

Shading a Bigger, Better Sequel: Techniques in Left 4 Dead 2 [pdf] - danso
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/GDC10_ShaderTechniquesL4D2.pdf

======
bpierre
Valve publications:
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html)

~~~
BlackDeath3
People do a lot of pants-jizzing over Valve, but this is yet another reason
why they're awesome. I love when developers release material like this!

~~~
angersock
Insomniac has an utterly kickass set of publications as well:

[http://www.insomniacgames.com/category/research-
development/](http://www.insomniacgames.com/category/research-development/)

~~~
BlackDeath3
Thanks for the link!

------
jebblue
The graphics in L4D2 are great, the game runs very fast on Ubuntu, Valve has
done a great job. I hope more games keep coming to Ubuntu and Linux for Steam
overall. I tried the Source SDK recently and the sample builds and runs
successfully on Ubuntu. Now as far as game play, L4D2 and TF2 seem similar to
me, too Hollywood, I like more muted game play, similar to L4D which I tried
on Steam on Wine once. If that was on Linux now I'd buy that one and probably
play it more. Also more Minecraft like games where when a grenade goes off you
see damage to the walls, ground, etc. and you can build stuff, defenses,
machines, etc. that would be unreal.

~~~
actionscripted
L4D and L4D2 are so similar I'm not sure I understand how one is muted and the
other is too Hollywood. The only real differences between them are a few
changes to infected, melee weapons and some additional gameplay mechanics.

E: there's a really cool technical presentation here that goes through some of
the technical changes in L4D2 [1]

[1]:
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/GDC10_ShaderT...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/GDC10_ShaderTechniquesL4D2.pdf)

~~~
chc
Left 4 Dead 2 punishes you much harder for going slowly. The Spitter and
Charger were introduced for that express purpose, and a number of other
mechanics (like crescendos) were changed in that direction too. That's
probably what jebblue means by "muted" vs. "Hollywood" — the pacing.

~~~
jebblue
I could expound more but it might be seen as drivel. I'd say your example is
right on chc.

------
danso
This is from 2009/2010, and I came across it after re-playing L4D2 in the wake
of its one-day-giveaway by Valve. It's aimed at graphics devs but has a lot of
interesting insight about visual design and perception, procedural generation
techniques, and how to simplify in general.

The last few slides are pretty great, showing how they render the gaping
internal zombie wounds in a computationally efficient way. Some fun bullet
points: "Culling a torso as easy as culling an arm"..."1.5x as
expensive...156x the number of ways to die"

If you've ever played the game, the graphic touches are so well done you just
take it for granted. But it's interesting to see how important they were to
the developers, especially to serve as visual feedback to emphasize the power
of certain weapons. That's not an option for most realistic shooters, or at
least it seems the ratings board is more approving of gibbing zombies than
human baddies.

