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Portal 2 engine branch

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Improved shadow mapping in Portal 2.
Blob particles in Portal 2.

The Portal 2 engine branch Portal 2 engine branch was introduced with Portal 2 in 2011. It succeeded the Alien Swarm engine branch Alien Swarm engine branch and was superseded by the CS:GO engine branch CS:GO engine branch.

Note.pngNote:Counter-Strike: Global Offensive used to be on the branch that debuted with it, but as of Counter-Strike 2's official release, which upgraded the game to Source 2 with a different name, this makes Portal 2 as the latest Source 1 branch available that still receiving major updates, partly.
However CS:GO branch will be remain maintained with security and bug fixes for third-party games after support for CS:GO is discontinued in Jan 1, 2024.

Features

New since the Alien Swarm engine branch Alien Swarm engine branch is:

Improved shadow mapping
The entity env_projectedtexture is significantly improved. Compared to previous implementations, it has higher default resolution, better edge filtering and support for the caching of shadows from static objects.
Video playback on materials
Added support to render Bink Video in-game on surfaces, used for elevator screens in Portal 2.
Blob particles
A particle renderer that renders blobs of liquid, used for paint gel in Portal 2. A similar blob particles system are originally present in Source 2007 or Source 2009, but was disabled in code.
World portals
World portals that can seamlessly link together separate parts of the world. This feature is exclusive to this engine branch.
Sound operators
For defining complex audio behaviour.
Finished water debris flow
The base texture water flow feature from the Alien Swarm engine branch has been finished, with flowed normals now distorting color lookup and the flow map's alpha channel controlling color map opacity.

PS3 exclusive features

Official PS3 Support
PS3 is now officially supported by Valve. Unlike the PS3 port of The Orange Box The Orange Box, which was outsourced to Electronic Arts (EA), which ended up suffering from occasional frame drops and other technical issues as Valve had difficulties utilizing the SPEs cores on the PS3 at the time. The PS3 version of Portal 2 takes advantages of SPEs cores on the RSX processor, allowing for better performance. Of little use to modders, needless to say.
MLAA anti-aliasing
Post-processing effect used to reduce stair-step (aliasing) effect on geometry and transparent textures, while having less performance impact compared to MSAA.
Steam integration (Steamworks)
PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 Portal 2 features Steam integration. Achievements are synced with both PSN and Steam, and PS3 users were able to complete co-op levels with Steam friends. Steam services on PS3 have been shut down in 2016.
PlayStation Move support
Portal 2 on PS3 supports PlayStation Move motion controller.

Availability

A third-party, heavily modified version of this engine used for Titanfall & other games by Respawn Entertainment, called the Titanfall engine branch Titanfall engine branch, is also available, and it is used on the following games:

Source code for these branches is not available. However, authoring tools exist for custom content.

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