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[IbizaPocholo]

Modder Bringing Ray Tracing to Original Half-Life

Valve's maiden release Half-Life has gone down as one of the most influential FPS titles of its generation, and now someone is improving it visually.

gamerant.com

In a video uploaded to YouTube a few days ago, a user by the name of sultim_t is working on a mod for Half-Life that adds ray tracing to the game to give it that more up-to-date graphical sheen. The minute-long clip shows segments from their current build, as well as a couple of screen wipes which show the original and how it compares to the ray tracing version. In its current state, the difference is quite obvious, with more realistic lighting effects, shadows, and water reflections. The mod is not currently available to download, however.

Half-Life: Ray Traced integrates the real-time path tracing into the original Half-Life (1998). With the hardware accelerated ray tracing, it is possible to calculate global illumination, reflections, refractions, soft shadows and other visual effects with interactive framerates.

 

[intbal]

Looks great.
Remixed music is terrible.

 

[tusharngf]

 

[rofif]

Honestly doesn't change the static look that much since it was all baked in low res before.
But dynamic hadows? reflections? hell yeah.
I would prefer half-life 2 though

 

[ymoc]

I still haven't got around to install Black Mesa and now this happens. Shit.

 

[Edgelord79]

I still haven't got around to install Black Mesa and now this happens. Shit.

Black Mesa is fantastic. Do yourself a favour and play it.

 

[Soodanim]

Which game has the sections with broken lights? Those could be interesting.

I need to finish Black Mesa. Then in 3 years when I get an RT card, I can finally play original Half-Life with RT

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I'm ready for both with my 3090390390390393

 

[RJMacready73]

Why the first one? Surely the second one would've looked ten times better, the first game looks old af whereas 2 still holds up somewhat

 

[Schmick]

Black Mesa is fantastic. Do yourself a favour and play it.

I thought it was great too. But did you think that Xen dragged on a little too long?

 

[Patrick S.]

Why the first one? Surely the second one would've looked ten times better, the first game looks old af whereas 2 still holds up somewhat

This is the way.

 

[Edgelord79]

I thought it was great too. But did you think that Xen dragged on a little too long?

I didn't have an issue with it. Very cool, especially the changes to Gonarchs.

 

[Sosokrates]

This is a good thing.

But i think it would be better on half life 2 because its geometry and textures dont look so dated.

 

[Kuranghi]

I thought it was great too. But did you think that Xen dragged on a little too long?

Yeah loved it all and I usually don't complain about game length and it stood out to me, especially the whole Gonarch encounter was far too long imo.

Still amazing but yeah it was inevitable it would get a bit bloated when they spent that long on it.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Half-Life Ray Tracing Mod Delayed, But Quake Ray Tracing Is Now Available

A modder has been working on a now-delayed ray tracing mod for the original Half-Life, but the same person does release a similar add-on for Quake.

gamerant.com

The modder has been working on a ray tracing mod for Half-Life for some time now, which was reported on at the start of this year. There doesn't appear to be any indication as to why this one has been delayed. In the video, during a black screen with white text that appears, similarly to Valve's maiden release, it simply says that the reason is "awaiting further data," which suggests it could be awhile before it emerges.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Real-time path tracing for Half-Life (1998).

Releases · sultim-t/xash-rt

Fork of the Xash3D FWGS with a real-time path tracing - sultim-t/xash-rt

github.com

 

[Marchizmo]

One of the best games ever made and to see it somehow be improved on is a great plus.

 

[rofif]

I’ve tried it. The rt is very slow and there is afterimage when you move , shoot or do anything.
But looks great anyway. Not sure why it is pixelated by default. Nobody played it in software mode. But it’s an option you can turn off.

And another strange choice is the music, which I don’t remember from original and dirty lens effect. I absolutely hate that stuff. My eyes are not windshields.

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

I've heard it's supposed to launch around the same time as Episode 3.


And am I crazy or does the new trailer look a lot less impressive as the one from a year ago.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Looks great.

Planning to play this soon

 

[IbizaPocholo]

The maker of ray traced versions of Serious Sam, Doom, and Quake - Sultim Tsyrendashiev - returns with a fully path-traced upgrade to the classic Half-Life, a free mod for owners of the game. So how does it work, and what makes the original game such a suitable candidate for a full RT upgrade? Alex Battaglia gets to grips with the mod.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:18 How to get the mod
00:02:25 Why Path Tracing works with Half-Life
00:05:08 Direct Lighting
00:07:08 Global Illumination & Emissive Lighting
00:10:33 Added Reflections & Materials
00:14:25 Added Volumetric Lighting & Configurability
00:17:00 Performance and IQ Considerations
00:19:38 Conclusion