HL2 Lost Coast screens

By Ellie Gibson Published 16 June, 2005

It's all gone HDR.

UK hardware review site Bit-Tech, home to old-school Eurogamer staffer Geoff Richards [woo! - Ed], has some spanky new screens from Half Life 2: Lost Coast up, plus an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi. You can check it all out here.

The article focuses on Lost Coast's use of High Dynamic Range, some kind of crazy new graphics tool that "facilitates the use of colour values way outside the normal range" to do pictures what look like they're real, basically.

"If you have ever driven through a dark tunnel in your car, and then emerged out the other side into blazing sunshine, temporarily blinded by the difference in light levels - that over-saturation is one example of what is possible with HDR," Geoff reminds us.

That particular feature is called Exposure Control, apparently, and can be demonstrated in Lost Coast "by turning Gordon to the right, facing the wall: with the sunny doorway out of our field of vision, the aperture widens and our eyes adjust to the dark, revealing extra detail on the floor and walls of the tunnel.

"Turn again to peer out the door, and you'll find yourself wincing involuntarily at the light, and wishing Gordon had brought his sunglasses," Geoff adds.

You'll be able to download Lost Coast for free via Steam, but there's still no word on an exact date - "Right now we're looking at some time in July," Lombardi told Bit-Tech. Fingers crossed.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • tonynibbles #1 7 years ago

    *cant wait*

    I'll need a new PC, but what the hey - I need one for BF2 anyway.
    This is gonna ROCK! I LOVE VALVE!
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/05 @ 15:20

  • Machiavel #2 7 years ago

    "that over-saturation is one example of what is possible with HDR"

    Mmm, anybody suspect that over-saturation will be the ONLY noticeable feature, and might become the lens flare of its day?

  • MoFo #3 7 years ago

    Got to be honest I'm not all that impressed with what I'm looking at for all the hoo-haa that's been going on about this Lost Coast map. I'd rather see more details in models, skin tones and textures generally than some supposedly fancy lighting effect. Still this kind of stuff will no doubt be standard in a few years so you got to start somewhere.

    Maybe it'll come across better in real-time.

  • tonynibbles #4 7 years ago

    Well, I for one love VALVE for doing stuff like this, bringing in something genuinely new to gaming. Its easy to jump in a criticise but I'm gonna hold off on my opinion of HDR until I can see it running in full X800 glory.
    I have 100% faith in Valve. HL2 was incredible.

    // you do indeed, have to start somewhere

  • Wash #5 7 years ago

    I dont really see it... is it like one of those opitical illusions i have to stare at.



  • MoFo #6 7 years ago

    Yeah wash it works like this...

    1 - stare right at middle of image
    2 - go cross eyed
    3 - focus your vision as though you are looking at a point 20 meters behind your monitor
    4 - stare like this for 5 minutes
    5 - get headache.

  • JHuxley #7 7 years ago

    Well, personally speaking I thought those screens looked great. Obviouslly they're using the same basic engine as the regular HL2 game, but the enhanced lighting and effects really adds an extra layer of realism. It probably will become overused in time, but unlike the much-abused lens flare it seems more subtle effects can be achieved with HDR. I can see this one outlasting the fad.

  • Khanivor #8 7 years ago

    I'm not surfe why they are spending all that effort on making things look like they have gone through a camera. I don't have camera's for eyeballs, so like lens-flare, while it may look cool, it actualy makes things look less realistic.

  • spindizzy #9 7 years ago

    Khanivor... lens flare? Where?

    And mofo: did you look at that model of the old man on the last page?

    Maybe I'm just easily pleased but I thought those screen shots looked AMAZING, and I'm really surprised that you guys are less impressed.

  • meggsy #10 7 years ago

    I'm pretty impressed with this, it's not emulating lens-flare or other camera techniques, but what you'd actually see going from a light to a dark environment, or vice versa, so it's dark until your 'eyes' adjust to the low light, and overpowered by glare until you look away.

  • Errol #11 7 years ago

    It is hard to complain about something that will be free !

  • beep #12 7 years ago

    I think you'll find most complaints coming from people who won't be able to run the Lost Coast map. People like me :(

  • Talha #13 7 years ago

    It is like Valve thought, "Oh, what have we done! We have delivered possibly the best looking FPS ever and it is running fine on someone's P4 1.8 with Radeon 9600 XT 256! A system that could be bought three years ago!

    No, we MUST do our part to enable NVidia and ATI gather further bagfuls of cash! Hey, programmers, build another level that requires an ATI X850 XT (Dual) with 1024 MB of RAM. What, there is no such card? Hmmm, there WILL be after we deliver this free to the public!"

  • bionutz #14 7 years ago

    wait. This is pretty subjective. Why don't they do it in such a way that what you see on the screen is really blinding you temporarily? People have different eye sensitivity, don't they?

  • tonynibbles #15 7 years ago

    I cant believe how ungrateful some of you people are sounding!

    If anyone should be slagged off for bad behavious a lá graphics requirements it should be ID and DOOM 3.
    This game is free ffs!

  • Bezzy #16 7 years ago

    Not sure I see the point of playing a game which you can't see.

    (I'm exaggerating! But, really. To some degree it's just graphics for graphics' sake, and if it's done artlessly [which I'm sure it won't be. I like Valve] it could easily be a bad thing... Unless you really enjoy getting blinded, and not being able to see what you're shooting at, that is.)

    It's a neat looking effect, but something like this really needs to be factored into the design, because it does start to step on its toes, in that it's potentially restricting visual feedback to the player. I'm sure Valve will be cool about it, though. They're good. They're good.
    Edited by 2 at 17/06/05 @ 10:46

  • Talha #17 7 years ago

    Tonynibbles, you got me wrong. I agree that ID and Doom III are the main culprits in this department (why, technically Doom III is the most advanced grpahics engine ever and still it is samey and monotonous all the way - what a proud achievement!!!!). ALl I mean is that WHY Valve is doing it, since they displayed admirable charitability with HL2 for people who don't own a monster machine (which is most of us). The point is, I AM OUT TO UPGRADE MY PC RIGHT NOW JUST BECAUSE OF IT AND I DONT LIKE IT ONE BIT!!!!!!!!

  • CargoCult #18 7 years ago

    Anyone complaining about the ridiculously steep hardware requirements: I think that's the entire point of this new map. Valve's artists have basically gone bananas, making the highest-detail everything they can, and the programmers have wrapped it all in some GPU-humping new rendering code.

    "Why oh why does this giant chocolate cake stuffed with cream contain so many calories? It's not fair!!!1" etc...

  • Genji #19 7 years ago

    If you don't like having to upgrade your graphics cards etc. regularly, then don't use a PC for games. It's that simple, and less expensive too!

  • Scimarad #20 7 years ago

    Xbox360? :-)