The Source Engine is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. Its unique features include a large degree of modularity and flexibility, an artist-driven, shader-based renderer, accurate lip sync and facial expression technology, and a powerful, efficient and completely network-enabled physics system. 

Renderer

  • Version 2.0 (and below) shaders, bump mapping, LOD on models and world
  • Author shaders with HLSL
  • Cube and environment mapping
  • Dynamic lights, vertex lighting and light maps, many light types including flickering, pulsing etc.
  • High-Dynamic Range lighting
  • Water with refraction and fresnel effects
  • Advanced particle system that can emit sprites or models
  • Projected shadows allow for a large number of characters per scene
  • Occluder entities for visibility blocking
  • Indoor/Outdoor environments
  • Deformable terrain
  • 3D skyboxes extend the horizon and add parallax on distant objects
  • Dynamically rendered organics (grass, trees etc)
  • Subdivision surfaces, diffuse & specular bump maps
  • Real-time radiosity lighting
  • Effects include but are not limited to: particles, beams, volumetric smoke, sparks, blood, environmental effects like fog and rain
  • Scalability
  • Dx6-Dx9 hardware supported

Materials System

  • Instead of traditional textures, Source defines sets of materials that specify what the object is made from and the texture used for that object. A material specifies how an object will fracture when broken, what it will sound like when broken or dragged across another surface, and what that object’s mass and buoyancy are. This system is much more flexible than other texture only based systems.
  • Materials can interact with objects or NPCs such as mud or ice for vehicles to slide/lose traction on.

Multiplayer Network Code

  • Time and gamer tested by millions of gamers around the world
  • Support for both LAN based multiplayer and Internet based multiplayer games
  • Prediction analysis for interpolating collision/hit detection
  • Optimizations for high-latency, high-packet loss 56k connections

Advanced Characters

  • Detailed and believable characters
  • Realistic eyes
  • Focus on player/object, not simply parallel views
  • Proper eye “bulge” for realistic eye reflections
  • Simulated musculature provides outstanding emotions, speech and body language
  • Language independent speech, characters can naturally speak in many languages
  • Skeletal/bone system for animation
  • Layered animation system can synthesize complex animations out of several pieces

More

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Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Counter-Strike: Source Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Blog RSS Feed Report abuse Latest News: The Monad - HL2/Source machinima

31 comments by Varsity on Apr 2nd, 2008 digg this super bookmark


This is being posted as news purely because it's so excellent. Depressing, but excellent.


The Monad was directed and produced by Sam Goldwater.

(Need some cheering up after all that? Today's other machinima addition is Paul Marino's music video I'm Still Seeing Breen!)

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Gordon Freeman is back! Half-Life 2 picks up some time after the original Half-Life left off, with Gordon Freeman working for the G-Man. Along with scientist...

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Comments  (0 - 10 of 24)
mokies
mokies Aug 7 2008, 3:41am says:

Anybody knows when will be the release of HL2:EP3?

It's kinda long I guess... it's the last of HL2. Then another story will come again...

+1 vote     reply to comment
jacko1121
jacko1121 Jul 17 2008, 2:36pm says:

Source is one of the better engines out there, to me even better then the unreal engine just because the amount of detail.

+1 vote     reply to comment
leilei
leilei Jul 25 2008, 5:43pm replied:

any engine can be 'detailed' too if you had a texture artist with a camera and a sharpen filter.

+1 vote     reply to comment
GisleAune
GisleAune Jul 4 2008, 2:26pm says:

Source is the best game engine EVER!!!!!

The bump mapping is GREAT, the capabilities is GREAT!!!!

keep up your good work on HL2 EP3

+2 votes     reply to comment
mr_peters
mr_peters Jun 13 2008, 5:47pm says:

just great... and they are using games in it that i have played/playing... feels like this clip is about a part of my life, or whats gonna happen to my life if i keep sitting at my comp 10 h each day xD, well, shit happens and im still 15 years old ;)

+1 vote     reply to comment
HunGub
HunGub May 25 2008, 5:16am says:

WHAT THE IM CONFUSED WHERE DO I DOWNLOAD IT?

0 votes     reply to comment
LORDDEREX
LORDDEREX Jun 10 2008, 10:03am replied:

u cant download Source Engine u need to buy games like Half-Life 2 and u get Source SDK with it

+1 vote     reply to comment
jazminas
jazminas May 11 2008, 6:55am says:

there i can get this engine?

0 votes     reply to comment
viper276
viper276 May 6 2008, 11:33am says:

this is one of the best engines ever used for games

+3 votes     reply to comment
LORDDEREX
LORDDEREX May 18 2008, 11:54am replied:

Source is the best for realism-made games!

+2 votes     reply to comment
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Platforms
PC, X360, PS3, XBOX
Company
Valve
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Official Page
Valvesoftware.com
Licence
Commercial
Release Date
Released Nov 1, 2004
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