Image Based Rendering - in or out?

[Quotidius]

It is mentioned several times in the preview (and implied quite decidedly by everyone associated with the project) that there'll be quite a few zombies in dire need of vanquishin' - many of them in direct view (I'm positive I read somewhere in the preview, or possibly in the forums, that it's been said that as many as 40 zombies may be visible at one time).
Now, the Source Engine, blessed thrice be its optimized architecture, is pretty good at handling crowds - but 40? Liek, z0mg.

As I doubt we've been lied to, it's obvious that the engine has undergone some relatively major changes. My guess is that IBR, or Image Based Rendering, has finally made it into the engine (it was originally intended to be included with the original HL2)

[For those of you interested in IBR, check out URL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Engine#Image-Based_Rendering)

Can Squerl/Frogpus confirm/debunk this?

[squerl]

Sorry, we didn't hear anything about that.

[bigD]

I too am curious what will be in this build of the engine.

It's interesting you read 40 somewhere, as that number makes a lot of sense. In another thread, I mentioned that when mapping for Land of The Dead, 20-30 is the magic number before things start to crawl. This can be somewhat alleviated by playing online and having a server share some of the number crunching however. 40 seems like a good number for single and multi-core support in a server/client situation.

Not only does Left 4 Dead interest me because it's a multi-player zombie shooter, but because it's neat to see how TRS addresses all the issues that we modders face(d) with LOTD.