Talk:Source (game engine)/Archive 1

Source based on Havoc Engine

Hey i edited the page to say that the source engine was based off of the Havoc Engine, but i dont have any pages cited for it (if someone could please find them, i dont know where to). Only thing is, im not sure if the entire Source Engine was based on the Havoc Engine or if just the physics part of the Source Engine was based off of Havoc. I never specified within the article which it is, but i created the impression that it was the entire engine.

This is exactly why you don't do things without sources. Havok is a physics engine, and it was used by Valve to build only a single part of Source. The engine in general most certainly isn't based off it. I've already reverted your edits, so don't worry about it. --Tom Edwards 18:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Allright thanks. --Jared Simmons 9:06, January 30 2007

UI

Methinks it would be a good idea to specify which "UI" it's referring to in the first paragraph of the Introductin, since just UI gives a disambiguation page, and, uh, call me unobservant but I honestly can't figure out which one it's referring to. ^^; --Yar Kramer 6 July 2005 04:10 (UTC)

can someone please tell me why it says that the source engine is on ps3?

nothing is cited, and i have never read this anywhere.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/halflife2episode2/news.html?sid=6156496 This article says that HL2 is to be released on the PS3 at the same time as the 360 version.

Additional comment to the "Looping Audio" section.

I was thinking about adding this but could not think of a way to word it correctly, but the comment "Because of the nature of DirectX, once the engine enters such a state it will remain on the screen unless the user can blindly terminate the program, or reboots their computer" is incorrect if the OS is running the Security System of Windows. You can verify this in WinXP Pro by turning off the "Use the Welcome Screen" option in the User Accounts menu in the control panel, then when you hit ctrl-alt-del it will bring up a standard NT style "Windows Security" dialog, which will interrupt any application, even when a DirectX application has locked up in the way listed. It's a failsafe to the Security system, one that sadly isn't enabled by default. --Vash63 9 May 2006.

That works in XP Home too. That will be a useful tip when a game next crashes, thanks! --Tom Edwards 12:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably not relevant, but this crash has happened to me about a million times in Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2. I've never played Episode 1, although I imagine it wouldn't be any better —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.110.157 (talk) 08:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Picture Change

Methinks the picture should be the source logo, rather than a hl2 screenshot, since it describes the capabilites (as far as I know) of the Havok engine; which should also be mentioned. Jackpot Den 22:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Control-section

I deleted the section "control", where someone complained about a problem concerning the handling of ladders. I deleted this section. Bugs in the control system are not engine bugs. --85.216.45.222 14:26, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

deleted "half life: deathmatch"

Is not half life deathmatch just part of the half life game? You do not see any other games' multiplayer components being listed as seperate games. Only Counter Strike Source deserves that distinction, since it was developed independently and essentially included as a bonus.

No it isn't. HL2 did not have in built multiplayer capabilities. And it was developed long after HL2 was released. It was also a bonus to anyone who bought HL2. 65.10.102.36 (talk) 04:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Cinematic physics "guess"

Tom Edwards: this must not have been clear. Although what I wrote about Cinematic Physics was a "guess" of sorts, the version you reverted back to is much more of a guess, and rather an absurd one at that. Saying that the Havok engine would interpolate between keyframes is.. well.. that's just not how keyframes work. The best reasonable guess is what I wrote: that keyframes are defined and Havok supplements. I've re-inserted my writing with an emphasis on the fact that this is mostly speculation. If you feel there's a better way to express that this is speculation, please do. :) --midkay 12:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Interpolated is your word...:-p

What we've got here is one of two options. Either physics does its stuff with keyframes as constraints and targets (see Endorphin (software) for a similar and slightly more complex system), or a relatively simple base animation is supplemented with physics-powered details. The latter could be achieved with small tweaks the current system, which makes me think that the former is more likely. But of course, we can't say either way right now. So how's this:

Cinematic Physics supports a keyframe system, but its exact nature is currently unclear. It could be that an animator creates a largely complete but low-detail sequence which then sees details added by the physics system, or it could be that an animator creates a handful of single-frame states which are then used as constraints and targets for the ensuing simulation (in a manner not dissimilar to the Endorphin NaturalMotion technology). Either method results in a drastic reduction of developer input, thus allowing the creation of far more complex scenes than before with the same budget. It is currently unclear both whether or not keyframes are strictly required, and what number are needed to create a scene as complex as the bridge collapse demonstration.

--Tom Edwards 12:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I still don't believe the Endorphin-type method to be very likely (Havok already has constraints, and their product for 3ds max which uses the same engine doesn't do anything like the Endorphin stuff), that's a perfectly clear way to put it. :) As long as the first speculation about the "physics engine interpolating between the keyframes" isn't what we're suggesting.. --midkay 19:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Now that episode 2 is out, there's some more information about it in the commentary:

"#commentary\EP2-Comment007.wav" "[Gray Horsfield] The destruction of this rail bridge was our first opportunity to showcase our new cinematic physics technology. We wanted to convey to the player the scale of the train wreck and the delicate balance the damaged bridge was left in as a result. The structural deformation of the twisted metal was modeled with the help of surface based spring networks, driven by particle systems. In this case we actually passed a rail car through the bridge, and solved the deformation dynamically. For the collapse, we used an offline large scale rigid body simulation, a technology typically reserved for the visual effects industry. In this simulation we have about 750 moving parts, calculated with coarse convex hulls. These in turn drove a skeleton network, to which the high resolution geometry was skinned. Particles were then emitted from the transforming geometry and calculated in-game.

(from episode 2 content.gcf/ep2/resource/closecaption_english.txt). There's more too, mostly suggesting the use of offline simulation. Perhaps the article should be updated to reflect some of this information?--Kopaka649 (talk) 18:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You can watch the animations in HLMV too, and try as I might I've not been able to interact with any of them when they play: the debris simply clips through everything. It appears that the system has been removed from the game and downgraded to an animation tool. :-( --Tom Edwards (talk) 11:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Where should we put the section now? It's not an engine feature any more, nor is it a part of the public SDK. It's just an internal tool... --Tom Edwards (talk) 20:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Rendering

It should be included that HDR isnt included in HL2, or at least it isnt fully included. Also, I don't think VALVe will update the source engine for HL2. Or am I totally wrong?

And the Sin Episodes version does not include HDR in any form, though its using the Source engine.

Hl2, EP1 has something called "color correction", anything to add?

Cybesystem 23:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Game-level stuff belongs in game articles. Color Correction is already present under the Cinematic effects heading. --Tom Edwards 07:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Rating

Who rated this article, and why on earth is it only Start-class? Where is its entry on Essential articles? --Tom Edwards 07:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

History here says PresN did that yesterday. Is there a problem with this? I still consider myself a bit new to Wikipedia. --Gamer007 08:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

You don't rate an article whenever you feel like it. ;-) It goes through comitee and other such things. None of which have happened here. --Tom Edwards 08:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, anyone can rate the article whatever they feel like. I'd rate it a B class myself, change it if you want. It's only a general guideline, you have to deal with the bureaucratic crap if you want it rated as a Good Article, A Class or FA (I think). - Hahnchen 15:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Two votes is good enough for me! I've rated it a Low priority, because although I often see the article referenced by people discussing Source or future Source games, it's not all that useful in regards to gaming in general. Something on its impact would be, but that's a retrospective job that won't happen for several years at least. --Tom Edwards 15:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Source and GoldSrc Example picture

This is in reference to this picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Csbombcompare.jpg

This is a pretty terrible comparison, don't you think? Even though CS:Source is far from the best use of the Source engine, I can understand wanting to compare similar images. But still there has to be better examples than this low resolution, grainy picture of the ground. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.35.168.137 (talk • contribs) 10:52, 17 September 2006.

I agree, the most noticeable difference is that the C4 was remodeled, which isn't representative of the changes between GoldSrc and Source. --Mrwojo 16:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah... considering that maps have been remade for CS:S, a direct comparison would be easy. --203.206.183.160 22:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The comparison would be much better if there were actually something in the pictures, like a terrorist model in GoldSrc, and one in Src, to show that Source allows for higher quality 3D models. --Dark Jirachi 03:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

HDR

I'm fairly sure I saw HDR in a HL2 gameplay video several months prior to release. If anyone knows more about this, it probably deserves a mention in the HDR section. Some media to back it up would be great, too. --203.206.183.160 22:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

That was the first revision, which was canned because it wasn't compatible with AA. The current version of HDR is the forth or fifth rewrite I think. --Tom Edwards 21:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Origins

This session description on this page heavily implies that Source originated from GoldSrc -- there's no other way it could have been "eight years in development [and] based on a single-threaded code base several years older than that [which would be Quake]". The only question is who wrote the text? --85.189.119.185 14:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Not quite accurate

The article says: "It debuted in November 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2." This is technically incorrect as CS:S officially came out on October 7th, 2004. So I changed the month and dropped the mention of HL2. 72.49.117.53 04:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC) dethtoll

Leak

The Episode Two Particle Engine has been leaked <.< >.> -ApocalypX 22:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A long time ago. gracz54 08:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Prime

Has anyone confirmed the existence of the game called Prime?

I know the guys making it. Obviously that's not verifiable, but unless you have a specific reason for the entry to be removed... --Tom Edwards 16:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Existence of Quake Code

This seems to be a widely disputed issue, and the page here says that the Leak contained no proof that the engine was derived from Quake. However, the leak contains files such as 'glquake.h/.cpp', 'quakedef.h/.cpp' and 'winquake.h'. There are all vintage Quake Engine files - they still use the old qboolean data type, and the header for winquake.h even says: // winquake.h: Win32-specific Quake header file.
Personally, I think thats proof enough. Anyone else? 61.9.140.251 16:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The article says that there's no proof the engine contains significant portions of Quake code, not that it wasn't derived from Quake -- which it clearly was. The files prove the latter but not the former. Even without the actual code we can be certain that glquake isn't relevant any more as Source is purely Direct3D (OpenGL on the PS3, yes, but that separate codebase a) is very recent and b) would never be in the Windows SDK). It's totally possible that the other two are cruft as well, or are files (probably bootstapping ones going by the names) that have been gutted but retain their original names. Even if they were the same, they hardly suggest a wider dependency on the older engine. --Tom Edwards 17:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The article says that 'Although Valve has explicitly stated that the Source engine has been built internally from the ground up, rumors and myths persist that it is instead merely derived from the original Quake codebase via Valve's GoldSrc offshoot... There remains no solid proof that Source is derived from the GoldSrc codebase — and indeed, given the fact that the 2003 code leak did not produce any such claims it can only be assumed that no incriminating evidence was to be found.' I think that the existence of those Quake headers are are proof enough that the engine wasn't written from the ground up. There aren't any siginficant portions of Quake code in the engine, but if you're an experienced programmer writing an engine from the ground up, why use filenames like 'quakedef.h'? To me, this points more to the fact it was built off GoldSrc (which was built off Quake) but core file and header names haven't changed for simplicitys sake. The content of them isn't the same as Quake, in fact they contain a bunch of Valve's code, but they are still there. My guess is for the sake of structure. 61.9.140.251 09:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I think. Serves me right for not checking the text. :-p --Tom Edwards 18:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

http://www.quakesrc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5301 this should raise some points about. It's still pretty much Quake, with fancy middleware stuck on it (they didn't make the physics, mixer or the face tech) Leileilol 07:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced claims from a curmudgeonly forum poster are hardly suitable for Wikipedia. I don't know what a mixer is, but the face tech is entirely internal and the physics, while licensed originally, have been completely gutted and network-enabled. --Tom Edwards 09:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a interview with gabe newell with CVG where newell states that John Carmack pretty much just gave the newly born valve the Quake source code and told them to go make a game, and seeing that Source was the other branch from thier source-tree when HL1 went gold, its not hard to assume there is some code left over. 81.179.160.206 16:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

"Lighting and Shadowing system comparison" Correction

Ok under the area of "Lighting and Shadowing system comparison" theres some corrections that need to be made..of course I currently don't have the sources so if someone wants to dig around and correct 'em go ahead.

"Dynamic shadows in a map always react dynamically to every light source. (unconfirmed)" In an interview somewhere...it says that only special lighting, such as Flashlights, Vortigaunt lighting bolt thingys, or a probably a special light ent can cast dynamic shadows. Also in some gameplay trailers you can see normal lights don't cast shadows.

"Dynamic shadows are more unified with static shadows and don't cast through models. (unconfirmed)" This can be seen in the current gameplay trailers. Unless I'm just an idiot and thinking of something else :P

"Any object can cast multiple dynamic soft shadows. (unconfirmed)" I've heard somewhere that it can cast up to four dynamic soft shadows not sure where though....

So yeah, these are just corrections that "may" be true if someone wants to find the sources go ahead, I'm currently a bit too busy atm to correct 'em.

Fair use rationale for Image:Source engine logo.svg

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Image-based rendering

The description given here describes existing techniques: Imposters and billboard sprites/billboarding. These are not new or cutting edge technology, nor should they be referred to by the name (neologism?) "Image-based rendering". If this instead refers to IBMR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image-based_modeling_and_rendering), then the description should be re-written to be less ambiguous.

Does anyone know which technique he's talking about? Maybe some novel mix of both, or a new approach to using imposters/billboarding? 131.107.0.73 01:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Kavika

Merge Garry's Mod

Garry's Mod is important and notable, but it doesn't seem like there's enough information on it that's Wikipedia-verifiable to warrant its own article. I suggest we merge it here, since it's not relevant outside the context of the Source engine. Chardish 17:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose: While the article needs more sources, there is plenty of outside information on Garry's Mod to warrant an article. Not many other source games have any context outside of source either. SpigotMap 20:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose as above. What happened to that article anyway? It had plenty of content the last time I saw it. --Tom Edwards 21:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I kind of thought a discussion would be better than a pseudo-vote, since that's kind of what talk pages are for. I dunno, I just really don't see much information on it from reliable sources (such as game magazines and very major websites) that warrants more than a paragraph or two. - Chardish 07:35, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Then find some! :-) There's plenty to go around and it's definitely worthy of its own article. If nothing else, it was the first independent mod to go on sale ever. --Tom Edwards 12:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose: As above- and the Source Engine is certainly not Garry's Mod. While the mod uses it, using this theory of merge decisions would put a _lot_ of games/tools into one article.---- JamesHarrison (talk) 20:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree with JamesHarrison up here, if we do this, we can go and merge Counter-Strike:_Source into this article as well, for example. And all the other mods of the Source Engine. Arienh4^(Talk) 22:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: Garry's Mod has to do with the source engine however, they should not merged. 65.10.102.36 (talk) 04:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: As above. I think a consensus has been reached here, can we remove the merge-suggestion template on the Garry's Mod article? Athernar (talk) 15:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: What everyone else said. Just because it runs on the engine doesn't mean it should be merged, or else all games that use a particular engine should be merged with their engine's article. And, as Athenar said, it seems relatively unanimous, so we should probably remove the merge-suggestion.CitrusFreak12 (talk) 00:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay i went ahead and removed it. Athernar (talk) 00:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Parallax mapping

Will people stop adding this in please, Source does not support it. The closest thing to Parallax mapping in the engine is Valve's own self-shadowing radiosity normal mapping (There is a PDF about this on thier site) 81.179.172.205 (talk) 15:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The command given in the last edit to include it appears to make a change. I can't tell as I don't have any parallax-mapped materials, but the fact that renderer has to restart whenever you enable/disable the cvar does suggest that it's now in there. --Tom Edwards (talk) 17:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It's done that since HL2, and there are remains of code towards this end, along with certain VMT tokens that are commented out in older textures. Ethier way, to enable parallax mapping you must create your own mode and then add additional code, Wraiyth [1] had a tutorial on how to do this, but has since removed it. Also see [2] for more info. 81.178.115.115 (talk) 12:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

That page says that it's in the engine but disabled. That says to me that it belongs in the article - like DirectX6, just because modders can't access it and Valve don't use it, doesn't mean it isn't there! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom Edwards (talk • contribs) 21:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

any modern engine can have a parallax shader written for it. It's not a feature of Source. --Pkaulf (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

May i suggest however, writing a small section on Valve's own Efficient Self-Shadowed Radiosity Normal Mapping? It's distinct enough from standard normal mapping by the way it stores the elevation data and the obvious Self-shadowing part. Athernar (talk) 13:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Linux Port

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=source_linux&num=1 The source may seem questionable but its also derived from this: http://www.omgpcgames.com/content/view/45/37/ Where it says Postal 3 will use the Valve source engine but also run on Linux (amongst the other platforms)... In any case, its something to look out for. --Vylen (talk) 16:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

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"Source SDK 2013", according to Valve mailing list

That's how I got this link: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013

Would this count as a citable link or not? And is this really happening? —017Bluefield (talk) 00:19, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a release of game code for modders, nothing to do with the engine. --Tom Edwards (talk) 21:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Source 2 should go into a separate page

We know enough about it that it deserves it's own page, as well as the fact that it has technically already been released.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Opticalprocessor (talk • contribs) 08:28, 21 November 2014‎ (UTC)

If you believe there's enough specific reliable coverage of Source 2 as an engine and topic separate from this article, feel free to create it. Just be sure the sources are there or it will likely be redirected here. -- ferret (talk) 13:50, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

List of games using the Source engine

Why isn't there a section or page for a list of games that use this engine? Wasn't there one before? <s

I did not find such a section in past edits, but there is one in every other engine article. As there are more than Valve games using source, I created the section. Hervegirod (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Reference 5 leads to a broken webpage

As the subject tells you, reference 5 leads to a broken webpage.

I will most likely not check back on this post. 80.202.157.31 (talk) 17:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Discussion for merging Valve Hammer Editor and Source SDK into Source (game engine). Both seem to fail WP:GNG. Hammer is a mapping tool included in Source SDK, Source SDK is a dev kit for creating content in the Source engine. I think both should be merged into the Source engine article (which is in need of some tidying up and rewriting anyway). The1337gamer (talk) 01:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Suppport merging of Source SDK into Source (game engine). On the fence for Hammer, as it has historical ties to Quake (game engine) and GoldSrc as well. -- ferret (talk) 11:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I think we can merge any relevant information from Hammer into Quake engine and GoldSrc as well. I don't think it's notable enough for its own article. The1337gamer (talk) 11:43, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Support merging of Valve Hammer Editor into Source SDK and GoldSrc. I think we can skip Quake. -- ferret (talk) 12:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Is it an idea to split off the BSP-related information (most of the "Files and compiling" section) to BSP (file format), since this is a common process to all BSP-file generation? Don't worry, I'm volunteering to do that ;) --DanielPharos (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

That's fine by me. The1337gamer (talk) 09:22, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Done! --DanielPharos (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

• As no-one has contested the merge proposal I've gone ahead and done it. Valve Hammer Editor and Source SDK redirect to Source (game engine)#Source SDK now. As a side-note this article needs a lot of work, it's a bit of a mess. I'll try tidying up things here and there when I some spare time. --The1337gamer (talk) 19:19, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Dota 2

Now that Dota 2's game client is Source 2 only (will be rolled out in the next day or so, per the Dota 2 blog), how do we handle Dota 2 in the list of Source games? The current way seems a bit bloated, but it also seems like the game should be listed as a historical fact. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Seems fine for now. When more games use Source 2, then add a second list for Games using Source 2. Keep Dota 2 on both, just put "(former)" after it on the Source 1 list. --The1337gamer (talk) 10:27, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it looks a bit bloated. But I don't think that would be a huge issue after all. However, if it is, I suggest using the word "obsolete" instead.- Chamith (talk) 10:41, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

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Toolset Criticism

Looking at the cited sources, it is obvious that this paragraph might be outdated. All sources are at least 4 years old! This paragraph should either be updated or removed! (DG) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.89.142.255 (talk) 15:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure, if you see something that needs updated, go for it! --Geniac (talk) 03:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Should it have been deleted though? It was still a source. And there are no articles on improvement. 2602:306:CC22:8B00:9019:B8AF:E2D8:F2BA (talk) 01:23, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Source 2

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is unanimous consensus to merge Source (game engine) with Source 2.Thankfully, Winged Blades ^Godric 14:45, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

---

Few, if any actual sources actually mentioning Source 2. Vaypertrail (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• User:Picaxe01 User:Dissident93 User:DarthBotto please expand Source 2 with sources that actually mention the subject, or this will need merging.--Vaypertrail (talk) 00:43, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Support: It has been five months since I tentatively said that we belay merging these articles, yet it hasn't been expanded, I am disappointed to say. I say we follow the structure of Unreal Engine, by having a subsection for both the original release and the second iteration of the engine. Maybe this page could be expanded and I'll find myself dazzled, but I find myself disillusioned to the concept at this point. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 03:07, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Support The only series of engines that seems to have notability for different versions is idTech. Unreal, Frostbite, Unity and others, widely used with clear versioning and revisions, keep one page. While they may sound "other stuff", the point is sourcing generally doesn't exist to break out the versions/revisions. -- ferret (talk) 13:34, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• Source 2 is an entirely different engine from the original, it's simply not the 2017 rendition of Source. That being said, I don't really think anybody could vote to keep this as a separate article in its current state, as the only real sources simply mention that a game is using it. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 19:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Missing Games Using this Engine

Topic(Article) Missing next games: Counter-Strike Online 2 ,Titanfall,Titanfall 2 & Apex Legends These 4 use Source engine 2007 branch(cs:o2) & heavy modified branch (titanfall series including apex)

ShadowLyk (talk) 06:19, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

• See the above discussion on the Titanfall and Apex games. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 10:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

2017 Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop not in list?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/563560/Alien_Swarm_Reactive_Drop/ says its powered by source Edit: other source games list can be found on the ones that [3]0w0 catt0s (talk) 12:48, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Source Engine games

Should Operation: Black Mesa and Guard Duty be on the list for Source Engine games? Bredino (talk) 03:08, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Are they notable? We shouldn't be adding every single mod or even a standalone game if they received no media coverage. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 09:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It’s probably not noticeable. Bredino (talk) 19:02, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

In that case it shouldn't be added. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 22:15, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Notes column

@Dissident93:, would you be willing to let the notes column go back in? I admit it's a bit sparse at the moment, but the idea is that more useful information can be added in later, which is the basis of wiki editing. Columns for notes are common on Wikipedia lists, and your rationale for removing this one was purely aesthetic. Tisnec (talk) 22:08, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

• Tisnec I'm not opposed to it in general, I just don't see what you could really use to populate it beyond simple trivia. Stuff like it being a part of the Orange Box has nothing to do with the engine, nor is any early access info. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 22:46, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

That's reasonable. I thought the information would be useful to those getting acquainted with Source, but I concede that usefulness is subjective. Tisnec (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Please explain what you mean as you have failed to detail what parts of my writings are incorrect or not "proper"

You are being very rude! Stop reverting my changes!! For someone with such an old wikipedia account, how can you not find the time to tell me what the problems are. You are telling me that not even 1 word I wrote was correct? What the hell is wrong with you, you are reverting the entire page rather than helping me to add sources and building a better page?

I expect a fast reply here as you have destroyed my efforts twice now in quick succession

Also to correct you, I did not readd my changes in argue of your revert. I was in the process of adding more, as I'm new to using wikipedias interface, and I pasted in the entire source from my edits. You got in the way by mere seconds. Don't be so judgmental for goodness sake!

Now specifaclly tell me what is wrong with each and every change. Not a generalization as that doesn't even make sense. What is wrong for example with the technology section? Tell me why you have removed this alone.

After you reply I will be readding my information and contact wikipedia to get you investigated. You are removing hard work and lots of research for no reason except to create an illusion my edits are vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerEditor (talk • contribs) 23:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The first issue is that the new lead is completely unacceptable. Source is not known for being open sourced, and is in fact not. Second, you've removed content that experienced editors have spent quite a lot of time working on, with valid reliable secondary sourcing, with no reason stated for why the old content needed removed. Third, you've introduced a lot of new content with no sourcing at all, containing original research. Fourth, you've added a great deal of content that is sourced to Valve's Developer wiki and other user-generated sites, which are not acceptable as sources on Wikipedia, as they have no editorial control. Finally, you've tried to add several images to the article which have been uploaded to Commons in violation of copyright guidelines. I've nominated them for deletion there, as they are not free images and CANNOT be hosted on Commons. The WP:NFCC rules for images hosted on Enwiki would also prevent their use here, as it would be excessive non-free content.

As for the Technology Section, as already noted above, the entire thing is sourced to USERG Wiki sites or Github repositories. Not a single reliable secondary source was used. -- ferret (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You're right. I've scrolled up and seen that you have been correcting even slight wording changes on this page for over half a *decade* — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerEditor (talk • contribs) 13:00, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Valve Hammer Editor is correct

What do you mean? There is no such thing nor is there any search querys happening for "Valve Hammer". In other words, no one is searching or hearing of and wondering about "Valve Hammer". The hammer editor or valve hammer editor of course, but not valve hammer. We can see that here https://valvearchive.com/_h5ai/public/cache/thumbs/thumb-40d9f638675d5248b4cbf8892e02c32f4eee6b74-320x240.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerEditor (talk • contribs) 17:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

We don't use about notes to denote every single redirect that comes to this page. We use them to distinguish between article titles and redirects that may lead to confusion. On Wikipedia, there is a redirect named Valve Hammer that comes to this page. However, there is also a redirect named Valve hammer, which goes somewhere else. The only difference between these two is the capital versus lowercase H in hammer. That is why the "about" note exists. Valve Hammer (leading here) sees 5-10 hits a month, while Valve hammer (leading to the physical tool article) sees about three times as many hits. This isn't about who's searching for what on Google or what the official name is. Wikipedia has these two redirects, so we distinguish them. -- ferret (talk) 18:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Modified vs. modified

Almost all the games modify the Source engine in one way or another yet only some are (modified) in the article. That looks utterly, ridiculously inconsequential. I guess it would be best to underscore it like I proposed earlier heavily modified or use a different wording altogether. Artem S. Tashkinov (talk) 21:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Artem S. Tashkinov: I'm not sure where you are getting that "almost all" Source games use a modified version of the engine. If you are talking about the occasional SDK updates, such as Source 2013, then that is not the same thing as being a derivative fork like the ones Titanfall uses. I'm not opposed to a wording change, but I don't view heavily modified as any better than the status quo. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:21, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Suit yourself. Artem S. Tashkinov (talk) 08:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Now another user is adding that Apex Legends is a Source game. This is extremely misleading, since it's only based on the engine that Titanfall 2 uses, which itself was based on the engine that Titanfall 1 used, which was a custom engine that was developed using the Source SDK as a base. None of these games are really Source games, at least not in the same vein as the others list, so I just think we should omit them from the list and mention them in prose instead. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 04:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we'll stop this short of protection, which isn't a great option. I would add a "Derivatives" section for these. -- ferret (talk) 13:13, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I would not oppose that. Although, I can't think of other games besides these three that would also count. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 18:31, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Question, is there a precedent for considering Titanfall and Apex to not be using Source? Despite admitting that they modified it, Respawn still refers to the engine as Source, the press refers to it as Source, and it retains a decent amount of Source. Kuma/War heavily modified the engine as well, and Valve themselves are constantly updating, modifying the engine. Since there's little public indication what version of Source is being used for what and how different a particular company's implementation of it, I'm curious how we make the clear determination that Titanfall and Apex shouldn't be considered as Source despite sources (pun only half intended) saying otherwise? And if we are keeping Titanfall and Apex out, what are we doing to verify that the games in the "not Valve" list are actually running on a more pure version of Source? — seadoubleyoujay ^{[talk] [contrib] [海倍君ジェイ]} 21:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

The sources I saw were directly calling out the fact that the games were using a modified version of Source, not Source itself. If the games are to be re-added to the list, they should be under a separate, modified grouping IMO. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 21:33, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree, more that we should probably look over other games on the list to determine the appropriateness of considering them "Source games" vs. "Source-based games". My primary concern is that we'd be separating Titanfall and Apex for something that potentially another game on the non-Valve list did, using a similarly modified form of the engine to the point of being derivative vs original. I think we should look at other engines and see how they go about this, since I'd argue that Frostbite, for instance, has some games that heavily modify it (like Mass Effect) beyond what its original design was, but then again those are official first-party changes. However, there are some other games that are considered to be "using" a particular engine with heavy modifications (like The Old Republic with HeroEngine and Star Citizen with CryEngine prior to their switch to Lumberyard). I wonder if there's a larger conversation to be had on other articles about developing a standardized "definition" of what constitutes using an engine vs engine derivative and how that's handled across Wikipedia. — seadoubleyoujay ^{[talk] [contrib] [海倍君ジェイ]} 00:02, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Well most games would just use the engine itself and not a heavily customized version of it, unless it was open source or something. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 10:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

From my understanding of the Source engine, it is very modular and quite often when it is "modified" it's just taking advantage of this. I also think when the dev team themselves say they use the Source engine, it should qualify as being listed. The lead designer behind Titanfall very proudly says this in a noclip documentary on Half-Life "we are using the half-life engine...we have the source engine at the core of what we do"Sean256 (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with you, but I think there's a few issues to consider in this discussion.

• The first is that non-first party sources generally discuss that the engine is heavily modified in a distinct enough fashion to be considered derivative (Like Infinity Ward's engine that's really just a pretty Quake derivative).

• The second is that we have very little information on the other non-Valve games and how heavily they modified Source, meaning we may be making assumptions on certain games falling under a "derivative" label rather than a more pure application of the engine.

• The third is that there's little consensus on how much modification is needed to consider an engine derivative enough to not include it in a list. I used Star Citizen and The Old Republic as examples earlier because they drastically overhauled their original engines to the point that Star Citizen even considers itself as using a fairly distinctive offshoot, but it's still covered as though it uses "CryEngine/Lumberyard".

• The fourth is that Respawn hasn't named their derivative, meaning there's even less information on it. Respawn just calls it Source or, like you shared, the Half Life engine.

So we have to answer the question of how do we define something being derivative enough to not include, and how do we justify the automatic assumption that other non-Valve games don't have the same level of modification? — seadoubleyoujay ^{[talk] [contrib] [海倍君ジェイ]} 03:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

If we are going to put the non-Valve source engine games like Titanfall into a separate section, I think we should wait until we have a sufficiently long list of games that use it, in a modified de-Valved fashion. This youtube video is probably a good place to start, just remove any of the Valve games from the list in the video. Additional research could be handy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzu4Gzrlaq4 🐺Ancelot the Lycanroc🐺 _TALK 02:49, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Might I suggest we add a note under the list of games that says something along the lines of "Note that games made using in-house engines derived from the Source SDK, such as the Titanfall series, are not included on this list" until everyone agrees on a better way of addressing it? It feels rather unpolished to have the articles for the wiki pages for the Titanfall games to say they use Source, but not even mention them at all on this article. - MarioLuigi0404 (talk) 23:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Such a note is already embedded in the article. Such editing notes are hidden from readers, as they should not be presented as article content. -- ferret (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

In addition, their own articles should note that it uses a modified version of Source too. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:34, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

References