Siggraph 2000 Lighting

[homosapien1t]

Has anyone else noticed the Siggraph 2000 demo maps are darker (and grittier ) than the compiled maps we have now? I think it's most obvious in demo_arctic, in the video it's dusky, but the compiled map you can play looks like daytime. Why is that the case?

My best guess is during 2000 they still used some older GoldSource tools such as QRAD (which computes light differently than Source VRAD). If so, all maps made before VRAD (before ~2002?) should somehow be recompiled with QRAD to get the "intended" lighting.

If my guess was incorrect, I'd like to know.

[Shift]

While it's true that Valve were tweaking vrad all the time, and even 2003 one is different from 2004 one, keep in mind Siggraph demo was recorded onto a vhs and colors are heavily distorted.

[666Denis228]

In addition, the siggraph was most likely also processed using AI to improve the quality of the video.