Reddit person CrazyGiaky discovered some thing intriguing about the flickering lights in 50 percent-Daily life Alyx. When compared following to flickering lights in the initial Half-Daily life activity, the two appeared to sync up. It seemed like Valve was nonetheless making use of the very same bit of code to management these lights 22 years later. And which is precisely what’s heading on!
Modern movie video games are typically crafted on top rated of aged code and knowledge mainly because online games are really hard to make and occasionally if it ain’t broke, they do not repair it. So it’s not shocking that Valve is nonetheless employing code from 1998’s 50 percent-Daily life to regulate the flickering lights in 2020’s Fifty percent-Lifetime Alyx. What is truly astonishing is just how old this code is!
A further Reddit person, Lazermaniac, delivered a thorough clarification of what’s likely on with these flickering lights, detailing that lighting in Valve online games has not transformed considerably more than the previous two many years.
“From what I can see, the effect is taken care of by assigning a string of letters that signifies the sequence of brightness modifications, with a staying fully darkish and z becoming entirely vibrant,” stated Lazermaniac. “The fluorescent flicker outcome is defined by the string “mmamammmmammamamaaamammma” [with] “m” getting the default brightness location without having any variations.”
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What is wild is that this flickering sample can be observed in not only Valve titles, but in Quake. That is since 50 %-Existence was constructed off a greatly modified version of the primary Quake engine. So it is really probably that prolonged and random string of Ms and As that controls when a mild must flicker was composed over 20 decades ago by John Carmack himself. And since Valve’s authentic 50 %-Everyday living 1 engine (Goldsrc) and later Supply, employed to energy all Valve because 50 percent-Everyday living 2, contain bits of aged Quake code nevertheless, these flickering lights sync up beautifully.”
“It kinda blows my thoughts to believe that one string of letters described lights outcomes in my favorite game titles for nearly 25 many years now,” said Lazermaniac on Reddit. And I have to concur with them. It’s a weird tiny point that I in no way recognized prior to, but now I’ll be staring at the flickering lights any time I play online games like Portal 2 or Fifty percent-Everyday living, thinking how a lot of more video games they’ll be about to greet me in.
H/T: 80LV
