ENGINE

LICENSING
information sheet

01
 INTRODUCTION

The Source™ engine technology, the same used scripted events featured in previous generations
to power Half-Life® 2, is now available for of games, and open the door for the creation of
license by third party developers. Source completely new styles of play.
provides major enhancements in several key
areas including character animation, advanced Source contains robust networking code,
AI, real-world physics, and shader-based providing support for 32-player LAN and
rendering. Internet games, and includes a complete toolset
for level design, character animation, demo
Source's animation system brings expressive creation, and more.
characters to life with an unlimited palette of
facial expressions that allow them to convey a
message without having to say a word. In Pricing
addition, these characters possess the industry's Source offers the most advanced features, tools,
most advanced artificial intelligence, making and support at extremely competitively prices.
them extremely capable allies and foes. Discussed under NDA.

These characters populate beautifully rendered For more information, please contact
and physically simulated worlds. Next sourceengine@valvesoftware.com.
generation applications will require the use of a
physics simulation to provide realistic and
responsive environments. This will allow
developers to break from authoring the pre-

Water refraction, High-Dynamic Range lighting, and advanced AI greatly enhance visual fidelity and believeability in Source.

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 SOURCE ENGINE FEATURES ™

RENDERER  Occluder entities for visibility MATERIALS SYSTEM

 Version 2.0b (and below) DirectX blocking  Instead of traditional textures,
shaders, bump mapping, LOD on  Indoor/Outdoor environments Source defines sets of materials
models and world that specify what the object is made
· Deformable terrain
 Author shaders with HLSL from and the texture used for that
· 3D skyboxes extend the horizon
object. A material specifies how an
 Cube and environment mapping and add parallax on distant
object will fracture, sound when
 Dynamic lights, vertex lighting and objects
dragged across another surface or
light maps, many light types · Dynamically rendered organics
broken , as well as the object’s mass
including flickering, pulsing etc. (grass, trees etc)
and buoyancy . This system is much
 High-Dynamic Range lighting  Subdivision surfaces, diffuse & more flexible than other texture
specular bump maps only based systems.
 Water with refraction and fresnel
effects  Real-time radiosity lighting  Materials can also interact with
 Advanced particle system that can  Effects include but are not limited objects or NPCs. For instance, mud
emit sprites or models to: particles, beams, volumetric or ice can make sounds and cause
smoke, sparks, blood, environmental vehicles to slide/lose traction.
 Projected shadows allow for a large
effects like fog and rain
number of characters per scene
 Scalability
 Intelligent graphics caching system
· Dx6-Dx9 hardware supported

BUMPMAPPING DISPLACEMENT
MAPS WITH VOLUMETRIC
BUMPMAPPING EFFECTS

MONITORS + STATIC
CAMERAS PROPS

REFLECTION + DETAIL
REFRACTION PROPS
PARTICLE
SYSTEM

Source enables DX9 shaders written in HLSL Create expansive and highly-detailed outdoor environments.

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 SOURCETM ENGINE FEATURES (Cont’d)

Players and non-player characters are physically simulated, and possess the ability to interact with objects and vehicles.

MULTIPLAYER  Simulated musculature provides  Can be controlled by level design

NETWORK CODE outstanding emotions, speech and  Kinematic animated bone followers
 Time and gamer tested by millions body language
 Custom procedural physics controllers
of gamers around the world  Language independent speech,
 Vehicles
 Support for both LAN based characters can naturally speak in
many languages · Wheels slip and skid
multiplayer and Internet based
multiplayer games  Skeletal/bone system for animation · Realistic suspensions
 Prediction analysis for  Layered animation system can · Tunable parameters:
interpolating collision/hit detection synthesize complex animations out Horsepower, gearing, max
of several pieces speed, shift speed, tire material,
 Optimizations for high-latency,
tire friction, spring
high-packet loss 56k connections
tension/dampening, etc.
PHYSICS
 More responsive world with · Multiple players in a vehicle
realistic interactions · Hovercraft
ADVANCED CHARACTERS
 Detailed and believable characters  Sounds & graphics follow from
provide intelligent player physics
interaction  AI characters can interact with
 Realistic eyes physically simulated objects
· Focus on player/object, not  World-class machines, constraint
simply parallel views systems and ragdoll physics
· Proper eye "bulge" for realistic  Ropes and cables move realistically
eye reflections when bumped or hit by an object

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SOURCETM ENGINE FEATURES (Cont’d)

Source’s advanced AI create intelligent, life-like characters. Source includes a powerful suite of sound technologies.

ADVANCED AI SOUND UI
 Graphical entity placement allows  5.1 surround sound, 4 speaker  Server browser - Displays all active
level designers to quickly control surround game servers and allows a player to
the interactive gaming environment.  High-quality 3D spatialization choose which one to participate on.
 Sophisticated navigation: Players can filter and sort server
 Custom software DSP
characters that run, fly, jump, lists in order to speed up the display
 Automatic DSP based on and selection of a server.
crouch, climb stairs and ladders,
environmental geometry
and burrow underground  Friends instant messenger - Allows
 ADPCM decompression players to message each other both
 Senses things using sight, sound,
smell  16-bit 44KHz, stereo wave data in and out of the game as well as
with all features join friends in existing games. No
 Determines relationships such as
 MP3 decompression (requires Miles more confusion about what server
friend/foe status of other entities
license) your friends are on, you can easily
 Battle capabilities allow squads of join with this feature.
AI characters to operate together,  Support for audio streaming on any
wave  VGUI - Valve's custom GUI
know when to advance, retreat, lay
interface mimics most window
cover fire, etc.  Real-time wave file stitching controls but is rendered using the
 Provides for intelligent character  Pre-authored Doppler effect Source engine for both in-game and
interaction during non-combat encoded waves out-of-game user interface
scenes.  Pre-authored distance variant uniformity. It is platform
encoded waves independent and is Unicode
compliant .

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SOURCETM ENGINE FEATURES (Cont’d)

Build and preview new worlds within the Valve Hammer Editor ®. Faceposer allows you to direct each actor in every scene.

PROGRAMMING TOOLS lighting

 All code written in C/C++ using  Faceposer · Rotate models in any direction
Visual Studio 7.1. Easily and · Facial expression tool used to · Setup hit boxes
quickly derive new entities from craft speech and emotions
existing base classes. · View physics hull
 Valve Hammer Editor®
 Internal context sensitive · View normals
· WYSIWYG World editor
performance monitoring system · Wireframe, shaded or textured
· Create world brushes view modes
 Graphics performance measurement
tools built into the engine · Terrain editor  Studiomdl
 Modular code design (via DLL's) · Place detailed world models and · Model compiler
allows swapping out of core AI NPCs
 Vbsp, Vrad, Vvis, VMPI
components for easy upgrading or · Set navigation points/paths for
· Map compilation tools (bsp,
code replacement NPCs
lighting and visibility)
 Dx9 shaders all written in High · Place triggers, clip brushes,
· VMPI - distributed compilation
Level Shading Language (HLSL). logic etc.
tool allowing level compiles to
 Allows custom HLSL shaders · Allows level designer to hook up be spread across many pc's
I/O between entities to control greatly reducing compile times
AI within the game
 Exporters
· Includes real-time lighting
· XSI, Max and Maya .smd
 Half-Life® Model Viewer exporters for exporting 3D
· Full model previewer with models

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