Have we really got that far?

[MrH2o]

I (like most of you) was really impressed with the Portal video wich was released last week. I still think its hella cool but I started to wonder if it's really that revolutionary when seeing this

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7844987544204140976&q=prey+1998

That vid is from 1998 wich is 8 years ago! I know portal have some nifty effects like FOW and physics and stuff but is that really 8 years work?. I've also seen a vid of some Lionhead engine showing an apple who got bigger when it was throwing into a certain portal and smaller when it was throwing back.

This is not any critism to valve in any form, I just think its funny that it took 8 years for gameindustry to make portals again.

[FrieChamp]

Who said Valve worked on portal for 8 years?

[Hourences]

I think he only meant that we now regard portals as a revolution and a cool feature while 8 years ago there were plenty of similar things and that thus the so called evolution we went trough isnt big at all.

Unreal 1 had portals too. Unreal 1 had mirror floors and surfaces that could reflect the entire level. Most features that we got today already exists years ago in one way or another but you just can use more of them and better looking ones nowadays. I guess thats the only real evolution.

That I also goes for the gravity gun of HL2. You could have made one in Unreal 1 too, or HL1, it only works better with the current hardware power.

[Pericolos0]

duke nukem 3d had portals (sortfoff)

[Spellbinder]

Cool movie! But dint something called Prey just got released? Maybe it wasn't 3D Realms Prey.

[MrH2o]

Maybe I was alittle unclear, but I meant what Hourences said. I was most chocked that they had a gun that could do dynamic portals back then, I thought that was new. and Spell, The new game in Prey who was canned back in 1998 and now have been re-built with the help from 3d realms

[DelaZ]

It's not about the portals per se... It's about _HOW_ Valve integrates it into the game(play).

Just like every game out there can use physics... but only Valve managed to have a great interaction between player and physics by using the gravity gun.

[Polaris]

There were portals in Quake 1. But that doesnt matter. Portals have been around in sci-fi/fantasy since forevor. Like Delaz says its not that you use portals, its HOW you use them.

[Fletch]

Ideas are usually always way ahead of stable implmentation.

[Mazy]

Yeah, I remember seeing the Prey stuff a good while back and it obviously looked pretty solid there. Regarding Unreal's portals then I think its sort of out of context. What makes Prey's portals impressive isnt that they're portals, but that you see whats through the portal, you didnt do that in Unreal (Or anything before Prey afaik).

Anyway, from what I've gathered Prey had a really bumpy development altogether and it wouldn't surprise me that some of the problems where connected to the portal tech.

Also interesting in that movie is the things he's talking about with dynamic enviroments. You can pretty much spell physics in his words, which I guess wasn't anything new even back then, but still pretty interesting.

[ShaDoW]

I don't think those are real physics. It seems like smoke & mirrors really, scripted sequences. The guy made his little test map so obviously he knew where to shoot as he scripted a few brushes on train tracks like we've all seen in HL1 and such back in the days.

When he's going through the multiplayer map and the reporter asks about dynamically being able to shoot it all down like in that test map, all he could say was "Uh, sure, yeah sure! Look at how big these maps are as well!"...

Portals on the other hand isn't quite as advanced as real physics, but it was pretty impressive of them back in the days.

[MrH2o]

Mazy you'r wrong about the Unreal portals (atleast if this vid is correct)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJ5G_rtghA&search=Unreal%20portals

I found out that the team behind Portal also released a demo or whatever you wanna call it of something similar. I played it and I see alot of similarity and the way to "think portal"

test it yourself

http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/narbaculardrop.html

[Algor]

What makes Prey's portals impressive isnt that they're portals, but that you see whats through the portal, you didnt do that in Unreal (Or anything before Prey afaik).

What? Pretty sure you could do that in Unreal. I remember looking through them and plotting when to attack, and firing rockets through them, etc. Valve bought Nuclear Monkey Software (people from DigiPen school), who made Narbacular Drop, which in turn, Portal was born. (If I'm not mistaken)

http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/

Edit: Water beat me to it

The video originally posted is pretty cool, especially for the time. When he mentioned the specs being fairly high end, that seems to be quite a while ago.

[SnipaMasta]

I think the most awesome technology shown was LIGHTS. Something Prey lacked. That looks awesome though, I think they should have finished that version instead of the current prey they released - that looks like it would be a lot more fun.

By the way, Unreal (as shown in the video posted) does support portals. I'm not sure about them being rotated etc. but they can be applied on flat surfaces. At the end of the game (last level) there are two - the first is when you go into the room with the final boss and it's noticable because the sound of the Iris door closing cuts off, and the other is the walkway to the escape pod. As far as I know, they can be applied to any flat surface.

[Warby]

Mazy you'r wrong about the Unreal portals (atleast if this vid is correct)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJ5G_rtghA&search=Unreal%20portals

also ... wasnt there an official ut98 1on1 dm map where you could drop down infinitly long and allways still come across your enemy ?! i was allways wondering how they did that now i know