Half-Life 3 Referenced in Render Code?

Half-Life 3 Referenced in Render Code?
Zachary Stieber
3/13/2014
Updated:
3/13/2014

Half-Life 3 is referenced in some code that was recently added to Source Filmmaker.

The game--about which practically nothing has been officially confirmed, including its development--was referenced in fragments of code that were added earlier this year, reported Valve Time.

“The fragments appear as placeholder text written in the Python programming language, and are used to provide examples of possible file locations used internally by Valve for the company’s render farms,” the report says. “Think of them as tool tips designed to help a user navigate various complex menus without getting confused. The three code fragments are available for your viewing pleasure below.

“Now, while it would be very easy to get hyped or overly excited for this kind of news, we should reiterate that this code does not actually function or relate to Half-Life 3 itself in any way, unlike code previously found relating to Source 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Since this code is designed as an example, it is highly unlikely that the reference to ”dog_fight“ is anything more than a simple call back to the Dog vs. Strider action set piece from Half-Life 2: Episode Two. What is interesting, however, is the notion that Valve are now officially referring to the project internally as part of other software development — in this case, the Source Filmmaker. Whether or not we will ever see any cutscenes or trailers for the game created within the Source Filmmaker is another question entirely.”

See the code below:

Line 390: “self.projFolder_lineEdit.setPlaceholderText(QtGui.QApplication.translate(”renderQ_MainWindow“, ”D:\\sfm\\staging\\game\\hl3_movies\\elements\\sessions\\dog_fight", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))”

Line 395: “self.output_lineEdit.setPlaceholderText(QtGui.QApplication.translate(”renderQ_MainWindow“, ”\\\\sfm1\\projects\\hl3_movies\\dog_fight\\renders\\", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))”

Line 399: “self.projName_lineEdit.setPlaceholderText(QtGui.QApplication.translate(”renderQ_MainWindow“, ”Dog_Fight“, None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))”

Bits and pieces about the game have been coming out for several years.

These have included Valve filing a trademark for Half-Life 3 in September 2013, but one week later removing the trademark, and refusing the comment. ValveTime reported that it may have been a hoax. 

Earlier in September, Valve’s Jira database, when momentarily made available to the public, showed that Valve was working on Half-Life 3, as well as Source 2 and Left 4 Dead 3.

A Reddit user said in August that he had gone on a tour of Valve headquarters and asked the tour guide about the game.

The response was: ”We only have elements. Bits and pieces of game. No structure. No story.”