Source 2?

[brazed]

Link

Story by Dave Cook
Mon, Aug 06, 2012 | 23:36 BST

Source 2: it’s time for Valve to drop the baby steps
Valve was rumoured today to be working Source 2. It’s time for a serious tech leap over the company’s normal increments, says Dave Cook, with one reason being the release of Half-Life 3.

Valve is a developer noted for technical mastery, a powerhouse of innovation and artistry rarely outdone. It’s absolutely the right time – with both Epic and Square going public with new tech and the next console generation settling in for a 2013 release – to apply that expertise to a full Source rework.

Counter-Strike, the first Valve game to run on the studio’s Source engine, launched in 2004. Since then, the Seattle-based developer has incrementally updated its proprietary code with all sorts of bells and whistles, but never with a full, new, numbered version.

But when eagle-eyed gamers found files embedded in Valve Filmmaker labelled with references to “Source 2″ over the weekend, the inference was obvious: could Valve be readying itself for a major leap forward in its technology, much like Epic’s advances with Unreal Engine?

You can but hope. Valve’s ‘baby step’ approach to augmenting Source may work for each new software release – bulking it it out with the specific tools to make each game run to the best of its ability – but just imagine what could be achieved with a catch-all revision.

There was a technical chasm difference between the original Half-Life – which ran on a modified Quake engine – and successor Half-Life 2. If Valve can make as significant a leap with Half-Life 3 – or whatever the next Half-Life product’s going to be – then the mind races at the possibilities.

We may have already seen a glimpse of the real-time innovation that could be in store for us whenever Valve decides to reveal its follow-up.

Just check out this leaked video from an ex-Valve employee that showed off what he claimed were real-time swarm physics from Half-Life 3.

The tech demo embodies some of the key phrases currently bandied around in relation to Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 and Square-Enix’s Luminous Engine, specifically the notion of real-time mechanics that would typically be scripted.

Valve is a developer noted for technical mastery, a powerhouse of innovation and artistry rarely outdone. It’s absolutely the right time – with both Epic and Square going public with new tech and the next console generation settling in for a 2013 release – to apply that expertise to a full Source rework.

Inevitably, talk of Source 2 has bumped up speculation of an incoming Half-Life reveal. It’s easy to reach the conclusion that Valve has spent so long developing Half-Life 3 because it’s Source 2′s maiden voyage.

The signs are all around us, in Half-Life 3 art leaks, Valve’s E3 absence and a gruelling wait now fast approaching seven years. If Source 2 and Half-Life 3 are to release hand-in-hand, the giant gap may be justified.

Rather than slam Valve’s lack of Half-Life 3 communication, gamers should relish the fact that it could launch on the next-generation of the studio’s tech. It’s been a long wait, sure, but do you want something cobbled together on the Portal 2 version of Source, or do you want a game as innovative and mind-bending as Half-Life 2?

New engines take time, money, effort, research and a reason to exist. Epic Games didn’t make Unreal Engine 4 overnight, an it certainly didn’t do it without a purpose. Valve’s purpose could be Half-Life 3, and we may not be far from finally getting the truth on Gordon’s next adventure.

That Swarm video alluded to in the piece:




Hmmmmmm?

[BladeMaster]

F#CK! I wish I could see the video! Damn it! Now I'm getting all excited!

[wir]

Video doesn't seem to work, I get "An error occurred during validation. Sorry about that." if I try to follow its link directly.

If someone still has it buffered, don't close it. Perhaps record it using a desktop recording program and upload it and make sure to keep it unlisted.

*edit*
Unless it's this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZQwnjjNZ8w

[brazed]

That's the one.

And Fixed

[brazed]

Mawr

Our resident investigator Barnz has done some more digging in the Source Filmmaker script files, and he's uncovered probably some of the biggest news we've ever reported on our site.



He's found many more references to a "Source 2", but not just one vague line like our previous entry. We're only one file deep, and already it's clear that the references to "Source 2" are indeed referring to a next-gen engine that Valve is currently developing. I'm only going to show one line in this post, but there are about 60+ references here, and this one line is probably the most telling.

Here's the code paste at Pastebin.com, and this is the file path on the harddrive:

".../SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/vproj/vproj.py"


Line 1387:
'''Return an str with the current engine version.
If key doesn't doesn't exist, assume 'Source', otherwise invalid -- assume next-gen 'Source 2'.'''


There are references to Source, Hybrid, and Source 2 in this file. We speculate that Hybrid is the base for which Source 2 is sitting on. Barnz also says it looks like Source 2 is using the same pipeline as Source, meaning that it will probably be keeping its .BSP level format. We haven't found any references to DirectX or OpenGL yet, or Episode Three for that matter, but we're still investigating.

The Ep3 reference from before was just a comment, so it's unlikely we'll find any more mentioning of it. Source Filmmaker was in development parallel to Source 2, hence why these script files have so many references to the new engine.

Valve wants you to know that they "don't like to brag, but Source is considered the most flexible, comprehensive, and powerful game development environment out there. And it's about to get even better."

We'll keep you posted if we find anything else! Or if you come across some new stuff, we'd like to help you share it with the world, so you can submit any findings to news@valvetime.net.



Update #1

Another member from Facepunch, GameDev, has pointed out that there are some new "Source 2 tools" icons stashed away in the SFM files. Here's a preview of a few of them:



And the file names in their respective order...
appicon
terrain_tool_toggle_control_cage
terrain_tool_select_verts
terrain_tool_edge_smooth
paint_tool_icon
scale_tool_icon
You can find these at:

".../SourceFilmmaker/game/platform/tools/images/hammer"



Update #2

J*Rod from Facepunch has noted a few new things in his recap. First, now there's some evidence that suggests Source 2 will take more advantage of 64-bit systems. You can find the reference at:

".../SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/vproj/vprojUI.py"


Line 1540:
# Disable 64-bit for 32-bit projects
if ( self.engine in ENGINE.SOURCE_FAMILY ) or ( self.engine == ENGINE.HYBRID ):
self.run32bitCheckBox.setChecked( True )
self.run32bitCheckBox.setDisabled( True )
else:
self.run32bitCheckBox.setDisabled( False )


From what I can understand, this if/else statement is disabling 64-bit for 32-bit projects that are from either the Source, SFM (the 2nd engine from SOURCE_FAMILY), or Hybrid engines. But, it's not disabling 64-bit for Source 2, so the take away here is that it's suggesting Source 2 supports 64-bit. But it's not for sure as I don't understand the entirety of the code.

You'll remember that Valve had implemented support for 64-bit in Source way back in 2005 with the release of The Lost Coast, but Valve hasn't added the support to any of their other games due to some cases of poor performance and glitches.

Second, currently Valve's game models are of the MDL format. Well, it appears that Valve will be moving to a new format, VMDL. And the "V" prefix is popping up all over the place. VGAME, VPROJ, VMOD, VMDL, etc, which could support the fact that they're going to use a new filesystem and pipeline. From:

".../SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/filesystem/valve.py"


Line 138:
'''A "Valve Path" is one that is relative to a mod - in either the game or content tree.

Ie: if you have a project with the content dir: d:/content and the game dir: d:/game
a "Valve Path" looks like this: models/awesomeProps/coolThing.vmdl

To resolve this path one must look under each mod the current project inherits from.
So a project "test" which inherits from "another" would result in the following searches:
d:/content/test/models/awesomeProps/coolThing.vmdl
d:/content/another/models/awesomeProps/coolThing.vmdl...'''


And just as well, the key values that current Source games have are stored in a file called gameinfo.txt. It looks like Source 2 games will be storing these values in a gameinfo.gi.

[echo]

An announcement is coming. Don't know why I just feel it in my bones.

[Toxxyc]

"I'm announcing NOTHING! These claims are all FALSE!"

[Toxicnitr8]

swarm looks amazing :P