Half Life: Alyx

[Protocol7]

https://twitter.com/valvesoftware/status/1196566870360387584

I am really looking forward to this. Sure it isn't Half Life 3 but it's something huge for VR.

[RuneSR2]

Shadowmask72 said:

Music is funny in VR because you're effectively role playing. Bit who has this cinematic soundtrack playing in real life as they go about their business? Additionally, sometimes the soundtrack can actually spoil some of the surprises by letting you know something is about to happen or danger still present.  I think a lot of effort and expense is put into video game music production now which is fine and dandy for 2D gaming but perhaps needs a rethink for VR.

I'm slightly saddened to hear that @MowTin has trouble going forward due a lot of big black hairy jumping spider-things ... and the increasing horror elements ... because I'm also in chapter 5 and probably very close to where he is  :# The combat really gets intense (and me fiddling with those damn grenades or ammo :# ). I greatly appreciate knowing when to calm down, like when the music stops, and when not to 😄 . But I have tons of ammo, really don't like to leave things behind - so I've sometimes used my hands to be able to transport 5 instead of 3 grenades :blush:

But I fully agree - if you want to get as close to the real thing as possible of course you should turn off the music and never get any hints about what's coming or ending. That would be kinda terrifying. Might do that on a second playthrough on Hard. 
I guess you'll also get a more movie-like experience when enabling the music (and I'm sure some artists have spent tons of hours making that totally awesome soundtrack, at least for the first play-through I'd like to hear what they've done). 

[kojack]

Shadowmask72 said:

Bit who has this cinematic soundtrack playing in real life as they go about their business?

It can help you fly a jet fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF6R1sJrWPk

Note: Despite the movie being called Iron Eagle, they fly the F16 Falcon, not the F15 Eagle.

Wildt said:

That game was great on the DK2, but boy did it demand strong VR legs :sweat_smile:

I used to play HL2 with a DK2 and a Novint Falcon. The haptics were amazing.

The Novint Falcon (not to be confused with the F16 Falcon above, purely a coincidence) wasn't just vibration, it's motors could resist your movement. 3DOF force at 1000Hz allowing you to feel weight, momentum and even surface texture (there was a mod for Penumbra Overture that let you feel the bump maps of the textures with the cursor).

[RuneSR2]

A few shots from my ongoing vacation - ok picked up the shots from Steam - they are from the first 4 chapters, so not many spoilers.

I guess only Valve can make a dynamic intro scene like this and still keep a perfect 90+ fps - not even Lone Echo comes close to this:






Note the elaborate dynamic shadows on the building - this isn't Boneworks 😉 



Kinda looks female-ish... 


An example of the ultra-texture-res - looks exactly like that in the Index, even more detailed than this picture indicates:



Some just never learn - should've stayed home during the corona-crisis... Again, look at the textures:


Some structures - totally amazing - again this is rendered in real time 90+ fps:


Poly-levels beyond anything else (or Valve knows how to trick me)



Some easily overlooked details:




Atmosphere:




Visiting old friends:


Love that gun - just got the grenade launcher attached, awesome:


Can't wait to go back later today 🙂

[pyroth309]

kojack said:

Shadowmask72 said:

Bit who has this cinematic soundtrack playing in real life as they go about their business?

It can help you fly a jet fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF6R1sJrWPk

Note: Despite the movie being called Iron Eagle, they fly the F16 Falcon, not the F15 Eagle.

One of my favorite movies from my child hood. The scene when it starts playing One Vision made me a fan of Queen.

[Wildt]

kojack said:
I used to play HL2 with a DK2 and a Novint Falcon. The haptics were amazing.

Awwww! Green with envy here - I almost bought it just for that game, but sensibility got a hold of me.
Were there any other GOOD games that supported it really?

[kojack]

Wildt said:

kojack said:
I used to play HL2 with a DK2 and a Novint Falcon. The haptics were amazing.

Awwww! Green with envy here - I almost bought it just for that game, but sensibility got a hold of me.
Were there any other GOOD games that supported it really?

HL2, Penumbra Overture and Penumbra Black Plague.

In HL2 every weapon had uniquely modeled haptics. You could feel every shell going in to the shotgun when you reloaded. The kick from the revolver knocked your hand back. Picking up stuff with the gravity gun let you feel the weight.

It did make HL2 near unplayable though, because everything knocked the camera around.

In the Penumbra games (for those that don't know, they were the earlier horror games by the maker of Amnesia and Soma) the Falcon moved a cursor in 3D. When it scraped along a surface they sampled the texture and bumped the controller to match. Grabbing objects and playing with the world physics felt great.

But the big problem with the Falcon was the it was 3DOF only (move on x,y,z) with no rotation and a very small area. It has the biggest "bang for the buck" for impressing people, but was near useless otherwise. Sadly it never got a renaissance like the Razer Hydra did.

[kojack]

I just read that apparently there is a bug where picking up two shotgun shells with the gravity gloves only adds one shell to your inventory. You need to separate the shells enough so they don't get grabbed as a pair, so you can get them one at a time.

That would explain why my shotgun ammo was always too low to be useful.

[YoLolo69]

Did some tests for the Supersampling auto system in HLA. Thanks to oculus Debug Tool layer I can see mine oscillating between 1.26% and 1.52% depending where I'm looking (no more no less), on MID settings in game, that's great for my "old" system. I have a very clear and sharp view in my CV1, and all is smooth.

BTW I can confirm the SteamVR settings for resolution (manual/auto) do nothing at all whatever value or mode you set,  so don't believe what Valve wrote in their Performance Tips for HLA web page, chapter "tuning in SteamVR" when they say to play with that setting, it's ignored in game.

[RuneSR2]

YoLolo69 said:

BTW I can confirm the SteamVR settings for resolution (manual/auto) do nothing at all whatever value or mode you set,  so don't believe what Valve wrote in their Performance Tips for HLA web page, chapter "tuning in SteamVR" when they say to play with that setting, it's ignored in game.

That would be my impression too, maybe Valve devs are just trying to let people experience the placebo effect of setting res to like 150% in SteamVR and then experiencing great performance in Alyx - then everybody is happy, lol. Thanks for the effort and sharing btw.
Tried a lot of things yesterday, still really hard to find (solid) evidence of things seen with the naked eye that changes when setting Low Fidelity to Ultra Fidelity. But ss does increase using Low and that can be seen with the naked eye - thus something must change. Or maybe I need to make a full restart for all Ultra settings to take effect - but then it would be weird of Valve not to give a warning that you need to restart. For now, it seems you can change from Low to Ultra on the fly, but Low will automatically auto-adjust to higher settings if possible (at least that's how I interpret Valve's comment about the game automatically detecting your rig's performance). Maybe the flickering lights do need to be enabled though (would be understandable to protect persons with epilepsy). 
If Low vs. Ultra is less than a JND (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-noticeable_difference ), apart from increased ss using Low, I find it hard/unnecessary to select Ultra in Alyx - unless your gpu is so powerful that ss is the same using Low or Ultra. 

[loui100]

Btw. for the heck of it I just tested HL: Alyx using my 16-inch Macbook's Radeon 5500M and I was positively surprised by how well it ran - minor stuttering now and then but perfectly playable. Low Fidelity of course, and noticably zero to little SS, but still far from potato graphics. Probably closer to PS VR fidelity. I think the aggressive dynamic resolution in Alyx is great for weaker systems, but rather annoying for owners of high-end setups. Wish there was an option to turn it off so we can see the real difference between various graphic settings.