Comments on: “Half-Life 2: Lost Coast” HDR Test Level Released

By: CeridianMN

CeridianMN — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 19:30:58 +0000

swek on October 28th, 2005 at 11:12 AM said: The demo itself falls a bit short as well. The audio commentary is a nice feature but I expected a bit more than just a tech demo. Not much I can say about the final product after finishing it.

It was always advertised as a tech demo. The fact that it was also a playable level with some element of story tied into HL2 was an added bonus.

By: Viper007Bond

Viper007Bond — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:40:08 +0000

Yeah, it was rather short and uneventful.

By: swek

swek — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:12:54 +0000

I’m not a fan of HDR. If implemented properly it certainly looks nice. Especially in outdoor shots (As seen in your first screenshot).

However, the effect is simply to much indoors. Everything looks like it’s illuminated by stadium lights, which takes away from the realism it strives to archive.

For me the performance loss (Compared to the HL2 engine sans HDR) doesn’t justify the visual improvements at all. I think we have to wait for games/engines that are designed from the ground up with HDR in mind to see what the technology is really capable of.

The demo itself falls a bit short as well. The audio commentary is a nice feature but I expected a bit more than just a tech demo. Not much I can say about the final product after finishing it.