Half-Life 2/Doom 3 Tech Comparison

"Now when it comes to raw tech Doom 3 beats out Half-Life 2 with it’s extensive use of real mapping and dynamic lighting. Half-Life 2 uses less advanced bump mapping but more than makes up for it with more polygons and detail textures without a loss of performance."

http://www.whutdufuk.com/?post=632287876827187500

quite interesting.

ps. i don`t to start a next thread like "OMG d00m r0x0rz, hL2 suX0rz"...

I read this one over at PlanetHalflife - interesting read, though I could care less about which game has the better technology.

As with every article written on this sort of subject, it's written with a bias. There are several things that the aticle just doesnt seem to take into account, but meh.

That's plain ridiculous. The guy says Doom 3 is the best engine "technically", then he says it isn't used to its full potential, then he concludes Source is the best. Problem is he forgot the name of the article: "Tech comparison".

AirRaid said:

As with every article written on this sort of subject, it's written with a bias. There are several things that the aticle just doesnt seem to take into account, but meh.

what "things"?

ENGINE BENEFITS:

Doom 3: Lighting, lighting and more lighting. Also has built in physics, meaning it's not neccesary for licensees to licence HAVOK or something similar. Editor allows importing of level geometry from Radient files.

Source: Accustomed to rendering large enviroments (Examples being HL2's City 17, a wasteland of a city), heavy interactivity with licensed HAVOK physics engine, levels easily imported from Worldcraft/Hammer files, instant mod community.

The author wants to compare two engines, but he ends up comparing an engine with a game. Pretty stupid...

dreamdealer said:

what "things"?

He goes on about the use of bumpmaps etc. and then says HL2 has an advantage in that it uses "more polygons" but neglects to mention that the use of bumpmaps on the models in Doom 3 greatly reduces the need for higher poly models. This was my main gripe.

Also...

The_Spaniard said:

Doom 3 uses dynamic shadows and self-shadowing for film quality lighting where as Half-Life 2 only uses soft shadows. Soft shadowing is by no means bad, just not nearly as pretty.

Rofl. HL2 Uses "Soft Shadows". I think not. HL2 uses Shadow maps, in the same way that UT2k3 uses them. The shadow is merely a graphic projected onto the floor, which animates in unison with the model animations, and does not deform or change direction based on any world light sources. This can't really be called true "Soft Shadowing" even if they aren't stark sharp-edged stencil drawn shadows. This doesn't really matter, I just really don't approve of his wording there.

AirRaid:

ok ok, i must agree - this article is pretty shitty. when i saw the title i thought i will read it later, and i`ve posted it here (i was pretty tired), but now i see it sucks.

This is the most pitiful and uninformed article I've read in a while. Only a retard could supply such a nonsensical sentence as the one below:

"Doom 3 AI consists mostly of point and shoot or chase and kill gameplay"

I think he missed the point about AI.
It's supposed to simulate the actions of a given creature. id software decided that zombies and monsters are not very clever. In Half-Life 2 it often tries to simulate humans. Which will be more accurate? Good AI is fitting AI, not clever AI.

Anyway.
I honestly think gman looks like crap in this comparison pic (from the article). The doomguy fits with everything else in the D3 universe, while gman looks way out of place in the HL2 universe.

I don't get why people keep accusing Doom3 of being a tech showoff, when all the HL2 trailers are filled with tech showoffs. I haven't seen anything in those trailers that looks like fun. Having a game full of gimmicks tends to be boring. I don't really care about vehicles or a lame gravity gun.

I do see potential in HL2. The world looks really good and they have some nice tech in there. Behind all that I just don't see a game, only a tech demo. But then again...I may be completely wrong about the game. I was about U2/UT2003.

This may sound harsh, and it is. This is what I really think about HL2. And no, it has nothing to do with Doom3 or id software. I loved HL1, Far Cry, Unreal2 and UT2003/4 (all supposed id software rivals).

To the return to the article...
It's totally inconsistent. The topic says "Tech comparison" and one of the first points is that "Doom3 has way better tech than HL2" and he ends up saying that HL2 has better tech than D3 because D3 the game didn't use all its potential.

Shaviro said:

Anyway.
I honestly think gman looks like crap in this comparison pic (from the article). The doomguy fits with everything else in the D3 universe, while gman looks way out of place in the HL2 universe.

You know you can exhibit your blatant Doom 3 fanboyism without resorting to blatant lies. If there's ONE thing that HL2 looks like it's going to better than Doom 3, it's the realistic-looking faces.

Shaviro said:

I think he missed the point about AI.
It's supposed to simulate the actions of a given creature. id software decided that zombies and monsters are not very clever. In Half-Life 2 it often tries to simulate humans. Which will be more accurate? Good AI is fitting AI, not clever AI.

One thing I have been thinking about saying for a while. I mean, do people honestly expect zombies to utilize strategic combat tactics? Even in HL the only enemies with any real AI are the marines and even then, I've seen them do some strange things like stopping while running away from me and just letting me mow them down with the MP5. I think the Zsec zombies in Doom 3 do show some intellegence in that they do more than just fire at you (i.e. they dodge, fire from behind cover, and seem to have this habit of charging you guns blazing when you're trying to reload.) although I've seen their AI do strange things also. The most intellegent enemies I've ever seen in a SP game, or at least the most combat ready, would have to be the Skaarj in Unreal who constantly move, dodge, and return fire even leading you're movements with their shots.

Shaviro said:

Anyway.
I honestly think gman looks like crap in ....The doomguy fits with everything else in the D3 universe, while gman looks way out of place in the HL2 universe.

I'll have to disagree with you there. I think he looks awesome. However, I don't think the caption of there being no comparison holds. Both games look just as good at rendering faces. The only thing better I saw on the gman was skin detail that would only be noticable on a closeup view like the screenshot. Detail like that should only be used if the rest of your game looks photo-realistic.

Shaviro said:

I honestly think gman looks like crap in this comparison pic

What if you have both eyes open - what do you think then?

i think its kinda ridiculous to compair two engines that have been created for totally different gameplay experiences.

A developer will build an engine to suit the requirements of the game. Doom 3 is a slow sci-fi horror game, Half-Life 2 is a fast paced sci-fi action game. I'm sure if we all had 5ghz machines with 3gigs of ram and super fast graphics cards then Doom3 could easily produce higher texture resolutions and fantastic outdoor environments.

The writer for that article is a retard and needs to be shot.

Edit, MasterOfPuppets beat me to the point.

Shaviro said:

Anyway.
I honestly think gman looks like crap in this comparison pic (from the article). The doomguy fits with everything else in the D3 universe, while gman looks way out of place in the HL2 universe.

I think I understand what you were getting at... but I think you're wrong about GMan looking bad (although it is a very subjective interpretation) he looks very nice. I think a better argument is not how bad GMan looks, but how standard all the others characters seen so far look... not bad... but certainly no great leap over any other game's character models. I think that's what you were trying to hint at in your answer... how out of place such a highly detailed model, like GMan, seems next to all the other shots seen thus far.

Either way, it doesn't matter. I probably won't be able to play either game for a long time and that's all that's important.

Kojak_Man said:

Detail like that should only be used if the rest of your game looks photo-realistic.

That's what I'm getting at. Gman himself doesn't look like crap (though I don't think he looks too good either. He doesn't look like a normal human...though that might be a plot point ;)).

And for the Doom3 fanboy thing: I have several gripes with Doom3, I just don't have a need to "broadcast" it all the time.

-The levels could've used some more variation
-The shotgun is way too much like an SSG
-I don't like any of the bossfights
-I am not too keen on the new Cyberdemon
-I really dislike the whole idea of the soulcube
-I don't think there was enough actual hell
-The levels often lacked landmarks
-The game gets a litte too dark at times
-I really hate how they decided to cut cool characters like the Spider Mastermind or the Baron

And I could go on like this. I do, however, think the game is really great, but Doom2 is still my favourite of the Doom series. So I like the game? Big deal. Has nothing to do with HL2 or any other game.

ThreeEyes said:

A developer will build an engine to suit the requirements of the game. Doom 3 is a slow sci-fi horror game, Half-Life 2 is a fast paced sci-fi action game. I'm sure if we all had 5ghz machines with 3gigs of ram and super fast graphics cards then Doom3 could easily produce higher texture resolutions and fantastic outdoor environments.

The writer for that article is a retard and needs to be shot.

Edit, MasterOfPuppets beat me to the point.

ThreeEyes is right. Doom 3's graphics and constant enviroment interactions with the player will cause far too much choppiness on your average computer. You'd need one of those 4,000 dollar Alienwares to run a game like that. Half-Life 2's graphics need to use more advanced techniques to compress the graphics but remain somewhat a visually stunning look. From far away, Half-Life 2's graphics look amazing. But walk up to a side of the building, and it looks almost like Doom 2 textures.

Actually, I seemed to notice almost that Doom 2 and Half-Life swapped enviroments. Doom 2 had many wide open areas, and Half-Life contained very enclosed areas. Now, Doom 3 is a very enclosed area, and Half-Life 2 is in very open areas. Did anyone else notice that change?

Anyways, like I said. It's almost impossible to compare graphics, due to the gameplay, story, and opinion of the player. I have no clue why things like this keep popping up.

I don't think there's any need for comparison. It's pretty obvious the Doom 3 engine is much more advanced than the Source engine down to everything except facial animations, and Doom 3 may even be capable of those with some higher poly and specific models.

The article is pretty stupid though, because the selling points of the Source engine it makes note of aren't even to do with the engine. It starts comparing the games (and HL2 isn't even out yet) rather than the engines (one of which isn't really out yet, though they at least said they have the CS: Source beta, not that CS will showcase the engine very well... there aren't even any doors in CS) which is pretty stupid and completly subjective ("well there's a demo of HL2 physics and Doom 3 doesn't showcase any physics that much so we pick Source!").

Either way it's fairly retarded to compare the two when one isn't even out yet (though that hardly stopped anyone before either was out) or say you think HL2 will suck when IT'S NOT OUT YET, but whatever.

Also this isnt a good read at all, and you shouldn't expect such a thing from a site with the name 'WhUtDuFuK.com'

Cyb Wins!

Verdale said:

But walk up to a side of the building, and it looks almost like Doom 2 textures.

to be fair, Doom 3 has the same problem. bumbmaps lose all effect when viewed up close.

yeah, but id made a fantastic work with lcd-screens. Dont lose anything when you're close. I was amazed.

Naitguolf said:

yeah, but id made a fantastic work with lcd-screens. Dont lose anything when you're close. I was amazed.

Yeah, they are actually one of my favourite visual elements of Doom3. They use fonts for the text, so they always look sharp.

toxicfluff said:

They use fonts for the text, so they always look sharp.

HL2 uses a similar trick for it's HUD, in that all the elements (Numbers, "Health" icon, weapon bucket icons) are stored in a TTF font. Pretty clever trick.

Cleanup

Kojak_Man said:

The only thing better I saw on the gman was skin detail that would only be noticable on a closeup view like the screenshot.

From what I've seen, most of the scenes with the G-Man are indeed very close-up. But then, I'm only going off the videos that came with Condition Zero.

It just amazes me that the same GUI system that powers the in-game terminals is the exact same one that all the actual Doom3 main menus are written in.

With the Gman Animations, are there any that contain objects other then the guy's face? Porbably the reason for the relatively extreme detail... the other characters in HF2 look about the same quality-wise as in Doom 3 (or, perhaps a bit more cartoonish)

Deathmatcher said:

The author wants to compare two engines, but he ends up comparing an engine with a game. Pretty stupid...

I agree.I though that article was just Dumb and full of shit.