• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Valve's voice actor: HL3 not in dev for several reasons; insufficient Mo-Cap tech.

S

Saty

Member
This is from John Patrick Lowrie's website. He did voice-work for HL2, L4D2 and DOTA2.

http://lowrie.camelpress.com/?p=306#comment-15796

Sorry, I’m afraid that the opposite is true. HL3 is not being worked on at this time as far as I know.
Click to expand...

Right. As far as I know they are not developing HL3 now for several reasons, among them the mo-cap issue. Sorry for any confusion. What they might decide in the future depends on lots of different factors. I hope they do, personally, but it has to make sense for them.
Click to expand...

Here is the biggest challenge with bringing out HL3: the big thing now with FPSs is motion capture, or mo-cap. One of the great things about HL2 is that all of the characters that you meet actually look at you when they talk to you no matter where you go or stand. With mo-cap you can’t do that, at least not yet. Once you film the actor doing something and capture that motion, that’s what the character is going to do. This works great in movies, but when you make something interactive it gets way less interactive with mo-cap. So that’s one of the things they’re working on.

Still nothing definitive, but I hope this helps you understand at least one of the reasons why they haven’t brought out HL3 yet
Click to expand...
 
F

Frumix

Suffering From Success
Well that is stupid if true.
Should've made that Episode 3 to at least sorta put a period in the story if they were going to wait for so long.
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Its like Avatar where Gabe will wait a decade+ for the tech to catch up to Valve's vision.
 
B

border

Member
I always liked the explanation that Half Life 3 was not in development because nobody at Valve feels like making it, and they have such a loose management structure that nobody has to do anything they don't really feel like.
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
That is NOT the reason why it's not being developed.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Well, I'm sure this appears somewhere on the list but:

border said:
I always liked the explanation that Half Life 3 was not in development because nobody [or at least an insufficient number of people to get the project going anywhere] at Valve feels like making it, and they have such a loose management structure that nobody has to do anything they don't really feel like.
Click to expand...
This is almost assuredly the #1 reason.
 
S

SovanJedi

provides useful feedback
I thought they hand-animated their humans? Don't they have a handful of ex-Pixar staff working for them?

Also, when has Valve ever worried about having their work compared to other games? Their big thing is that they're such a unique snowflake they end up doing what they like, when they like, WHO they like.
 
H

HoosTrax

Member
I wonder if I'm the only one who read that in the Sniper's voice...

He's a voice actor -- I'm not sure how privy he would be to the development process. Don't they usually just call him in at the end to read his lines?
 
S

spuit*11

Banned
So a lack of animation skills is keeping them from making HL3? Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me.

If they don't know how to make an animation system compelling enough they should use those Steam dollars to build up animating and technical know-how until they DO know how to make one.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It's never going to get made anyway because Valve is a dedicated F2P community/microtransactions based software developer and digital storefront now.
 
S

Scoot2005

Banned
That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. I'm pretty sure mocap is incredibly advanced if developer videos are anything to go by.
 
P

Pai Pai Master

Banned
Nirolak said:
Well, I'm sure this appears somewhere on the list but:


This is almost assuredly the #1 reason.
Click to expand...

Yep, we've known for some time that that's how Valve works. You want to work on a project? Pull up your desk and get cracking with the rest of the team.

Half Life 3 could be in development if there were enough people who wanted to make it. As we've seen from Dota 2 and now, apparently, Left4Dead 3, there don't seem to be many people at Valve who want to make Half Life 3. And if they don't want to make it, I wouldn't want them to.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
More than likely, while participating in the recording process for one or more of the projects he worked on, he probably had a conversation with someone at Valve who discussed this mo-cap issue as a barrier to development in 2013, and either that person or this person blustered a little bit in terms of causally connecting it to the development of any particular game.
 
S

S1kkZ

Member
EatChildren said:
It's never going to get made anyway because Valve is a dedicated F2P community/microtransactions based software developer and digital storefront now.
Click to expand...

they will never make it for money reasons. there is just zero pressure. maybe when the new source engine is finished, they will finally get to work.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
How long will it take for Valve to just sort of forget how to even make a game like Half Life now? Its already been like 7 years and some pretty senior staff leaving.

I mean if they don't have good enough Mo-cap, its not like theyre rolling in fuckin money to buy the most ridiculously best variety available.
 
Emerson

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
EatChildren said:
It's never going to get made anyway because Valve is a dedicated F2P community/microtransactions based software developer and digital storefront now.
Click to expand...

If/when HL3 ever comes out I'm pretty certain it will be F2P. I'm not really convinced Valve ever releases a traditionally priced game again. Trying to figure out how that monetization works is probably another big reason why the game isn't in active development, among the others mentioned in the thread.
 
P

Pikma

Banned
Someone called me dumb last month for suggesting the game wasn't in dev'ment

Robot Pants said:
Obviously that's what she meant.
She wouldn't be so dumb as to insinuate that HL3 isn't in development when Gabe confirmed it (as indirect as it was) many months ago.
Click to expand...



Ha, Ha, I say
 
S

Saty

Member
Stumpokapow said:
More than likely, while participating in the recording process for one or more of the projects he worked on, he probably had a conversation with someone at Valve who discussed this mo-cap issue as a barrier to development in 2013, and either that person or this person blustered a little bit in terms of causally connecting it to the development of any particular game.
Click to expand...

More or less:

Well, I’m not sure how big it is for HL2 fans. They don’t tell me their business plans, this was just a conversation I had. Right now they’re pretty full up with all the games they already have out there that they continue to support, plus the Steam stuff that they do, so, I don’t want to get people’s hopes up. I have no idea what they’re planning for the future. But I did have that conversation with some Valve folks, so I thought you might like to know what they’re thinking about.
Click to expand...
 
S

Snowden's Secret

Banned
Nirolak said:
Well, I'm sure this appears somewhere on the list but:


This is almost assuredly the #1 reason.
Click to expand...

I actually think it's more likely that Valve is a service provider, and a big, cinematic single player game is the antithesis of that, so there's no value in it for them (I guess this is related to your reason, actually). How do you long-term monetize a traditional single player game?

Further down the list, I suspect that Valve knows that Half-Life 3 could never live up to expectations and certainly not "revolutionary" in the way HL2 was, which is also demotivating (again, plays into you reason).

So I guess I agree with you(?) lol
 
R

runningjoke

Member
They should figure out a way to make the mocap live, so the player and all the characters are actual people in a virtual environment.
 
H

Hero_of_the_Day

Member
Frumix said:
Well that is stupid if true.
Should've made that Episode 3 to at least sorta put a period in the story if they were going to wait for so long.
Click to expand...

It really is shitty of them that they never put out Episode 3. I'd imagine a good number of people wouldn't have wasted their time with the first two if they knew they were never getting the finale.
 
S

sirap

Member
What? No...this can't be the reason. There's no difference between mocap keys and hand animated keys...in the end you have to clean up the mocap data anyway (often times using it only as reference, you animate the character on top of it similar to tracing a character over live footage in 2d)

You can just easily delete all the keys for the head and have it remain in a blank state, or have the mocapped animation blend with the head aiming in game.

There are plenty of easy solutions for this :s
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Baldur's Gate 3 "feels so alive" because it used mo-cap and 248 actors to bring its characters to life
33
2K
semiconscious replied
To bestselling gaming franchises, what are voice actors worth?
5
988
Kdad replied
Starfield Devs Q&A Session
37
3K
Hendrick's replied
Wild Hearts Will Have Offline Play, No Microtransactions, Performance & Quality Mode Revealed & More
News
5
1K
Superkewl replied
  • Poll
Rate The Game Awards 2023
News 2 3
107
5K
Shakka43 replied
Top Bottom