As you’re probably aware, Source 2 is a very complicated, mysterious and klikbaitable
subject, but I’m kind of proud of this video because I think it’ll give you a reasonable
idea of how CS:GO could look if given a Source 2 graphical overhaul… and not a rubbish
one like Dota 2 got.
I created identical maps in Source 1 and in Source 2, to finally compare, once and for
all, what the differences between these two engines are.
If you don’t know what you’re looking for here, don’t worry.
I don’t either.
But in this video I’ll be trying to figure it out, and hopefully by the end we’ll have
a rough idea of what to expect from Counter-Strike’s visuals, if using this new graphical engine!
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To understand Source 2, you have to understand its incomplete nature was at least partly
to blame for why so many Valve-made games over this last decade have been cancelled.
From what I read in ‘The Final Hours’, it sounds like with Source 2, they got some
of it done, and then it branched into several different game projects which all got rekt
because the Source 2 engine just wasn’t ready for any of them.
So I see Half Life Alyx as being the title they used to actually get Source 2 ‘done’.
A bit like Half Life 2 did with the Source 1 engine.
And while the engine may not be ‘finished’, it is at least, to a stage where it can be
used to power a modern and good-looking game.
And not just one like Dota 2.
So the engine I’m using to showcase Source 2 is the one used in Half Life Alyx, and it
could be that by the time it reaches CS:GO -if it ever does- then it’ll have more features
added to it!
But I think we can expect many of the same graphical tricks to be carried over.
Because, did you know that CS:GO and Half Life Alyx share something in common?
They both need high framerates.
Much more so than other games do!
Half Life Alyx needs high framerates, cos it needs to render 2 images, 90 times a second-
which is like, 3 times more frames than most games aim to run at.
And CS:GO needs high framerates because otherwise everybody complains about it.
So what this means is, I don’t think we can expect CS:GO’s version of Source 2 to
deliver cutting edge effects, like raytraced reflections or complex fluid… dynamic…
stuff.
But we can expect it to find clever ways of looking better than it currently does using
Source 1, but it will achieve this while still using techniques which don’t slow your computer
down by much.
Parallax corrected cubemaps, for instance.
Still a massive improvement over the ones we currently have in CS:GO, but they won’t
be as pretty-looking as raytraced ones COULD be.
Let’s get on with some examples.
So returning to that first example that I used at the start of the video, when using
the same stock settings, Source 2 looks much brighter than Source 1 does.
That alone doesn’t make Source 2’s lighting better, though- since we can just boost the
settings in Source 1 until it matches it 2’s brightness.
Well, I say that but even as some bits get brighter, other bits remain darker, and even
the shades of orange are different- so whatever I do, there will be differences between these
two versions.
Who’d have thought.
But this is the first thing to note: don’t expect maps ported to Source 2 to look the
same.
I mean, obviously, you don’t want them to look the same- you want them to look BETTER.
But sometimes, lighting changes are simply DIFFERENT, and it makes comparing even a basic
map such as this one, REALLY hard.
But the general way in which it’s done is the same.
Unlike most modern games, which calculate at least some of the lighting as it’s being
played, Half Life Alyx still pre-calculates pretty much ALL of the lighting in its levels,
and it does this when the map is first made.
It then stores all this lighting information away until the map is played, and then it
can just use that information when required.
This means the environments in Source 2 benefit from the same high-quality, raytraced lighting
as other games do, (since all that lighting detail had been precalculated months before)-
It’s kind of like watching a pre-rendered movie, instead of an in-game cutscene- pre-rendered
movies can look better, because your PC isn’t having to do all the hard work of rendering
it itself.
This pre-calculated lighting was done in Half Life 1, and in Half Life 2, AND in Half Life
Alyx.
What’s changed is how accurately the lighting is calculated and stored.
For instance: this Source 1 map takes 5 seconds to render.
But Source 2 takes 47 seconds to render the lighting in the ‘same’ map!
It does its best to hide it under its new flashy looking interface, but open this window
up and you can see it’s the same old render window that we’ve known since the Quake
1 days.
But hopefully with a few improvements since then!
Once all this rendering’s done, while the Source 1 version of the map with all its lighting
comes to 650 KB in size, the Source 2 one is over 2,000 KB!
In short: Source 2’s maps take longer to compile, and are larger in size.
But that’s to be expected, isn’t it: PCs have advanced a long way since Source 1 was
first released.
So Source 2 takes the approach that it’s probably worth a few extra resources to make
its maps look better.
Of course, this is just a simple map.
As the map gets bigger, and more stuff gets added to them, then the compile times and
file sizes will greatly increase.
The average Half Life 2 map is 15 MB in size.
The average Half Life Alyx map is more like 800.
So what do we get in exchange?
Well we get better ambient occlusion.
In broader terms, it’s all about what happens beyond the first light bounce.
On these steps, in Source 2, you can see that the light bouncing off them appears to light
up the faces around them, whereas in Source 1… it doesn’t.
Source 1 is capable of doing this effect, but I don’t think it can do it of these
surfaces because they’re just too small.
Clearly, Source 2’s lighting is more precise and applies itself to smaller surfaces.
So that’s better.
And we can see the opposite lighting effect happening where these stairs touch the wall-
in Source 1, there’s but a very faint darker smudge running up the side.
But Source 2’s blends the stairs in with the wall a lot better, darkening the parts
in contact with the wall.
Each stair has a bit of a shadow cast by the one above it, too.
Returning to Source 1, this stuff doesn’t happen.
The whole structure seems far less connected with everything around it.
I don’t think you’d say it was wrong if you saw this in a level, but if you switch
to Source 2, you can see it looks a lot more convincing.
Now don’t get me wrong- you can probably get the same effect in Source 1 if you mess
about with the lighting properties enough.
But the point is, Source 2 does it with stock settings, without me having to do anything
to it!
And I think this is about as fair a comparison as I can make.
Here’s another example- in this picture, you wouldn’t know that this black slab is
connected with the wall, would you- but in Source 2’s, it casts a very clear shadow
from where it obstructs the light bouncing off the floor just here.
In conclusion: Source 2 casts nicer indirect lighting and shadows, which will make even
the most BORING bits of maps look better in ways that you can’t yet imagine.
And you might actually have to look quite hard to spot them, but it’s there and it
looks better so that’s nice.
But sometimes, maybe Source 2 isn’t quite such an improvement.
Source 1’s dark corner here looks suitably dark and DANK…
…whereas Source 2’s casts very clear lines from things obstructing indirect lighting,
which I’m not sure is how it would be lit in this example?
It’s almost like it’s TOO detailed for what should be just a dimly lit corner!
And also, I notice some splodgy, blobby bits where the ground connects with the wall.
These bits are mistakes, and Source 1 used to cast similar mistakes, if I recall correctly.
I assume it’s not so much of a problem in Source 2 though, since Source 2 maps are typically
filled with clutter and rubbish so you’d be unlikely to have such a barren, simple
corner on display.
But yeah, it is still a mistake.
And I think Source 1 does this corner better.
But overall, I think you’ll agree that Source 2’s lighting on this map is better than
Source 1’s.
But…
what if I use my mapping knowledge to INCREASE the quality of the lighting in Source 1?
Can I match Source 2’s result?
If I quadruple the number of points calculated in Source 1, yes it takes longer to render,
but the shadows end up looking more detailed, and you start to see all the same little details
as was in Source 2.
If I quadruple it again, it looks like THIS.
And if I quadruple it one last time, it’s now 64x more detailed than it was in the first
place, and it finally takes longer to render than Source 2’s does.
I might finally have made Source 1’s map MORE ‘detailed’ than Source 2’s is…
but with it comes more weird, liney-looking bugs… and the map’s filesize is massive
at 27,000 KB.
So, if I REALLY TURN EVERYTHING UP in Source 1, then it can potentially match Source 2
at default settings.
But then…
I can just turn everything up in Source 2 to make that look even better again.
Sure, it takes an eternity to render.
But just look at the quality of those shadows!
And get this: the map size is still smaller than the best looking Source 1 map was.
In other words: Source 2 will allow mappers to make better looking maps, with less effort,
and with surprisingly compressed map sizes, given how good the result looks.
Valve pls roll out Source 2.
I want to talk about reflections, because they look nice and I don’t need much of
a reason to make a map out of all my favourite shiny materials from Source.
This, is a cobbled street from City 17.
This, is the tiled floor from the train station of city 17.
This, is sand from near City 17 and so on.
All of these appear to reflect the world, but what they’re really doing is showing
a cubemap, which is sort of like those 360 degree images that you see on Google Streetview,
wrapped around the object to make it appear shiny by reflecting its surroundings.
This is FINE, as long as your view lines up with where the cubemap was taken from.
But move, and suddenly the reflections no longer line up!
Oh no.
What can we possibly do to fix this?...
Did you know that, if you use Google Street View in the Google Earth program, you can
actually walk around INSIDE the cubemap?
What they do is to try and turn it into a 3D shape.
It’s incredibly simple… but effective.
And Source 2 has something similar- it again, uses cubemaps for its reflections.
And check out this new reflective material I found!
Turns out in Source 2, you can texture the whole map with a ‘puddle’.
I love it.
But even ‘standard’ cubemaps in Source 2 still look a lot better than they do in
Source 1!
It’s because, just like Streetview on google earth, they’ll shift about with you, at
a rate that’s configurable within the editor.
And this goes a long way towards selling them as being actual reflections, and not just
a static image that’s stalking you wherever you may be.
CS:GO already has this feature, on this map, and only on the starry skybox thing here.
I made a video about it a few years ago.
Source 2 has another trick, too- known as the cubemap_box… which, as the name suggests,
changes the way it moves about from being in a sphere shape, to being shaped like a
… box!
And if you take the time to adjust its size in the editor to be the exact same size as
the room it’s meant to represent…
…as if by magic, the reflection appears to reflect wherever I am in that room, perfectly,
no matter where I’m stood.
It’s all just an illusion, of course- objects in that room won’t update in the reflection
or anything like that, but to the common pleb this effect may as well be something more
expensive than a cubemap like a second rendered plane, a screenspace reflection or even raytracing.
I think everyone can agree, these parallax corrected cubemaps are a great way of improving
the quality of reflections, without slowing your PC down by much.
So I hope these will come to CS:GO so I get another excuse to stare at shiny surfaces
round after round.
Bear in mind, if they’re shaped like boxes, then they don’t work so well outside, where
they appear to transform the sky into the shape of a box.
So don’t use cubemap boxes outdoors.
You know one way in which Half Life Alyx is very different from CS:GO?
It’s VR.
AND, because it’s VR, it really benefits from lots of piss n shit floating about in
the air everywhere to remind you of just how 3D it is.
CS:GO players do NOT like having fog and floaty stuff everywhere.
They don’t want volumetric fog and dust clouds and dustmotes limiting visibility and
getting all in their face n stuff.
But you know who does?
Mappers.
Mappers love that stuff.
They see a room with clean air in it, and they can’t help but shoot so much floaty
crap into that space you can almost taste it.
I challenge you to find a single place in Half Life Alyx that doesn’t have at least
one cloud of questionable content floating about inside it.
I DARE YOU.
And you bet, if Source 2 comes to CS:GO, it won’t be long before mappers find all manner
of creative ways of cramming fog and floaty stuff into every room of every map… hopefully,
without impacting gameplay too much.
As a last example, I quickly made a cave with a car inside.
I’m a lazy mapper- I don’t know how anybody has the time to make displacements look good,
so I just did the usual by going wild with the bump tool and then decorating it by throwing
a load of rock models about the place.
As expected, in Source 1, the result looked like some one had gone wild with the bump
tool and thrown a load of rock models about the place.
But Source 2 is a lot more forgiving of my slap-dash detailing ways.
The gorgeous models and textures in Source 2 help a lot, and really emphasise how FAKE
everything in Source 1 looks; Source 2 gives every surface a subtle, but convincing level
of sheen to it, and is correctly lit, down to the tiniest of bumps.
And all this really helps pull the scene together.
It’s no longer just a bunch of props; it’s almost a CAVE!
And to think: I placed all this down without a second thought.
I can’t wait to see what experienced, patient mappers will be able to make of this!
Imagine this improvement, applied to everything.
Mappers are going to love the more advanced material system in Source 2.
The more model-based approach to building environments.
The fact that leaks are no longer a thing!
Yay.
In this video, I’ve approached Source 2 like it’s an improved version of Source
1- but it’s not.
The best way of seeing it is as a brand new engine, and with new ‘best’ ways of doing
things.
I have barely scratched the surface of what Source 2 can do in this video, and my experiments
into the engine so far are limited.
But I hope to do more.