Videos from HL2 2000 -2002

[T-braze]

Today is a good day! Valve released the Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary update. Many bugs that appeared during the past updates has been fixed. Episodes are now merged with the main game.
But that's not the main thing.

Among other things, on the special update page you can find those very videos from the closed presentations of HL2 2000 and 2002!

Well, we waited, we hoped, and now we see!

GET YOUR FREE TVs!

E3 2002 demo:

And of course a two-hour documentary with numerous developer interviews and much more, not shown before, including concept art of the Episode Three:

[rottenalp]

We're eating good today yall

[Chromium]

Can I just say this is beyond insane. I dont thnk anyone ever expected to get Siggraph 2000

[Betapaul]

I wonder what the people in the radio intermissions are saying

[PikaCommando]

In my restless dreams, I see that demo. I had almost given up all hope of seeing it for real! Feels good to see the full thing at long last, even if the map itself with all scripts intact is unfortunately still in god knows where.

And it exceeded my wildest dreams! The vehicle/building destruction and facial animation still looks good today.



I remember there used to be people who believed that the pollution era never made it out of concept art, that the old c17 maps were designed with the unnaturally brightened skyboxes seen in the leak. Well, here's an early c17_04 with dark greenish-brown cloudy sky right in the SIGGRAPH 2000 demo. Feels nice to know I was right all along

[Gominho]

I find it impressive how in less than two years Valve already achieved physics, cubemap reflections, facial animations and displacements.

[e3_futcha]

Me too man. I've been studying HL2 for so long that these two videos were more about confirming my theories than learning new things  For example, The false belief that the oldest map still in retail was Ravenholm, more specifically d1_town_01. It was an interesting theory, based on the files we had, but I knew that it was actually Kleiner's Lab and now the SIGGRAPH 2000 demo proves it. Such an old plot idea, part of the early trek through City 17. And with the brushwork, textures and sound effects used in the oldest VMFs we have of the place it had to have been from early 2001 at most . Also, I had a feeling that the old c17_xx maps could be from 2000, or at least some of them despite the belief that almost no maps from that year were in the WC mappack, but I did not expect my favourite map, c17_04 to be that old. I think I love it even more now lol

Highlights for me are the E3 2002 gunship and of course the whole SIGGRAPH 2000 demo is a treat. These videos will also help to date the game assets and recreate period-accurate ones.

And check out that 2000 Strider, basically the same as retail. That thing is the living fossil of HL2

I am so happy. Let's all take a moment to appreciate how lucky we are to have the 2003 leak and these videos. Here's to 20 more years of HL2 and its development history! Truly the Game of all time.

[e3_futcha]

Almost a day later. Did anyone see the clip from the SIGGRAPH demo posted by Marc Laidlaw on his youtube channel? For some reason the quality there is better. Bummer that Valve did not upload that version on their channel. Of course, the proper way to release the video would have been to make it available to download, that way it doesn't get irreversibly altered by youtube's compression.

At least the files are out there. Hopefully Valve and Marc Laidlaw take good care of them, even if they won't be released.