Source Engine

CONCEPT

Valve Corporation's proprietary game engine that debuted in summer 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source and later that same year with Half-Life 2. It may be worth noting that the first Source game released a full 2 weeks ahead of Counter-Strike, and that was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Concept Images Related Pages

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Overview

The Source engine, developed by Valve Corporation (Company), debuted in the form of the Counter-Strike: Sourcebeta on August 11, 2004. Counter-Strike: Source was released on November 1, 2004, followed shortly thereafter by Valve's second use of the Source engine with Half-Life 2 on November 16, 2004. The Source engine is a successor to the GoldSrcengine, an engine built off of the now open source Quake Engine (Concept). In 2004, John Carmack (Person) said "there are still bits of early Quake code in Half-Life 2."

Modularity

The engine is modular by design, allowing new technology to be implemented during the development of each Valve game.

• Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2

Initial release of the engine. Levels are built with brushes, primitives that can be textured and lit. All brush, model, entity and light data is compiled into a single file with the extension .bsp, using binary space partitioning. This method allows for less powerful computers to run enclosed areas at an acceptable performance as few calculations for the world are done during operation.

• Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

High dynamic range lighting was introduced in Day of Defeat: Source prior to its official demonstration in Lost Coast. It simulated the aperture of a camera to create lighting effects beyond a monitor's actual range. This required all lighting code to be rewritten.

• Half-Life 2: Episode One

Improved facial animation system, AI routines and shaders. Rim highlighting was first seen here.

• Orange Box / Source 2007

Many additions added in this version. Among those are soft particle effects, hardware accelerated facial animation and multi-processor support for the Xbox 360 (Platform) andPlaystation 3. Multi-processor support for the PC (Platform) was unstable until the later release ofLeft 4 Dead (Game).

• Left 4 Dead (Game)

Many additions added in this version. Among those are improved multi-processor support of the PC, physics-based animation for clothes and hair and improved AI path finding. Lighting allowed self-shadowing normal maps and many post-processing effects were added, such as film grain, dynamic colour correction and vignetting.

• Left 4 Dead 2 (Game)

An increase in the variation and number of effects seen by the player, but within the more limiting memory constraints of the Xbox 360. Improvements to the render of water were also added, allowing for hints of water movement.

• Alien Swarm (Game)

Introduction of real-time depth-of-field shader and an experimental tile-based level generator called TileGen.

• Portal 2 (Game)

An improvement on the shadow mapping technology, sound operations for the dynamic music, blob particles for the rendering and correct spreading of paint / gels and the ability to project video onto different materials.

Source SDK

The Source SDKis a software development kit for creating maps and mods for the Source engine. It has a variety of tools and utilities.

Face Poser

is the tool used to access animations and choreography sequences. It allows the user to create or edit facial animations, gestures and movement which can be blended together. Lip syncing can be done using extracted phenomes from a spoken .wav file.

Model Viewer

is a tool that allows users to view any model in a Source engine directory. It can view animations, bones and attachment points as they would appear in engine.

Hammer Editor

is the tool with which maps are created for the Source engine. Maps are created as .vmf files and compiled into .bsp files. All rendering data is contained within this file, including visibility and lighting.

Games view all →]

• Age of Chivalry (Game)
• Alien Swarm (Game)
• Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (Game)
• Anarchy Arcade (Game)
• Apex Legends (Game)
• Black Mesa (Game)
• Blade Symphony (Game)
• Bloody Good Time (Game)
• BrainBread 2 (Game)
• Codename CURE (Game)
• Consortium (Game)
• Contagion (Game)
• Counter-Strike 2 (Game)
• Counter-Strike Online 2 (Game)
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Game)
• Counter-Strike: Source (Game)
• D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up (Game)
• Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (Game)
• Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (Game)
• Day of Defeat: Source (Game)
• Dear Esther (Game)
• Dino D-Day (Game)
• Dota 2 (Game)
• Dystopia (Game)
• E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy (Game)
• Empires (Game)
• Entropy : Zero (Game)
• Entropy : Zero 2 (Game)
• Eternal Silence (Game)
• Fortress Forever (Game)
• G String (Game)
• GoldenEye: Source (Game)
• Half Life 2: Survivor (Game)
• Half-Life 2 (Game)
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Game)
• Half-Life 2: Episode One (Game)
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two (Game)
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (Game)
• Half-Life Deathmatch: Source (Game)
• Hybrid (Game)
• Infra (Game)
• Insurgency (Game)
• Jabroni Brawl: Episode 3 (Game)
• Lambda Wars (Game)
• Left 4 Dead (Game)
• Left 4 Dead: Survivors (Game)
• Momentum Mod (Game)
• NEOTOKYO° (Game)
• No More Room In Hell (Game)
• Nuclear Dawn (Game)
• Operation: Black Mesa (Game)
• Pirates, Vikings and Knights II (Game)
• Portal (Game)
• Portal Stories: Mel (Game)
• Portal: Still Alive (Game)
• Postal III (Game)
• Revelations 2012 (Game)
• Situation Outbreak (Game)
• Synergy (Game)
• Tactical Intervention (Game)
• Team Fortress 2 (Game)
• The Beginner's Guide (Game)
• The Crossing (Game)
• The Hidden: Source (Game)
• The Orange Box (Game)
• The Ship (Game)
• The Stanley Parable (Game)
• They Hunger: Lost Souls (Game)
• Titanfall (Game)
• Titanfall 2 (Game)
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Game)
• Vindictus (Game)
• Zeno Clash (Game)
• Zombie Master (Game)
• Zombie Panic! Source (Game)

Concept details

Name

Source Engine

Aliases

Source

Games

• Age of Chivalry (Game)
• Alien Swarm (Game)
• Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (Game)
• Anarchy Arcade (Game)
• Apex Legends (Game)
• Black Mesa (Game)
• Blade Symphony (Game)
• Bloody Good Time (Game)
• BrainBread 2 (Game)
• Codename CURE (Game)
• Consortium (Game)
• Contagion (Game)
• Counter-Strike 2 (Game)
• Counter-Strike Online 2 (Game)
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Game)
• Counter-Strike: Source (Game)
• D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up (Game)
• Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (Game)
• Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (Game)
• Day of Defeat: Source (Game)
• view all →

Franchises

• Has franchises: Half-Life (Franchise), Portal (Franchise), GoldenEye 007 (Franchise), James Bond (Franchise), SiN (Franchise), Team Fortress (Franchise), Postal (Franchise), Vampire: The Masquerade (Franchise), Mabinogi (Franchise), Left 4 Dead (Franchise), Might and Magic (Franchise), Zeno Clash (Franchise), Dark Messiah (Franchise), Counter-Strike (Franchise), Day of Defeat (Franchise)

Characters

• Has characters: Chell (Character), Gordon Freeman (Character), Wallace Breen (Character), Alyx Vance (Character), Barney Calhoun (Character), Dog (Character), Eli Vance (Character), Isaac Kleiner (Character), Judith Mossman (Character), Scout (Character), Engineer (Character), Heavy (Character), Pyro (Character), Sniper (Character), Soldier (Character), Spy (Character), The Administrator (Character), Saxton Hale (Character), Merasmus (Character), The Tank (Character), Bill (Character), Coach (Character), Ellis (Character), Francis (Character), Louis (Character), Nick (Character), Rochelle (Character), Zoey (Character), The Boomer (Character), The Charger (Character), The Hunter (Character), The Jockey (Character), The Smoker (Character), The Spitter (Character), The Witch (Character), GLaDOS (Character), Wheatley (Character), Medic (Character)

Locations

• Has locations: City (Location), Europe (Location), Sewer (Location), Cave (Location), Prison (Location), Forest (Location), Tunnel (Location), Mine (Location), Black Mesa East (Location), City 17 (Location), Combine Citadel (Location), Isaac Kleiner's Lab (Location), Nova Prospekt (Location), Ravenholm (Location), White Forest (Location), 2 Fort (Location), 5Gorge (Location), Badlands (Location), Barnblitz (Location), Coldfront (Location), Dustbowl (Location), Egypt (Location), Fastlane (Location), Foundry (Location), Freight (Location), Frontier (Location), Gold Rush (Location), Granary (Location), Gravel Pit (Location), Gullywash (Location), Harvest (Location), Hydro (Location), Turbine (Location), Well (Location), Yukon (Location), River (Location), Rural Area (Location), Barren Lands (Location), Office (Location), dod_donner (Location), dod_flash (Location), dod_jagd (Location), Cobble (Location), cs_office (Location), Dust (Location), Dust 2 (Location), dod_colmar (Location), dod_kalt (Location), dod_palermo (Location)

Objects

• Has objects: Car (Object), Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (Object), Grenade (Object), Gun (Object), Rocket Launcher (Object), Shotgun (Object), Pistol (Object), Submachine Gun (Object), Turret (Object), Crowbar (Object), Airboat (Object), HEV Suit (Object), Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator (Object), The Intelligence (Object), Rifle (Object), Dune Buggy (Object)

People

Related Concepts

• Has related concepts: Havok Physics (Concept), Non-Player Character (Concept), Ragdoll Physics (Concept), World War II (Concept), Third-Person Perspective (Concept), Useable Vehicles (Concept), First-Person Perspective (Concept), A.I. Companion (Concept), Counter-Terrorist (Concept), Terrorist (Concept), Phong Shading (Concept), Polygonal 3D (Concept), Unreal Engine 3 (Concept), Artificial Intelligence (Concept), Top-Down Perspective (Concept), Advisor (Concept), Antlion (Concept), Barnacle (Concept), GoldSrc (Concept), Headcrab (Concept), The Combine (Concept), Vortigaunt (Concept), High Definition Graphics (Concept), CryEngine (Concept), Bot (Concept), A.I. Director (Concept), Source 2 (Concept), Interactive Environments (Concept), Player vs Player (Concept), Antlion Guard (Concept), Capture the Flag (Concept), Deathmatch (Concept), Developer Console (Concept), High Dynamic Range (Concept), In-Game Map Editor (Concept), Light Bloom (Concept), Mod Support (Concept), Player vs Environment (Concept), RenderWare (Concept), Source SDK (Concept), Sprays (Concept), Steam (Concept), Team Deathmatch (Concept), Unreal Engine 2 (Concept), User Created Mod (Concept), Dunia Engine (Concept), Source Mod (Concept), RPG Maker Engine (Concept)