Bullets

dat_monkey

dat_monkey

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The bullets in the HL2 videos have all those white streaks going across... they seem kinda fake looking. Are these just place holders or what? (please dont flame me, the game still looks insanely awesome, this is just a minor thing that im curious about)
 
They are tracer bullets, they indicate to the firer where abouts they are shooting
 
Murray_H said:
They are tracer bullets, they indicate to the firer where abouts they are shooting
Click to expand...
Arn't those generally only used at night?
 
Yep, plus it just makes it look cool too. :)
They were in HL1, and quite honestly, every FPS I can think of... Cept for those older games like Duke Nukem and stuff, those don't count. :)

You didn't notice those before? Or are you just saying they should be improved somehow? Cuz they are supposed to be there.
 
vegeta897 said:
Yep, plus it just makes it look cool too. :)
They were in HL1, and quite honestly, every FPS I can think of... Cept for those older games like Duke Nukem and stuff, those don't count. :)

You didn't notice those before? Or are you just saying they should be improved somehow? Cuz they are supposed to be there.
Click to expand...
I was just curious to whether they were supposed to be there or not, or if they would be changed
 
Anyone noticed that, in Coastline, you can actually see that the shots from the Gunship seem to be solid projectiles surrounded by tracer phosphor? I didn't, at first, and I thought that it was some sort of plasma...
 
I remember reading that the Bullets in HL2 are done the as in HL1. As in the bullets arent actually simulated/modelled, but a trace is drawn from the gun and a sprite shown. This way the bullet travels instanteously but doesnt have any physics attached. Things like Damage and hit animations are done by hard coding and not physics. (the only actual bullet in HL1 was the crossbow). However this might have changed, I'll have to look at the vids again.
 
I don't remember they saying anything about this, i'll go and email gabe.
 
MaxiKana said:
I don't remember they saying anything about this, i'll go and email gabe.
Click to expand...

The bullets are just hitscan (ie travel instantaneous) but they do apply forces on objects they hit. But they're not physically simulated objects, they don't have mass or velocity. So they're not affected by gravity.
Not a strange choice to not make all bullets real objects, since in a firefight hundres of them are fired and they can really slow the system down.
Doom 3 does use real objects as bullets, but then again, it won't have massive firefights.
 
I think I recall someone from VALVe saying, though, that bullet objects could be implemented (It'd just be a smaller, faster version of the crossbow bolt from HL1)...

From memory, the tricky thing about simulated bullets is detecting if they've hit or not, as they move so quickly...
 
Oh and BTW tracers are used all the time (you dont get different night / day clips, that would be a bugger to remember) but generally only 1 in 5 bullets is a tracer. Now go watch a clip of an AA gun firing and think about that :)
 
Tracers look a lot slower than normal bullets. Not just in games either.
 
maybe because you cant actually see the normal bullets?

the reason the tracers *look* slower is because your vision blends together the light over a certain distance/period of time, since it cannot actually pinpoint each individual instance. the light also "hangs" in the air for a bit, due to the speed at which the tracer moves and the time it takes for our brains to react to the differences between how fast the bullet is moving and how fast the light(not the light itself, but the blur of light that we see) from the tracer is moving.

when our brains calculate the differences between tracer, bullet, and( most important at this point) the SOUND of the bullet/tracer firing, the visual results we get from teh tracer light are slightly delayed from the sound we here. Since there is no visual delay in the regular rounds(ie: we cannot see them), it appears that the tracer is travelling more slowly.
 
tracer's look awesome in games, on this bullet being physically simulated idea what are the benefits of having them that lifelike? I would have thought that a combination of the system resources required and the unlikely chance of it making a difference would make it fairly useless.
 
Crusader said:
Hmmm I thought they looked sweet...
Click to expand...

me to, but i guess they might make it look a bit more spectacular :p
 
Valve did say in the info thread that giving bullets and stuf velocity is just to CPU intensive and that instant bullet travel is much easier and you can really tell the diffrence. But the guns like grenades launchers, rockets, adn the crossbow do have simulated travel, because you can actually see the bullets.

And the tracers look sweet, it adds to hte effect, if you didnt have them it wouldnt be realistic and, well thats all ive got.
 
It's also useful for you, as a player, since you can find out where an enemy is shooting from, or where an ally is shooting. This is different from real tracer rounds, because you'd not want people to know where you are firing from. It's intended to show the shooter where he's firing, rather than tell people where he's firing from.
 
You people are all really intelligent!!! I just think the tracers loo nice....and i didn't even knew they existed in real life :LOL:
 
...

One of the problems with real tracers over the years is that both sides can see it.
One of Murpheys laws is tracer works both ways.
Recently (i say recently, in actual fact in the last few years) a tracer bullet has been designed that only the person directly behind it can see it ie the one firing the gun its invisible to everyone else.

Before this thread started i never gave the bullet travel in halflife much thought except along the lines of 'shit, time to get into cover' whenever i saw it. Hang on tracer is ok in explanation for the aoutmatic rifles of the marines but what about the pistols of the barneys? :)
 
To be fair it looks awesome when Barney shoots, the tracers may not be realistic but they look awesome.
 
Bullets are for yankee cowards! A true master does not rely on machines to hurl small metal objects at his enemy from afar like a dog! A true master stands face to face with his enemy, AND THEN SHOVES HIS FIST THROUGH HIS ENEMY'S CHEST!
 
..........
Click to expand...

I see now that you are as defenseless as a child. It was really quite foolish of you to oppose me. Do you not know that I kill at will?
 
lmfao hahaha pai mei.. :rolling:

on topic, aren't tracers every 3rd bullet? hmm i've been wondering about it, i had HEARD they were every 3rd bullet, a friend of mine is in the marines, and was stationed in iraq for a while, and oddly, i never thought to ask him about tracers and night fighting and all that. heh :|
 
I wonder if tracers have particularly different penetration properties to normal bullets... are they solid blocks of flammable material, or normal bullets with something inside them?
 
LittleB said:
PaiMei... You need some valium.
Click to expand...

valium? something stronger, methinks... like... an opiate....

...heroin :x

and brian, they might be coated with something that burns from friction with the air... but i don't know, just a guess.
 
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