work
I'm not a huge fan of the more colorful and cartoony look counter strike is adopting. The gritty, tactile, and dirty feel of CS:GO's artstyle at launch, while definitely worse for gameplay, feels SO much cooler to me. I understand the reasoning behind the changes, but I still prefer the older style.
I prefer moody 1.6 aesthetic with all its dark night maps and dogs barking in the background.
But I grew up in the times when dark and edgy was all the rage so I can't judge too much.
that's true, part of why I like how the old maps look is a lot of playing older games lol.
Super fascinating, also reassuring to see Valve promote this vid on the official CS account especially when the vid explicitly mentions mods and fan demakes of CSGO maps.
FYI, Half-Life: Ray Traced has a hardcoded small bounce limit, which is probably why it matches CS:GO more than CS2, when it does. Otherwise the sun is just that much brighter in there than in CS2.
Oh and also, there's a (minor?) bug in HLRT with how sky light ignores surface albedo, so green grass may appear purple if the sky is purple, even though green grass can not reflect red and blue.
i dont necessarily think the change is worse, but seeing some variety in weather would really be interesting. Office was like the only map to have white overcast skies, every other map is just pure sunshine. Weather can completely change the feel and atmosphere look of the surroundings, so something like early morning/sunrise, rain, overcast can make a map look brand new. Unfortunately (atleast for my taste) CS has become very e-sports focused, so things like night time matchmaking could never be possible. Just takes the beauty and dynamic away and be left with "now go clutch 1v5 kek"
Looks like they're trying to be Valorant. In the name of visibility, I say Valve should replace all the level geometry with white cubes and also add thick bright outlines around every player.
IMO they gave the game as a whole a more uniform style but sacrificed the individual character of the maps. I do like the color though.
CSS is peak art style. It’s cozy, bright and realistic
i think cs go should use fortnites art direction maybe add pickaxes instead of the regular boring knifes
CSS’ textures are beautiful and I will die on that hill, that and the lighting are much better than in CSGO
@@Oodelally agree, loading up Inferno in CSS feels so cozy every time
@@veeeen man CSS Inferno looks sooo good, I remember I hated that map because I used to have low fps there, good old days
YESSSSS
Can you do a video of comparisons of the 1.6 CSGO maps? I thought even though the sun looks different it would still be awesome to look at
Been thinking of this before seeing this video. Main thing is that brightness is GOOD if enemies stay dark and distinguishable, but it does not need to be gaudy and kitschy with SATURATION. Brightness good, excess saturation not so good.
i predict i'll have to turn down the brightness in CS2 quite a bit. watching footage of the game is slightly overwhelming.
There really has to be a point where yet another remake of a game does add different visual themes like this.
So long as the older games still have some players, everyone can be happy.
The probably with CS2 isn’t a lack of brightness, but a lack of contrast. CS2 looks rather flat, with outdoor areas being only marginally brighter than indoor areas. Valve’s mapmakers seem to have a serious fear of dark shadows, because there are practically none in either of the playable CS2 maps we have had thus far.
hey Phillip, I just wanted to chime in and let you know that i’ve been watching your videos for quite a few years now, and that i can attest that your witty, informational yet engaging style has only matured and improved over time. i think one is able to stand out for the quality of their work if we are able to enjoy said quality independently of whether or not the work relates to something we are interested in, which is inherently bound to capture our attention, and i think that’s the case here.
a lot of my younger years were spent cozied up some place watching TH-cam video essays. most of the content i consumed back then revolved around things which I’ve now either grown out of or simply don’t engage with much anymore, and when this element is factored out of the equation, it’s up to the videomaker to reel you into the topic and connect the dots; to illustrate with words and visualise with editing, and to bring the viewer standing outside of the subject into it, invest them.
id be lying if i were to say i’m your biggest fan, that i watch all of your videos all the time, or even that i play CSGO nowadays, because i rarely do really - but you are one of those content creators that I’ve continued following despite this because I’ve grown to appreciate the simple but carefully crafted way in which you go about exploring specific, obscure and seemingly mundane things and poking at them to show us that there’s always more under the surface. I would have never for the life of me wondered how pre-baked map lighting in GoldSRC differs from its Source counterpart, and more importantly i don’t think i would have ever cared - but the skill lies in the fact that i now do, and that ultimately comes down to the raw ability to explain and to interest the viewer. and so, the nostalgic feeling of coziness emerges in me again, as i follow along with the same involvement i had when i watched sitting in the school bathroom stalls during break time.
sorry for the long comment, i hope you keep going 3kliksphillip, peace
I've always had my gamma and digital vibrance turned up really high so I'm in love with the CS2 lighting.
I feel as an odd one out in saying that I really like CSGOs gritty color palette.
Having the entire game feel grudgy is odly refreshing nowadays.
Literally every, single, other FPS are either bright and colorful or bland and realistic, so having one that actually feels dark is so fresh.
Honestly! I agree
“Literally every, single, other FPS is bright and colourful”
Ready or not, arma, squad….
@@legitplayin6977 I mean art style and rendering.
Though those games aren't necessarily bright, they're not stylized or gritty, if that makes sense.
They still fall into the same pile as all "realistic" games IMO. I'll edit my comment.
honestly, yes, i think it should be. with the player models so dark, it really helps them stand out well and increases readability
If visibility is what matters why do we even have characters? Lets all be giant cylinders walking around... Thats just a dumb argument.
@@thechugg4372 if visibility doesnt matter when why do we even have graphics at all?
Well I didnt pass colorblind test so for me even looking for cursor on three screens is kinda hard. Every step that improves visual clarity helps me a lot looking for the enemies.
Philip seems to never disappoint in any video he makes, a true legend
Great video, as always!
What's the song used that starts at 6:08?
I think best result would be baking in the raytraced lighting permanently into the map, so it doesnt shift around and bug out.
what ??? what is the difference between that and normal baked in shadows, it needs to shift around for it to be realistic
Not to mention the map size would be atrociously huge
@@meyr1992 Exactly. Baked lightning did Raytracing ages ago already but well it's static and won't change its basically a static texture.
I feel Source has imbued this style of lighting for eons that people consider is as "realistic" when in reality, Source 2's the one that gets it right. However, I suppose it won't hurt for CS2 to have this CSGO option, or even downright tweaking each of the map's aesthetic to that of CSGO's. It seems what sets the mood for the game is the dark, gritty, and contrasty nature of the lighting.
Though I have to agree, CS2 _does_ look a tad bright at times where it shouldn't be.
I miss the old, more gritty style of CS:GO. Before the Dust2 overhaul, before panorama. It seemed more serious. Now CS2 is more colourful than a playground!
I agree. Cs feels like Tf2 now
I think the first comparison in D2 CT spawn has RT 1.6 being so bright because of some HDR effect, allowing the bright outdoors area to be "overexposed"
I think cs2 looks good but it's a tad too bright, for instance mirage CT spawn. Also I feel like the dark areas aren't dark enough
Turn down brightness in the settings...
Yeah but if you darken dark areas and leave bright areas bright then visibility would worsen
@@lufetm Yeah its difficult, I think one thing they can change without impacting visibility is the viewmodels though. When you’re in the shade they look all washed out and grey. Hard to describe really
Theres something so charming about HL1/1.6 era textures lit with proper RT. I can never get enough of it and I'll always take it over some new gen hyperrealism
Phil, are you superior or inferior to Phil Neville?
Cant wait for your Hammer 2 editor tutorials