Tag Archives: TeamFortress2

Valve is preparing ‘Team Fortress 2’ for eSports

Posted on by
Valve plans to kick off the first round of beta testing for Team Fortress 2's competitive matchmaking mode within the next week or so, the company writes in an update on the game's Competitive Beta Steam Group. In the coming weeks, Valve promises to...

Playing an actual game with Oculus Rift: hands-on with Valve’s Team Fortress 2 ‘VR Mode’

Posted on by

Playing an actual game with Oculus Rift handson with Valve's Team Fortress 2 'VR Mode'

Valve's free-to-play first-person shooter, Team Fortress 2, is getting Oculus Rift support with its VR Mode update in the coming weeks. Think of it as a large beta test -- Oculus Rift dev kits ship to Kickstarter backers and Team Fortress 2 players on PC can snag a free update, thus feeding Valve valuable feedback on how people play TF2 with VR. The only thing left to know is perhaps the most important: how does it play?

We found out just that on a recent visit to Valve's Bellevue, Wash., offices, where Valve programmer Joe Ludwig lead us through a hands-on demo of the game's VR Mode update, replete with a near-final build of the Oculus Rift dev kit (not quite the one shipping to backers, but far more advanced than the previous Oculus prototypes we've used). Follow us beyond the break for detailed impressions of playing an actual game (read: not just tech demos) with the Oculus Rift VR headset.

Gallery: Valve - Team Fortress 2 VR Mode and Joe Ludwig

Filed under: , , ,

Comments

Valve’s Joe Ludwig on the uncertain future of virtual reality and partnering with Oculus

Posted on by

Valve's Joe Ludwig on the uncertain future of virtual reality and partnering with Oculus

It's a beautiful late winter day in Bellevue, Wash. Instead of enjoying the outdoors, I'm sitting in a rectangular white room with three programmers, surrounded by three walls covered in augmented reality markers. Not that I'm complaining: Valve Software's Joe Ludwig, the programmer in the room who most resembles a member of Anthrax, is walking me through his company's latest work in the world of virtual reality. It's the first anyone outside of Valve will see of the company's VR efforts thus far.

As it turns out, the software company is working with Oculus VR to port the tremendously popular free-to-play first-person shooter, Team Fortress 2, to the upcoming Rift development kit. The free update, dubbed "VR Mode," is the latest benchmark in Valve's ongoing hardware initiative. "We think that both augmented and virtual reality are going to be a huge deal over the next several years," Ludwig tells us.

Gallery: Valve - Team Fortress 2 VR Mode and Joe Ludwig

Filed under: , , ,

Comments

Valve’s Team Fortress 2 is Oculus Rift’s first game, free ‘VR Mode’ update coming soon

Posted on by

Valve's Team Fortress 2 is Oculus Rift's first game, free 'VR Mode' update coming soon

We've known for some time now that Valve was working on virtual reality support for its perpetually updated free-to-play shooter, Team Fortress 2. The company's even giving a duo of talks at the upcoming Game Developer's Conference on the difficulties of game development for virtual reality. What we didn't know, however, is that said support is also headed to consumers as "VR Mode," and it'll get pushed to PC Team Fortress 2 players "sometime within the next couple of weeks." But how will you play it? Simple: Team Fortress 2 is the Oculus Rift's first official game.

Valve programmer Joe Ludwig revealed as much during a recent visit Engadget paid to the Bellevue, Wash.-based game company. "This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in," Ludwig said. Of course, "everybody" doesn't include Mac or Linux TF2 players just yet. "We don't have a Mac or Linux SDK from Oculus quite yet, but once we get those, we'll get it ported over to those other platforms," he explained. Oculus tells us those SDKs are coming. "The Oculus SDK will only support Windows at launch, but we plan to add support for OS X and Linux as quickly as possible. It's just a matter of time," Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell says.

We'll have more from our visit to Valve in the coming hours, so keep an eye out!

[Image credit: Michael Clinard]

Filed under: , , ,

Comments

Valve Source Filmmaker makes a movie out of any Source game, now you’re directing with Portals (video)

Posted on by

Valve Source Filmmaker makes a movie out of any Source game, now you're directing with Portals video

Creating machinima with a video game engine usually requires accepting one of two truths: either that it will require a lot of fudging or that it will have all the sophistication of playing with action figures. Valve Software isn't very happy with that dichotomy, which is why it's posting its very own movie-making tool, Source Filmmaker, as a public beta. Any game that runs on the Source engine, whether it's Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2 or another in the family, can have gameplay run-throughs edited and dissected right down to custom facial expressions. As Valve expounds in the video after the break, throwing a gaming-grade PC at the task gives directors the advantage of seeing exactly how any changes will look in the final scene; there's no rough wireframes or pre-rendering here. Budding Francis Ford Coppolas can sign up for an invitation to the Filmmaker beta at the project page. If you'd just like to see how far someone can go with the end results, we've also included the latest Team Fortress 2 character profile video, Meet the Pyro, after the jump.

Continue reading Valve Source Filmmaker makes a movie out of any Source game, now you're directing with Portals (video)

Valve Source Filmmaker makes a movie out of any Source game, now you're directing with Portals (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  sourceValve Software  | Email this | Comments