You can step into two environments from Half-Life Alyx IF you own a Valve Index, or have a friend
who has one. Links in the description. The first is this large outdoor area, which
I’ll quickly travel through so you can see its size. I am trying to keep my head as steady
as possible, but it always looks shakier when it’s viewed on a screen so for that I’m
sorry. These environments are kind of big news. We can now explore environments from
the game, and discover for ourselves what the graphics will look like. Valve do say
that the ‘rendering technology’ in SteamVR’s environments isn’t quite the same as the
game will be. You can’t interact with as much stuff and they don’t have ‘quite
as much fidelity’ as the actual game. But I think what we’re seeing here is going
to be similar to how it will look in-game. There’s certainly a lot of detail on display
here! It ends in a park, which you MIGHT recognise,
because it’s the one shown in the trailer for Half-Life Alyx. I tried to get into a
similar position so that I could compare the two. There are obvious differences with the
distant scenery and the placement of the trees. The textures on the building are differently
aligned, and I noticed here that the fade between textures looks more natural in the
trailer. So while this preview isn’t quite full Source
2, I think the same props and textures are used. And my first impressions of this place
were ‘wow’. I think VR makes things look better than if they’re on a 2D screen- and
seeing the quality on display in this game makes you realise the differences between
indie games and a full AAA title such as this one. It’s so well LIT. Everywhere glows
with natural and man-made lights. There’s a beauty to this place that I don’t feel
Source 1 has ever managed to replicate, no matter how elaborately lit it might be.
And when it comes to the clutter in this world, how can I put it- there’s enough detail
here that I don’t feel the need for any more. The general scenery is less detailed
than the objects that you can interact with, but it’s still good enough. By the time
you get close enough to interactive objects (like, say, a bottle) to make out their imperfections
you’re struggling to focus on them anyway. Stuff like this bike showed how much detail
some items in this game had- I can only imagine how long it took to design all these things.
But it’s paid off, because I really felt like this was a place I could happily explore
for quite some time, and if the whole game’s decorated like this then I suspect it’s
going to take me quite a bit longer than 15 hours to get through cos I’ll end up smearing
my face up against every surface I see. Making an authentic world is about more than
just a good lighting simulation and highly detailed objects. There’s definitely an
artistic element to it which the people over at Valve certainly have. And to make all this
run acceptably on mid-range hardware is impressive, even if people have complained about the requirements.
It seems like Valve has set the bar at this level for VR, and it’s amazing to think
it’s only going to get better with time. They’ve invested a lot of time into the
sound-design in this game, and it shows. Everybody’s going to be most fixated on this game’s
graphics but the sound played a large part in transforming these environments into real
places for me. I like how they’ve snuck a load of sound effects from Half-Life 2 back
into it, but there are new ones as well which I think are going to become ‘iconic’,
like the crows cawing and squarking. It sounds like a strider’s about to step
around the corner any second, but I can assure you it’s not.
This hedge impressed me when I stuck my head into it. It wasn’t just a layer of leaves-
they extended deep into the bush itself I was satisfied with the adventure into the
bush that I had. I smeared my face into a stinging nettle, too, which did show the limited
detail on unnecessary props. And then I got up close and personal with the slide. Oh who
am I kidding- I got close and personal with EVERYTHING in this level. It goes to show
how much of a difference interaction makes though, because I was passing through everything
as though it wasn’t there and I think a lot of the fun of VR is with interacting with
things in silly ways, like being able to climb up this slide, or to balance bottles on the
see-saw etc. Even in this demo you can mess about with
some of the props. I had good fun trying to juggle the bottles- though it’s harder than
in real life because you don’t get the weight as feedback, and it’s difficult to start
off with holding 3 when you only 2 hands in VR. I noticed that if you teleport while holding
a prop, it only carries the prop you’re holding and not any props that might be balancing
on top of it. Probably for the best. The hitboxes weren’t always the most accurate
either- scenery would pass through this bucket, and sometimes it would float on top of what
it was meant to be resting on. I’ve been interested to see how reflections
are handled in this game for quite a while and I’m confident that everything uses parallax-corrected
cubemaps. A large, reflective surface such as this van’s window showing a low-resolution
reflection should show the weaknesses with the technology, but I’m pleasantly surprised
by how little I actually care about all that now I’m exploring these places in person.
It really felt like I was in the back of a van here.
Moving to the alley-way I noticed an even more reflective surface and shoved my face
right down into a crack between the pavings for you. You can see the reflection of the
door-way is a flat image. It’s noticeable when you’re this close, but when you’re
playing or exploring the game normally it’s unnoticeable and will help to keep those framerates
high! Particles in this game are cool. I watched
as leaves would blow down from the trees, getting stuck wherever they hit the scenery.
Then I got sidetracked by another reflective puddle. You can see the bit where the cables
in the sky suddenly bend around a corner! I identified where the cubemaps switched from
one to the other- you can see the transition on the reflections is abrupt and harsh on
this bottle. Though it might not be the same with Half-Life Alyx. I’ll let you know.
The world didn’t feel fully explorable because the bluey-green ‘explore zone’ excluded
many areas, including anywhere remotely sticking above ground level. This rock, for example,
has its own dedicated spot for you to teleport to, which I felt ruined the immersion a bit.
I understand the navigation system in Half-Life Alyx will be different. Plus I have a room
I can walk about in which lets me explore the unexplored parts any way.
I used this to get through a wall, which immediately breaks the illusion of it being a real place
because everything you’re not supposed to see is invisible.
You might wonder why I’m trying to escape from such a pretty-looking place. But the
answer to that’s obvious! It’s ALWAYS more fun to be somewhere you’re not supposed
to be. Plus it feels like you might discover some awesome easter-egg they’ve left there
just in case you tried escaping. I didn’t find any, though did float through a lower-quality
car model and sat at an imaginary bus stop for a while. And I found this beautifully
reflective window that was reflecting a see-through house.
And last I wanted to get a good look at the Citadel, which I could do by abusing my walkable
space and by rotating my view continuously to let me walk as far as I wanted to in any
direction. It wasn’t long before the environments started
to break. But I pushed on! And was surprised by just how much detail is used, even far
beyond the playable area. There’s a lovely misty smoggy effect used
here- you can see it’s totally 2D, which let me walk straight through it to get a better
look at the citadel. I eventually walked off the side of the world.
And then passed through this 2D row of trees. And this is as far as I went for now. The
prop used for the citadel is incredibly detailed. The cables sway, bits float about… at one
point I noticed it all ‘snapping’ back to the beginning of the animation again.
And that was it for this one. If you have any questions about this place then I’ll
do my best to answer them!