HLX Development Might Have Hit a New Stage - HLX Files #15

So, for the context of any future

viewers, it needs to be stated that it

has been about 2 months since the last

episode of the HLX Files. Within that

time, a lot has happened in my personal

life, and I am also quite sick. So,

please excuse the difference in my

voice. Right as I was setting up the

microphone to record this video, a

backend update was pushed for Steam, and

sadly, it's Bradley caught this. This is

the code named Ibex controller, the

thing that we've been talking about for

years. Imagine a Steam Deck without a

screen, and that's a controller. This is

one of the things that will be released

alongside the Steam Frame, Valve's next

big VR headset. And the announcement of

that seems to be very close, like within

weeks. This doesn't mean they're going

to be announcing HLX, but when they

first announced and revealed the Valve

Index, they also announced that they

were working on a flagship VR title.

Now, HLX is not a VR title, so why would

they even bother mentioning? Well, most

likely due to whatever ends up happening

with HLX when it is out, it will be

taking advantage of some of the features

that the Steam Frame is being sold to

do, such as being able to play all of

your Steam library within a very large

virtual theater experience, complete

with depth added into the image, like if

it was a 3D television. That's all well

and good, but all of this has nothing to

do with what I was wanting to talk about

today. This literally, like minutes ago,

just hit the internet. So, that's very

exciting. But let's move on to what

we're supposed to talk about.

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learning for free. For this video, we're

going to go back and forth between good

news and hoax. On destructible hit group

damage level changed, a string that at

one point read on destructible part

damage level change. Damage parts are

now being called damage hit groups. This

has to do with the damage type that a

model is receiving, reacting to that

damage type and dynamically deforming or

destructing in a way that reacts to it

realistically. This is also most likely

associated with the critical damage

percentage, the percent chance of

dealing critical damage, which destroys

the damage level regardless of damage

pass through type, as well as headshot

damage being seen as a damage type.

unrelated to how Counterstrike 2 deals

with hit groups and head shot. HLX will

have headsh shot and damage groups will

have to do with the different parts of

the model. Unlike CS2 where damage

groups are pretty much always on a

bipeedal humanoid model, you're always

facing against a person, hit groups in

HLX need to be more dynamic. They need

to be allocated to many different forms

of models and the system needs to be

more robust than just the types of hit

groups that are expected when you're

only facing humanoid enemies. Obviously,

HLX has humanoid enemies, but it will

also have Zen gorillas. Is it is it a

gorilla? No, it's like a tentacle beast,

but it Zen gorillas. The Game Awards

Twitter account has been tweeting,

"What's your dream game sequel

announcement?" And what's your dream

world premiere at the Game Awards this

year on December 11th? The top responses

in both. Exactly what you think. Are

they baiting? Are they trying to like

get people excited or hint hint nudge

nudge towards the big thing happening?

No. Look, it's always possible that they

could show it at Jeff's thing. No.

Almost certainly no. They're going to

announce the thing in a tweet. They're

just going to announce it themselves.

No. It won't be at the game awards. Do

not get your hopes up for the game

awards. Re-entrant call to see resource

system block until manifest loaded while

already in frame update. Re-entrant call

to see resource system frame update.

These are resource cleanup strings. This

is an optimization pass function. This

is a late stage development function.

The specifics are not important. This is

for cleaning up resources. This is an

automated process added within the game

engine to clean up system resources.

Late game development stuff.

Interesting. Remember when this

happened? So on 4chan, somebody claims

to have a bunch of concept art for the

next Half-Life game. This is all AI

generated. It is fake. None of what is

here makes any sense if we were talking

about actual concept art for an

indevelopment project. You have to

remember concept art is not made to have

something pretty to look at. Concept art

is a functional part of development. It

is always made with some kind of task in

mind. For example, this hairstyle

variant sheet makes no sense. The

differences are so minute that there is

no reason to have these differences

listed right next to each other. This is

almost certainly a combination of

traceovers mixed with AI generated

nonsense. None of what's here makes any

sense to be art for HLX. Now, the idea

of old versions of the characters being

a look, people are claiming that this

lines up with things that have quote

unquote leaked over the years. And you

know me, I don't report on story

spoilers at all. But just know that's

just it. It's all But just

because something like this is fake,

just because hoaxes are occurring does

not reduce the chances of the game

crossing the finish line or prove that

the game never existed in the first

place. I'm seeing a lot of doomer type

behavior in the community anytime

something is seen as a hoax. Just

because the community is pulling hoaxes

doesn't mean that Valve has changed or

shifted in any capacity. They're two

different things. They don't affect each

other. Impulse wind speed when wind is

true. C per particle float input MC FL

windsp speed impulse wobble radius C per

particle float input MC FL wobble

impulse is wind boolean MC_B is radial

wind this is asynchronous particle

simulation this is not only computing

particles interfacing with the simulated

wind speed but it also allows that wind

speed to adjust how the particles

specifically react on a case-byase basis

when I say it's asynchronous that means

that the particles are allowed to be

simulated separately but still as a

group and those particles can then

affect each other as well as affect the

wind itself. Absorption is not something

we've discussed much about on this

channel because it's not super

interesting and also is something that

could easily confuse people watching.

part of the surface property system

which we have discussed at length. The

thing that allows different types of

materials to react to stimuli in

different ways such as wood and oil

reacting differently than metal and oil,

its flammability, how much it could

possibly hold based on its porous

nature, etc., etc. These are things that

the game will be simulating. However,

when you see absorption coefficients

within the code, we're not talking about

liquid or material absorption. We're

talking about sound absorption.

effectively the dampening nature that a

different type of material can have on

sound waves. What we're seeing here is a

further optimization step within the

simulation of sound waves and how it

interfaces with different parts of the

environment. Before separate surface

attributes had to be placed based on the

frequency of the audio spectrum. Meaning

if it's a high frequency, mid-range

frequency, or low frequency soundwave,

the simulation system would treat the

surface properties differently. All of

this has been refactored into a singular

thing. Sound absorption, sound

scattering, and sound transmission based

on the material properties that exist

within the world are all being

simulated, but they're being simulated

in a cleaner, cheaper, and more

optimized manner than what was seen

prior. Do you ever go to a science

museum as a kid? I'm sure they

demonstrated it. What's important here

is that absorption and transmission used

to have the different frequency band

ranges, and now it doesn't. It's been

refactored. It's much cleaner. Uh,

somebody on Reddit claimed to have met

Mike Shapyro, the voice of Barney

Calhoun and the Gman and all the Barney

and Halflife at some kind of convention.

They probably did, but then well, I'll

just read what they wrote. Quote, "To be

honest, he did say something to me when

I said I was a big fan and have all

games, books, and documentaries

watched." He said something like with a

smile, "Prepare for the Valve opening."

I asked him to explain, and he straight

up ignored and started asking personal

questions. I honestly don't know what he

could mean by it. Maybe some leaks or

maybe a new game. Yeah. Um, Mike didn't

say that. Mike didn't say that. Prepare

for the Valve opening. Do you have any

idea how many people ask me about this?

Mike didn't say that. Spills. Oh, I love

this one. C_OP

game liquid spill. C. Particle function

renderer. Liquid contents negative for

water, positive for oil, zero for none.

liquid contents field expiration time FL

expiration time attribute for

contribution amount particle field

scalar amount attribute. This is all

still surface property related and it

has to do with spilling liquids. How do

those spilled liquids react to the

environment and how long do they stay

there? Again, this change is not so much

a simulation step as it is an

optimization step. Specifically, M_FL

expiration time is quite

self-explanatory. If you spill a bunch

of liquid on the ground, how long does

the game have to render and simulate it

there before despawning it? That's an

optimization step. Liquid contents field

is obvious. It's just stating is it an

oil or is it water or is it nothing? And

then amount attribute. How much is

there? How much liquid? Is it a gallon?

Is it a swimming pool? Is it an

eyropper? Liquid simulation is a really,

really big deal in this. The more we do

these episodes, the more I'm realizing

that there's going to be some weird

physics puzzles. Come to oil and water

and wood and metal and fire. It's going

to be weird and probably really

entertaining the first two times, but

then something that you want to skip the

next few times you play. It's like the

seessaw puzzle, but for a new

generation. Another thing that happened

a few days ago is Steam DB identified a

change list number for Halflife 2. What

is a change list number? It means that

something updated on the back end and

Steam DB identified it and people

thought this had something to do with

HLX. So changeless numbers can happen

literally for the smallest of reasons.

This doesn't even mean that something is

happening for HalfLife 2. It just means

that something as small as a tag on the

Steam store updated. Now, according to

Steam DB, an unknown app ID was also

associated with this. As it turns out,

this specific change list ID has to do

with the fact that a mod updated on

Steam and the mod required HalfLife 2.

Again, everybody is so doom and gloom

when it comes to anything being

debunked. It's just normal daily Steam

stuff that has happened for the last 20

years. It's fine. The game is still in

development. Trust me, if anything

negative were to have been told to me, I

would tell it to you. There's literally

like it's fine, guys. Hit groups,

damage, kill, and trigger flags that

change the behavior on death.

Destruction death behavior is a new flag

that was found within the latest

Counter-Strike update and has nothing to

do with Counterstrike. On death, what

should the destructive behavior of a

model be? do not kill, kill, gib, or

remove. This once again is an

optimization thing. The difference

between something like Counter-Strike 2

and something like what HLX is trying to

do here is in Counter-Strike 2, when you

have a headsh shot, it kills. It's a

multiplier, that's it. You'll rag doll,

that's it. What this is is effectively

destructible demons from Doom, but it

also has extra functionality in terms of

how it can be scripted out where the

damage itself can be seen as a trigger

to have other things occur within the

map. It's the ability to be able to not

only shoot off parts of the model of the

enemy that you're fighting, but it also

means you can do that after a kill. Does

that make sense? Not only will it be a

reactive fight that has a very

destructible demon's behavior, but after

the enemy is defeated, further damage

from other fighting with other enemies

can react with the models that are

already seen as dead. And that just adds

more immersion to the fight itself. And

then of course, you can also just do

things after the fact just to like

experiment with the system. It's just

for added realism. But the refactoring

that you're seeing here is not an

introduction of these functions.

Evidence of these functions has existed

for like 2 years. This once again is a

tool cleanup. This is taking something

that has already existed and making it

more usable not only to the end user but

also making it refactored cleaner but

then indicates whether to keep any

loaded ammo in the weapon on reload.

MC_B keep loaded ammo debug destructible

parts radius damage. Will the destroying

of certain parts on a model also cause

like splash damage in a radius around

the model? And then science assets. You

see this tiny tiny little little icon?

Yeah, this was new. This was added in

the Counter-Strike update. Science

assets. Okay, so this is a new icon that

is specifically for the tools that Valve

uses to denote a group of assets,

specifically assets marked science.

Completely unknown what that means.

People have tried to read into this into

saying like, "Oh, is Portal 3 in

development now?" No, that's not what

this is. No, that's No, sorry. No,

science assets is very interesting. What

I think happened here is this is an

older asset that somehow snuck its way

into the latest Counter-Strike update.

Because if this thing, this new icon to

be able to denote a new group of assets

within the tools, was created at around

the same time the latest Counter-Strike

update came out, which was on October

15th, then that means we are not asset

locked. That means we're still at a

point in this game development where

we're still creating a whole bunch of

new stuff and we're not actually as

close to the finish line as we

originally thought. Um, that doesn't

seem to be the case. Here's the big fun

part of the video that people are going

to spoil. I want people to be able to

take this with a grain of salt. When

dealing with anything that's not backed

up by a string leak or something that

was found in a data mine or a genuine

leak, which rarely happens anymore, when

you're just dealing with hearsay, people

talking, even if you want to quantify it

as like a verified source or anything

along those lines, you still need to

take it with a grain of salt. So, before

I say anything, I just want everybody to

like nod in agreement at their computer

screens or their phones and just think,

look, this is hearsay. It's a rumor. I

don't think that the science asset icon

represents a different outlook on the

timeline of production because

everything we've seen aside from this

one icon points to the game being at the

point where they're just polishing,

optimizing, refactoring, getting it

ready to be playable and push it to the

level that people kind of expect

Halflife 3 to be at. completely

unrelated, but Tears of the Kingdom was

finished for a year before it came out

so that Nintendo could, you know, polish

it and bug test it and optimize it and

much as much as possible. For a game

like HalfLife 3, I could imagine Valve

taking multiple years to do something

like that. However, the current rumor

that's going around is that work on the

trailer is occurring. When Valve works

on a trailer, it's not the same as when

a publiclyowned AAA studio makes a

trailer. When a trailer is being made,

it's being announced sometimes over a

year before launch. Valve is not doing

that. You are going to have the

announcement and the launch be very

close together, very similar to how

Halflife Alex handled it. They're not

going to be having you wait a really

long time. When making trailers for

games that are still a ways away, you

have to effectively fake what you're

showing off and push very specific

scripted content to the finish line much

earlier than if it were to just be done

for the game so that you have something

shippable and showable to the public eye

for the trailer. When Valve makes a

trailer, they're going to do it very

similarly to how they did HalfLife Alex,

where they effectively just kind of

started work on the trailer about two

months before the trailer came out and

then the trailer came out. The current

rumor is that the trailer is being

worked on. I don't think the science

asset icon actually represents the game

not being in a optimization refactoring

stage and instead probably just slipped

in and has been a thing for a while.

Either that or it's for a project that

has nothing to do with HLX and it seems

as if trailer work is occurring. The

Steam Frame is definitely getting

announced soon. Valve has a coffee table

book that they announced last year as

being shipped this year, the reprint of

raising the bar with the new chapters

added in relation, you know, that have

to do with the episodes. But they're

definitely going to want to try and sell

that book at the same time that

everybody is freaking out about a new

Half-Life game being made. I don't want

to like put words in anybody's mouth or,

you know, hype somebody up for something

that might not happen. Let's tentatively

get excited for November. Let's let's

mellow out. Let's let's be very chill

about a possible thing happening soon,

maybe. Who knows? Sorry I disappeared

for a while. I've been sick. Bad weird

life stuff has happened. And that's just

life, you know? That's how it goes.

Thank you for being patient with me.

Thank you for sticking with me. and

thank you for once again being a great

community and being super excited for

the most important uh video game release

of our lifetimes. So, so if you want to

support these videos, get your name in

the credits, get to watch them early,

check out my Patreon page, link down in

the description below. You want to just

hang out, talk, whatever. Discord invite

link is also down in the description

below. I'll talk to you all later. I'm

Tyler Mcer, the passionate gamer. Thank

you so much for watching. Have a great

life. Adios.