Correction at 1:12 -- Those corpse models were not removed in the anniversary update. I missed the trigger that causes them to appear because I set the camera position using console commands. They will appear as expected when playing the level normally.
I thought that I read in the patch notes there were only high quality models and textures instead of loading lower LOD models and textures when at a distance. Because any potato PC made in the past 10 years should have no problem doing that.
@googleuser4720 They didn't sacrificed anything in this update, just upgrade the base game with the technologies from episode II. I don't know what you're trying to point.
@@googleuser4720uhm I think you'd rather be off streaming (This is The) Glasshouse's latest LP '867' instead of regurgitating the same strings of words around!
@@plr.5036 There are a couple areas shown in this video where I think the legacy build looks better, but I must admit the difference really isn't enough for me to say it got worse, and overall these examples look like improvements. Not shown in the video however are errors I don't remember being in the game, though, such as weird light leaking in certain areas (like a shallow cave in Sand Traps) or some animation weirdness with Vsync turned on. Even these, however, aren't as bad as when I first played HL2 where several maps would load in full right so again I think they did an ok job here.
The bicubic filtering really stands out for me, the way it just magically removes stair-stepping from low resolution lightmaps, and makes them looks like proper soft shadows instead is nothing short of black magic It especially improves Ravenholm, with the amount of harsh lighting in that section, i always was kinda taken out of it when the cracks of linear filtering shone through
Being spoilt with the new shadows, makes me notice how blocky they are in L4D2. Even the way it can properly shadow along certain static props and models is really nice too
The Source engine was seriously ahead of its time and the fact that little details make such a big difference is a testament to how groundbreaking of an engine it really was in 2004.
It was definitely crazy good for its time, but lightmaps weren't anything new. Baked GI existed for a while and other games released then and earlier used it.
@@muchossaugus9927 it really doesent.. Source Engine is actually extremely primitive and was way worse than both Cryengine and Id-tech 4. The reason it looks so good in HL2 is solely becasue of the lighting color and weather (Overcast). what is impressive however is that Valve knew all the way back in 2002 that Overcast weather with white lighting is a complete cheat and makes the lighting look way more realistic than it actually is. Valve are absolute masterminds of cheating graphics
1:02 This is absolutely sublime. The fog seamlessly blending with the sky, the faintly visible trees in the distance, the soft shadows from large objects-all while staying completely faithful to the original. This update is exactly what I wanted.
@@googleuser47200/10 very bad ragebait. If you wanted it to be effective you should have made your comment a standalone comment, not spammed across the entire comment section
@@googleuser4720 the game was made with "super dooper cool lighting" in mind, so improving it doesn't ruin the overall look. Also, I see you got a lot of time copypasting the same message several dozen times
@@googleuser4720 "creative intent thrown aside" my brother in christ they changed things so subtle, that we need a comparsion video to show what actually changed.
@@googleuser4720what "creative intent", they just updated the lighting to be more up to date with modern graphical specs, do you seriously think it was a creative decision to have worse lighting?
Thank you!!! I kept checking on Google, hoping someone had made this exact video. The HDR lighting has to be my favorite part of this update, there's so much more nuance to the lights and shadows from the extra color information.
@@rightbehindyou9398 Look at the first bit of the video and notice how the direct sunlight can contrast better with the ambient light, which itself can fade more smoothly into the shadows while still being reasonably bright. Another example, if you'd feel like booting up the game yourself to check it out, is the dark hallway at the back of the train station before you come into the plaza. You can see the light is able to fade smoothly into darkness, whereas before, it would have a fairly abrupt cutoff and random pixels of red, green, or blue where there weren't enough bits for a smooth transition.
So basically: light spots are brighter while shadows are darker and sharper. And all maps during the airboat section now have way more vegetation and some other minor detais
They FINALLY fixed the fucking rainbow shadows in dark areas, previously you had to play HL2 Update to experience properly rendered maps. Glad to see they finally fixed it!
@@gulas_s_houskovym_knedlikem nope, the main reason HL2U was a thing was fixing, *really* bad lighting through years of lazy compilation. They fixed all of that and genuinely added a lot of nice QoL tidbits.
Different account, or not, im on phone so idk which acc I’m logged into, but afaik work on hl2u stopped ages ago, maybe you’re confusing that mod and the ReUpdate one? Because I know the devs for HL2ReUpdate were in fact working on improving the update mod, no clue if they’re still working on it now that valve has fixed practically most things those guys were working on…
They fucking nailed it. That's the only thing I gotta say. I do wonder how it compares to the "Half Life 2 Update" mod that was on Steam before the anniversary update though
that mods been outdated since valve fixed some ai behavior and bugs a while ago. reUpdate mods the mod (yeah, I know) to combine all the improvements but the hl2Update team was working on a bigger overhaul of the project before the 20th came out. no clue what the plan for that is now
I remember finding the facial animations to be bugged in that version. Plus I think the biggest improvement in this version is the thing they just passingly mentioned towards the end of the patch notes and for some reason have disabled by default, and that is that music can finally continue playing over level transitions. 20 years and finally that one water hazard level and the end of Ravenholm don't have their music abruptly cut off. Update's solution was to just fade the music out before the level transition which I think is a kinda lame solution.
@@forgotmyname1242 For some reason I don't understand the fix is disabled by default, and you have to enable it with a console command. I forget what exactly the command is but it's near the bottom of the update page and works perfectly.
Wow they really went all-out for this. Only thing I don't like is the new lighting looks a bit washed out at 0:33, but honestly that could just be hdr shenanigans.
@@epicredhot5675 the copy and pasting is low effort, but they are are right though the lighting in breen's layer is atrociously bad in anniversary. whoever made that map was looking in the map editor and INTENTIONALLY made it the way it was before (BECAUSE it looked cooler)
@@googleuser4720 its a improvment specially the distance lod stuff omg its from the same devs, valve is still amazing, you can't look at some of these and think its worse. and if you dislike it so much just go to the properties of the game and play you outdated version.
Even the legacy lighting in HL2 is impressive. Where any other games doing global illumination in 2004? I didnt even know what that was back then but knew there was something a little different about the look of those environments.
It's not really "global illumination"; it's prebaked radosity. Different solution to the same problem. HL1 and Q2 had it as well, but didn't take texture color into account. I would say that any games that used prebaked lightmaps in 2004 probably did have bounced lighting that takes into account texture color; it was already common in 2000 for GoldSrc and Quake II map compilers like ZHLT and Arghrad respectively to do so. Games like Doom 3 however, which relied upon real-time lighting, would not.
@@incel2002I think it's just that "global illumination" these days usually implies real-time global illumination. Pre-baked GI was indeed not new even by 2004, but Source did push it to new levels of fidelity, imo.
I can't think of any other game from that time which had baked lighting that looked nearly this good. It might have been partly due to art direction though. They have lots of dramatic point lights and areas with dramatic dusk/dawn lighting from the sun.
Amazing how good a 20 year old game can look with a few updates. If you told me this game came out this year I would believe you. This proves once again that developers waste time and money on better and better graphics instead of art style, gameplay and story.
What's crazy is the game could have looked like this even back when it was first released. The engine didn't support HDR back then, but the resolution of the baked in shadows could have been increased, it's just that with the hardware they had back then maps would have taken forever to compile. Also the draw distance of objects and details has been increased, which again could have always been done at the cost of performance. The potential was always there, all it took was changing a few values. Really shows how ahead of its time the Source engine was
i mean you can tell, but all they would have to change would be modern lighting tech, more polygons and higher resolution textures. why it looks so good still is just the amount of detailed and realistic looking environments. on that front they were already on todays level. and thats kind of what half life alyx did.
The old stuff was not bad, but new one is better (more resolution and better filtering, better contact shadows, and more spread in soft shadows). I like that some spaces got a little bit more dark overall. (But in some other got a little brighter, and less contrasty, which is probably not great for the feel, but not a big difference). I was replaying it last weekend, and knew something is different. But could not put a finger on it (previous time I played it was ages ago). But I can see it now. And of course more small props like grass all around.
What is really appreciated is that they still give you the option to revert to the pre-update "steam_legacy" version anytime, and also simply moving the standalone copies of EP1/2 and LC to the tools section instead of outright replacing them. They did the same for CSGO_legacy after CS2's release.
Been waiting for someone to make a comparison video like this! Thank you for taking the time. If you are going to do a part 2 of this, you should compare d1_trainstation_05. The railcars now have proper shadows casted on them from the overhead bridge. Little details like that are awesome! I also love the way the coast maps feel with the new radial fog! And it seems like the sprite foliage view distance has also been improved.
Right after the anniversary shots get fully revealed in this video, use the left and right arrow keys to compare between legacy and anniversary version.
Reflections and ambience for the fire effects could have been a nice touch would have really brought the project to the 21st century, I think the fire effect is not sold well in my opinion. Shadows and lighting have improved nicely.
Yoooo, look at the water tower, they added distance dependent soft shadows. The further the object is to the shadow the softer the shadow gets, like irl.
Turns out that's a mistake on my end. There's a trigger earlier in the level that causes them to become visible, but I used a console command to set my position so I missed the trigger. If you play through the map normally they will appear just fine!
@@Ledonn Yup, more likely than not. There are a lot of instances of similar optimizations throughout the game, especially for (relatively) expensive props like ragdolls. Optimization was key in older games :)
Thanks a lot for this video! It's great to see the comparison between the two, and just how far Valve has pushed the Source engine- an engine which has been seemingly pushed to its limits already over the past twenty years via Garry's Mod and private, third-party creations. Twenty years. Wow. Thank you, Valve, for creating this design tool/sandbox toy, for being completely transparent, and opening up the code to the people who helped you grow; Meanwhile, you were always trying to present US with something wonderful the whole, entire time. I digress. On the contrary, millions upon millions of devoted fans and creators are still managing to jostle something here and there, resulting in something brand new. Not everyone has played or knows what Half-Life is- but of what I *am* convinced? That everyone knows someone who does. Now, to see Valve recreating in their now-classic engine, it's really something nice to see. Especially considering how much progress has been made with Source 2, from Alyx-era to present. In twenty more years, we'll be looking at this current build similarly to how we do Half-Life (1) (ex. "Look at how blocky that is!"), considering the methods and tools developers may have access to in the future. However, I believe Half-Life 2 achieves the closest-to-perfect depictions of realism in cooperation with unreal fantasy that we might see for a LONG time.
@@fridaykitty i think they only changed half life 2's graphics, probably to make it closer in consistency to the episodes, which already had things like HDR and higher detail
i'm still disappointment that they didn't gave hl2 csm shadows, still such a miss opportunity to had pushed the hl2 engine to the best graphical version of the engine, aka the csgo version. csgo crisp and realtime shadows would had add so much life to the outside sections
csm shadows break source 1s eye shaders, which is why csgo characters had bolted on eyes. If they applied it to HL2 they would have to do the same to the characters which would not be worth it.
I would say csm shadows don't really fit with the intended artstyle, in-game it's autumn with usually partly overcast skies so it's appropriate for all outdoor shadows to be slightly diffused.
@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive It's my mistake -- there's a trigger earlier in the level that causes them to appear. I missed that trigger because I used console commands to set my camera position. Those props will spawn just fine when playing through the level normally :)
yes i want to see that as well. i saw a video of day 1 half life 2, and the nova prospekt levels are much darker than they are now, and the new hdr version of the level actually makes it look much closer to the original, so i wonder if the same goes for every other level
Hell no. Source 1 is objectively better than Unreal Engine 5, it's not blurry, doesn't have ghosting, has superior reflections (not screen-space bs), capable of better shadows and runs 10000 times better
Correction at 1:12 -- Those corpse models were not removed in the anniversary update. I missed the trigger that causes them to appear because I set the camera position using console commands. They will appear as expected when playing the level normally.
I thought they made a children update for hl2 without violency😅😅😅
I like how the changes are subtle. They didn't overdo it. It keeps the spirit of the original alive.
Probably because remix is going to be doing that.
@@innocentfd6364Not developed by valve
As far as I understand, they haven't really introduced anything new, but increased the quality of the things that already were there.
They re-baked lightmaps with better shadows, global illumination and higher LOD 💪💪
they are using HDR which was introduced in the episodes
I thought that I read in the patch notes there were only high quality models and textures instead of loading lower LOD models and textures when at a distance. Because any potato PC made in the past 10 years should have no problem doing that.
Don't forget there was GI in the original, too! Technically it was radiocity lighting, but what other games were doing bounce lighting back then?
I don't think LoD- s are lighting related
They already had global illumination, I wish they could have corrected the reflections to make them parallax and not flat cubemaps
This game aged like wine🍷
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
@@googleuser4720spam it more king
@googleuser4720 They didn't sacrificed anything in this update, just upgrade the base game with the technologies from episode II. I don't know what you're trying to point.
@@googleuser4720uhm I think you'd rather be off streaming (This is The) Glasshouse's latest LP '867' instead of regurgitating the same strings of words around!
@@plr.5036 There are a couple areas shown in this video where I think the legacy build looks better, but I must admit the difference really isn't enough for me to say it got worse, and overall these examples look like improvements.
Not shown in the video however are errors I don't remember being in the game, though, such as weird light leaking in certain areas (like a shallow cave in Sand Traps) or some animation weirdness with Vsync turned on. Even these, however, aren't as bad as when I first played HL2 where several maps would load in full right so again I think they did an ok job here.
I knew it was strange when all of the sudden my own map had slight ambient occlusion on it.
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
@@googleuser4720 Creative intent can be iterated upon.
@@googleuser4720Nah it looks much much better
@@googleuser4720The people who "threw the creative intent aside" made the damn game. Get over it.
@@googleuser4720 What creative intent is lost from increased lightmap resolution? Besides, the original creative team were involed on this update
The bicubic filtering really stands out for me, the way it just magically removes stair-stepping from low resolution lightmaps, and makes them looks like proper soft shadows instead is nothing short of black magic
It especially improves Ravenholm, with the amount of harsh lighting in that section, i always was kinda taken out of it when the cracks of linear filtering shone through
Being spoilt with the new shadows, makes me notice how blocky they are in L4D2.
Even the way it can properly shadow along certain static props and models is really nice too
1:00
that long tower shadow getting softer + all the missing grass. Beautiful
The Source engine was seriously ahead of its time and the fact that little details make such a big difference is a testament to how groundbreaking of an engine it really was in 2004.
It was definitely crazy good for its time, but lightmaps weren't anything new. Baked GI existed for a while and other games released then and earlier used it.
This comment makes zero sense
@@muchossaugus9927 it really doesent.. Source Engine is actually extremely primitive and was way worse than both Cryengine and Id-tech 4. The reason it looks so good in HL2 is solely becasue of the lighting color and weather (Overcast). what is impressive however is that Valve knew all the way back in 2002 that Overcast weather with white lighting is a complete cheat and makes the lighting look way more realistic than it actually is. Valve are absolute masterminds of cheating graphics
It makes it look like how I remember it instead of how it actually looked. I love it!
1:02 This is absolutely sublime. The fog seamlessly blending with the sky, the faintly visible trees in the distance, the soft shadows from large objects-all while staying completely faithful to the original. This update is exactly what I wanted.
And they added a bunch of cables
They didn't just rebake the lighting, they reCOOKED
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
@@googleuser4720 damn you are coping so hard, copy pasting same thing to every person who dared to say good thing about update
@@googleuser47200/10 very bad ragebait. If you wanted it to be effective you should have made your comment a standalone comment, not spammed across the entire comment section
@@googleuser4720 the game was made with "super dooper cool lighting" in mind, so improving it doesn't ruin the overall look.
Also, I see you got a lot of time copypasting the same message several dozen times
@@googleuser4720bro this would literally be how the game would look if the shadow maps could be higher. it was to save storage back then.
It's great seeing Valve get a bit more brave with fog in their maps now after CS2. I also especially love that fog is now circular.
So it wasn't just in my mind then. It really DOES look a lot better!
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
@@googleuser4720 how many times you gonna reply with this, we get it, you don't like it
@@googleuser4720said nobody ever
@@googleuser4720 "creative intent thrown aside" my brother in christ they changed things so subtle, that we need a comparsion video to show what actually changed.
@@googleuser4720what "creative intent", they just updated the lighting to be more up to date with modern graphical specs, do you seriously think it was a creative decision to have worse lighting?
Thank you!!! I kept checking on Google, hoping someone had made this exact video. The HDR lighting has to be my favorite part of this update, there's so much more nuance to the lights and shadows from the extra color information.
Like what
@@rightbehindyou9398 Look at the first bit of the video and notice how the direct sunlight can contrast better with the ambient light, which itself can fade more smoothly into the shadows while still being reasonably bright. Another example, if you'd feel like booting up the game yourself to check it out, is the dark hallway at the back of the train station before you come into the plaza. You can see the light is able to fade smoothly into darkness, whereas before, it would have a fairly abrupt cutoff and random pixels of red, green, or blue where there weren't enough bits for a smooth transition.
So basically: light spots are brighter while shadows are darker and sharper. And all maps during the airboat section now have way more vegetation and some other minor detais
thank you for doing this for me hah, satisfied my curiosity on how the lighting has changed
They FINALLY fixed the fucking rainbow shadows in dark areas, previously you had to play HL2 Update to experience properly rendered maps. Glad to see they finally fixed it!
Does HL2 still improve the graphics abit or there's no reason to use it anymore?
@@gulas_s_houskovym_knedlikem nope, the main reason HL2U was a thing was fixing, *really* bad lighting through years of lazy compilation. They fixed all of that and genuinely added a lot of nice QoL tidbits.
@@sarcasmenul but the developer said that he has something big in making rn, some big fan update
Different account, or not, im on phone so idk which acc I’m logged into, but afaik work on hl2u stopped ages ago, maybe you’re confusing that mod and the ReUpdate one? Because I know the devs for HL2ReUpdate were in fact working on improving the update mod, no clue if they’re still working on it now that valve has fixed practically most things those guys were working on…
They fucking nailed it. That's the only thing I gotta say. I do wonder how it compares to the "Half Life 2 Update" mod that was on Steam before the anniversary update though
that mods been outdated since valve fixed some ai behavior and bugs a while ago. reUpdate mods the mod (yeah, I know) to combine all the improvements but the hl2Update team was working on a bigger overhaul of the project before the 20th came out. no clue what the plan for that is now
for what it's worth, I'm just sticking with the vanilla valve version for now. they did a good job
I remember finding the facial animations to be bugged in that version. Plus I think the biggest improvement in this version is the thing they just passingly mentioned towards the end of the patch notes and for some reason have disabled by default, and that is that music can finally continue playing over level transitions. 20 years and finally that one water hazard level and the end of Ravenholm don't have their music abruptly cut off. Update's solution was to just fade the music out before the level transition which I think is a kinda lame solution.
@@monkeywithocdWait what? The music continues to cut off for me after loading screens even in the anniversary update.
@@forgotmyname1242 For some reason I don't understand the fix is disabled by default, and you have to enable it with a console command. I forget what exactly the command is but it's near the bottom of the update page and works perfectly.
Wow they really went all-out for this. Only thing I don't like is the new lighting looks a bit washed out at 0:33, but honestly that could just be hdr shenanigans.
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
@@googleuser4720 honestly ur right, the more I look at anniversary the more it looks like a slight downgrade
wah, wah
copy-pasting the same thing as a reply to everyone even slightly praising the update isn't going to make everyone magically agree with you
@@epicredhot5675 the copy and pasting is low effort, but they are are right though
the lighting in breen's layer is atrociously bad in anniversary. whoever made that map was looking in the map editor and INTENTIONALLY made it the way it was before (BECAUSE it looked cooler)
@@googleuser4720 its a improvment specially the distance lod stuff omg its from the same devs, valve is still amazing, you can't look at some of these and think its worse.
and if you dislike it so much just go to the properties of the game and play you outdated version.
More subtle than HL2: Update mod but a very solid improvement overall.
Even the legacy lighting in HL2 is impressive. Where any other games doing global illumination in 2004? I didnt even know what that was back then but knew there was something a little different about the look of those environments.
It's not really "global illumination"; it's prebaked radosity. Different solution to the same problem. HL1 and Q2 had it as well, but didn't take texture color into account. I would say that any games that used prebaked lightmaps in 2004 probably did have bounced lighting that takes into account texture color; it was already common in 2000 for GoldSrc and Quake II map compilers like ZHLT and Arghrad respectively to do so. Games like Doom 3 however, which relied upon real-time lighting, would not.
@@SirYodaJedi well, radiosity is part of GI algorithm.
@@incel2002I think it's just that "global illumination" these days usually implies real-time global illumination. Pre-baked GI was indeed not new even by 2004, but Source did push it to new levels of fidelity, imo.
I can't think of any other game from that time which had baked lighting that looked nearly this good. It might have been partly due to art direction though. They have lots of dramatic point lights and areas with dramatic dusk/dawn lighting from the sun.
Yes, even in the early 2000s, and Half LIfe 2 lightning is nowhere near as close to be the best of its time.
Amazing how good a 20 year old game can look with a few updates. If you told me this game came out this year I would believe you. This proves once again that developers waste time and money on better and better graphics instead of art style, gameplay and story.
What's crazy is the game could have looked like this even back when it was first released. The engine didn't support HDR back then, but the resolution of the baked in shadows could have been increased, it's just that with the hardware they had back then maps would have taken forever to compile. Also the draw distance of objects and details has been increased, which again could have always been done at the cost of performance. The potential was always there, all it took was changing a few values. Really shows how ahead of its time the Source engine was
i mean you can tell, but all they would have to change would be modern lighting tech, more polygons and higher resolution textures. why it looks so good still is just the amount of detailed and realistic looking environments. on that front they were already on todays level. and thats kind of what half life alyx did.
The old stuff was not bad, but new one is better (more resolution and better filtering, better contact shadows, and more spread in soft shadows). I like that some spaces got a little bit more dark overall. (But in some other got a little brighter, and less contrasty, which is probably not great for the feel, but not a big difference).
I was replaying it last weekend, and knew something is different. But could not put a finger on it (previous time I played it was ages ago). But I can see it now. And of course more small props like grass all around.
Was hoping someone would do a comparison eventually! Some maps have unchanged lightmaps while others look much improved
What is really appreciated is that they still give you the option to revert to the pre-update "steam_legacy" version anytime, and also simply moving the standalone copies of EP1/2 and LC to the tools section instead of outright replacing them. They did the same for CSGO_legacy after CS2's release.
How do you do it?
@@wausjackbauer128If i remember correctly, you need to open game properties and choose the "beta" select (drop-down) menu there.
You are indeed a regular dog 🐶
1:46 I see that they added some light's there, that's cool :3
Furry
@impulse_76 Nonfurry
Now it only takes a few worshop mods to play a modernized version of Half-Life 2. We live in good times
im waiting for some mod team to take 15 years to remake HL2 in Source 2 like they did with Black mesa lmao
Great comparison and great improvements.
the dimly lit sections looks almost photorealistic
1. The new lighting effects look great.
2. The original lighting/graphics still look amazing 20 years later. That's quite a feat.
0:41 wait there was no smoke in the pod in the OG version?
No, there wasn't
Bro this game was released in 2004, yet it looks on par with or better than most AAA today!
Thanks for sharing! I've been looking for a video like this
thanks for making this u rock
Been waiting for someone to make a comparison video like this! Thank you for taking the time. If you are going to do a part 2 of this, you should compare d1_trainstation_05. The railcars now have proper shadows casted on them from the overhead bridge. Little details like that are awesome! I also love the way the coast maps feel with the new radial fog! And it seems like the sprite foliage view distance has also been improved.
Thank you for making this video
0:42 YABBA!
This sound resembles russian "ЕЕЕБАТЬ!!"
Thank you so much for this
Right after the anniversary shots get fully revealed in this video, use the left and right arrow keys to compare between legacy and anniversary version.
It's a small difference but it looks so good
Reflections and ambience for the fire effects could have been a nice touch would have really brought the project to the 21st century, I think the fire effect is not sold well in my opinion. Shadows and lighting have improved nicely.
Looks like they improved the tone mapping.
I wonder often how I can experience the original PC Half-Life 2 and I haven't found a way
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.
By the way, am I the only one noticing some objects being way too reflective?
They increased the reflectivity on things like glass and some of the objects. Actually looks more natural for some objects
@LithFox For some, but for others, they overdid it.
Wish they would've done more, CSM and parrallax corrected cubemaps would've been a nice visual boost
Yoooo, look at the water tower, they added distance dependent soft shadows. The further the object is to the shadow the softer the shadow gets, like irl.
I genuinely like the old softer shadows more, and for some reason the new lighting feels a tad desaturated
You like blocky shadows?
@nolram they're not blocky, they just don't fade so quickly with distance
1:42 Did they just place new lights
1:13 no no,, why they deleted those bodies????
Turns out that's a mistake on my end. There's a trigger earlier in the level that causes them to become visible, but I used a console command to set my position so I missed the trigger. If you play through the map normally they will appear just fine!
@regulardog621 oh wow,,, is it valve's commitment to optimization? that's great😮
@@Ledonn Yup, more likely than not. There are a lot of instances of similar optimizations throughout the game, especially for (relatively) expensive props like ragdolls. Optimization was key in older games :)
@@regulardog621 makes me sad how terrible optimization is these days for games
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
Thanks a lot for this video! It's great to see the comparison between the two, and just how far Valve has pushed the Source engine- an engine which has been seemingly pushed to its limits already over the past twenty years via Garry's Mod and private, third-party creations. Twenty years. Wow. Thank you, Valve, for creating this design tool/sandbox toy, for being completely transparent, and opening up the code to the people who helped you grow; Meanwhile, you were always trying to present US with something wonderful the whole, entire time. I digress. On the contrary, millions upon millions of devoted fans and creators are still managing to jostle something here and there, resulting in something brand new. Not everyone has played or knows what Half-Life is- but of what I *am* convinced? That everyone knows someone who does.
Now, to see Valve recreating in their now-classic engine, it's really something nice to see. Especially considering how much progress has been made with Source 2, from Alyx-era to present. In twenty more years, we'll be looking at this current build similarly to how we do Half-Life (1) (ex. "Look at how blocky that is!"), considering the methods and tools developers may have access to in the future. However, I believe Half-Life 2 achieves the closest-to-perfect depictions of realism in cooperation with unreal fantasy that we might see for a LONG time.
This is amazing!:( I hope that valve would give the episodes same treatment..
the episodes are included in the anniversary update so yes I would assume they did
@@fridaykitty i think they only changed half life 2's graphics, probably to make it closer in consistency to the episodes, which already had things like HDR and higher detail
i'm still disappointment that they didn't gave hl2 csm shadows, still such a miss opportunity to had pushed the hl2 engine to the best graphical version of the engine, aka the csgo version. csgo crisp and realtime shadows would had add so much life to the outside sections
csm shadows break source 1s eye shaders, which is why csgo characters had bolted on eyes. If they applied it to HL2 they would have to do the same to the characters which would not be worth it.
I would say csm shadows don't really fit with the intended artstyle, in-game it's autumn with usually partly overcast skies so it's appropriate for all outdoor shadows to be slightly diffused.
the new version looks how i remember the old version
Thank you for this! I wonder how HL2 Update compares to both.
1:10 What happened to the corpses? They spawned in my version.
true
@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive It's my mistake -- there's a trigger earlier in the level that causes them to appear. I missed that trigger because I used console commands to set my camera position. Those props will spawn just fine when playing through the level normally :)
could you also compare to day 1 build? I know valve said that they made the game look closer to the original release with the maps
yes i want to see that as well. i saw a video of day 1 half life 2, and the nova prospekt levels are much darker than they are now, and the new hdr version of the level actually makes it look much closer to the original, so i wonder if the same goes for every other level
here's the fun part: it still runs in good frames in my potato pc until now
How do you still get access to the legacy build?
could you do a video comparing half life 2 update to anniversary
twenty years old game btw
0:32 aw they changed the color of the light :(
Awesome
Is the same lighting upgrade than "HL2 update" mod or is slightly different?
half-life 2 update is, ironically, outdated now
also no, this is slightly different
HL2 Update's lighting changes are more exaggerated, the most egregious being changing Ravenholm's sky to a deeper blue instead of mostly grey.
I'd like to see if there's any difference in the old Update version
I was kind of attached to the crumminess tbh
So then, is there any reason to download the fan Half Life 2: Update on steam?
Does this make half life 2 update useless?
Does it look a little bloomier?
1:10 did they remove some of the gore?
I wonder if this makes Half Life 2: Update redundant
it looks way better when your playing it youtube fking with the video
They should update the textures and stuff like they did with CS2
no
CS2 uses the source 2 engine, so this would be require a complete overhaul. would love to see it though
@@Matt-vw9nd I’m sure some group of fans will make it lol hopefully whatever HLX is will be cool too
Best pc game ever of universe
but will it run on my 486
Not really a useful comparison if you compare LDR vs HDR lightmaps
Legacy
now do with half life 2 update
too overhyped
Lame. Wheres RTX?
The really don't fix the cubemap reflexion parallax 😢
would be nice but requires custom code and really only works in rectangular rooms anyway.
@bmd103 yeah but anyway they don't fix it... 🤷♂️ I just hope somebody fix it on the workshop 🤞
This deserves a remake in Unreal engine 5.5 keeping the theme of the levels but making them larger and more explorable.
nonononononononon
Hell no. Source 1 is objectively better than Unreal Engine 5, it's not blurry, doesn't have ghosting, has superior reflections (not screen-space bs), capable of better shadows and runs 10000 times better
If anything upgrade it to source 2, not Unreal
half life 2 but its blurry and laggy and every surface is shiny
Anniversary looks objectively worse. Just because its higher visual fidelity doesn't mean anything if the creative intent has been thrown aside.
are you just being negative for the sake of being negative? it's not healthy to be so persistently pessimistic
@@lenship2 he spams that message in every single comment that is positive about update, he is insane
@@lenship2real
0/10 super bad ragebait, the steam forums has better bait than you
Rent free