HL2 benchmark video / destructable buildings?

alehm

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I was watching the HL2 benchmark video and was noticing the room you were started in was pretty much constructed of wood, then thinking back to the tech demo how materials like wood, 'behave like wood and splinter like wood' I was wondering if HL2 will add the possibility of destroying buildings such as the one you started out in during the benchmark video. If so, just a couple of rockets would be able to collapse that roof on top of you.

:drool:
 
Then wasn't gabe talking out his arse in the tech video.

''if it looks like wood, it'll splinter like wood, sound like wood etc''
 
You can build buildings from "destructable" parts if you want to, but at expense of map performance. This is very similar to current HL1, you can do the same, but (of course) at much lower scale.
 
Yeah, just like the E3 movie in the scene where the strider pops out from some ruins and shot in pieces the upper lever of a building.

Things like that have to be programmed.

It would be veeeeeeeery nice and entertaining if, having the required amount of ammunition (say a million of tons...), you could tear down the whole City 17 with a rocket launcher. :D
 
Originally posted by Craftos
You can build buildings from "destructable" parts if you want to, but at expense of map performance. This is very similar to current HL1, you can do the same, but (of course) at much lower scale.
nuff said
 
Things like that have to be programmed.
we don't know for sure yet just how flexible Source is... for all we know, pre-made construction materials for the game could be added with ease into a map and automatically destructable depending on what the editor decided how to make it break
 
yeah but we're referring to wood, not bricks and stuff which we know we won't be able to destroy unless it's scripted.
 
Yeah, wood has to have pre-set break points set by the modeller, people just don't listen.
 
Originally posted by Animal
yeah but we're referring to wood, not bricks and stuff which we know we won't be able to destroy unless it's scripted.
that's kinda what I meant... how do we know you can't just make it a destructable entity and automatically be modeled by a modder at Valve before it ships just to make it easier? maybe that's wishful thinking...
 
I'm just a little dissappointed, i was expecting wood to be universally destructable.;(
 
Originally posted by Animal
I'm just a little dissappointed, i was expecting wood to be universally destructable.;(
just think of the modding possibilities you can do... make your own destructable wood... a rocket could splinter it to a million pieces, and a 9mm just shatters it in certain areas... as many break points as you bother to put in afaik... maybe there's a limit?
 
Originally posted by PSX
just think of the modding possibilities you can do... make your own destructable wood... a rocket could splinter it to a million pieces, and a 9mm just shatters it in certain areas... as many break points as you bother to put in afaik... maybe there's a limit?

Break points could be a strain on your comp, shattering into a million peices would be a hefty slow.
 
Originally posted by nw909
Break points could be a strain on your comp, shattering into a million peices would be a hefty slow.
lol, I didn't mean that literally; but dozens of pieces is feasible; do as many break points that would make it realistic; say, half a dozen points on a 2x4 may not be enough, maybe double?
 
Originally posted by Ken5h1ro
Yeah, just like the E3 movie in the scene where the strider pops out from some ruins and shot in pieces the upper lever of a building.

Things like that have to be programmed.

It would be veeeeeeeery nice and entertaining if, having the required amount of ammunition (say a million of tons...), you could tear down the whole City 17 with a rocket launcher. :D

Well I am not wanting an entire destructable city. I am specifically talking about the benchmark video. Load it up and look at that room.. do you think that first room is destructable? Makes the demolition in me drool.....
 
notice how the windows in the strider vid all break the same way :( there are some hi-res screenshots of that, check them and see what i mean..
 
thats a video, not a benchmark....the benchmark still has to come. (tommorow supposdly)
 
For the 50th time: "The world is built out of materials, so if something looks like wood, it'll sound like wood, float like wood, break like wood and fragment like wood." That doesn't sound very scripted.
 
Exactly my point Crusader.

The opening room in the DX9 Benchmark video is a room made of wood
walls and wood beams. If you came into a room like that in the final game would you be able to blow up those wood beams with a rocket launcher and would the ceiling then collapse from no support?

I am not talking about Gordon getting into a bulldozer driving around town leveling everything. I am talking about one little room made of wood here.
 
Originally posted by alehm
Exactly my point Crusader.

The opening room in the DX9 Benchmark video is a room made of wood
walls and wood beams. If you came into a room like that in the final game would you be able to blow up those wood beams with a rocket launcher and would the ceiling then collapse from no support?

Well as it's wood, I don't see why not. Unless the mapper really didn't want you to break that.
In the Valve Info thread Gabe states you could make a fully destructable house made out of wood.

But in the end, no one knows for sure until we play the game :)
 
I thought it was completely dynamic too... I thought you would need an indusctructable material so the player doesnt blow up the whole map.

However shortly after Gabe or someone else from Valve in an email said there must be "break points" in materials in order for it to do that. The extent of how that works or how much work a mapper has to put into it is unknown. But completely dynamic physics with all those materials is a little beyond our current technology. Same thing with emulating water. Cool concepts, but it can't be done effectively yet. It's best to "fake it" and make it look good, rather than have it actually working like it does in real life for now.
 
If you people would bother to read the rest of what Valve has said....

The world is built out of materials, so if something looks like wood, it'll sound like wood, float like wood, break like wood and fragment like wood

This could very well refer to the SP game.
Or you could just be misunderstanding it.

It has been *confirmed* that ANY item can be set destructible or non-destructible and that in order for an item to break apart, break points MUST be set.

Of COURSE those properties could be saved in prefabs so that you don't have to add them in individually every time. (Note the comment about all the windows breaking the same way.)
 
notice how the wood breaks in the traptown vid when he crowbars it. exactly in the middle. and thats not how it would break if it would break like wood
 
Source still uses a BSP (binary space partition) map format as well as some lightmap (i.e. prerendered static lighting). If you had a destructible building it would have to be lit entirely dynamically which would more than likely slow the engine down somewhat.

I don't think it is possible to partition the map on the fly (it still needs to be done when you compile the map) which is some thing you would need to do to make everything destroyable.
 
Originally posted by MooCow

I don't think it is possible to partition the map on the fly (it still needs to be done when you compile the map) which is some thing you would need to do to make everything destroyable.

But no one is talking about making map fully destoryable. Thanks for the insight though.
 
In the Valve info thread someone asked if you could set it so that all terrain and environments had dynamic transformation, ex. destructable anything. He said a mod maker could most certainly do this,
 
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