Half-Life: Ray Traced Is an Updated Version of Valve’s Classic with Real-Time Path Tracing

[Tsing]

Image: Valve



An updated version of Half-Life with ray-traced effects is coming soon courtesy of a Russian software engineer named Sultim Tsyrendashiev.



Dubbed Half-Life: Ray Traced, the project is advertised as the first version of Valve’s 1998 classic sci-fi shooter with hardware-accelerated, real-time path tracing, enabling more realistic lighting, reflections, and more for Gordon Freeman’s original adventure. Tsyrendashiev’s fully realized attempt won’t be available until later this year, but a teaser was shared this week that offers a look at how his version compares to the original.









“Half-Life: Ray Traced integrates the real-time path tracing into the original Half-Life (1998),” reads a description for the teaser. “With the hardware accelerated ray tracing, it is possible to calculate global illumination, reflections, refractions, soft shadows and...

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[Dan_D]

I wish they'd stop this. Taking a 20+ year old game and adding ray tracing may make the game look better, but it's still a 25 year old game. It's like adding ray tracing to Pong. Is it better? Sure. Does it bring it up to modern standards? Hell no. It's like these 60+ year old women who get plastic surgery and end up looking like 45 year old store mannequins.

 

[DrezKill]

Is it better? Sure. Does it bring it up to modern standards? Hell no.

All that ray-tracing doesn't make it look anywhere near as good as Black Mesa.

It's like these 60+ year old women who get plastic surgery and end up looking like 45 year old store mannequins.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I wish they'd stop this.

I don't really have a problem when people do this. It was probably a fun programming project. Doesn't really help the game, and no doubt it was a lot of work, but the modder probably had a ton of fun implementing it. Sometimes these kinds of things turn out kinda neat. As for doing it with an old game, well that's the only kind of game you'd be able to do full path-tracing with and still get a playable framerate. Path-tracing is no doubt a much lighter load when the 3D models and polygon counts in the environments are way lower.

Now I'm waiting for Pong with full path-tracing.

 

[Endgame]

All that ray-tracing doesn't make it look anywhere near as good as Black Mesa.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


I don't really have a problem when people do this. It was probably a fun programming project. Doesn't really help the game, and no doubt it was a lot of work, but the modder probably had a ton of fun implementing it. Sometimes these kinds of things turn out kinda neat. As for doing it with an old game, well that's the only kind of game you'd be able to do full path-tracing with and still get a playable framerate. Path-tracing is no doubt a much lighter load when the 3D models and polygon counts in the environments are way lower.

Now I'm waiting for Pong with full path-tracing.

Pong with the ball as the light source could be fun

 

[Dogsofjune]

Oh, more reboot junk.... Yay.