(HL2) Game physics starts to get real

[kirovman]

There's an article here on physics in computer games, including some stuff (not much) on Half-Life 2, just FYI and those who are interested.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530631.stm

Just thought it should be mentioned as it's on a major news source (BBC).

Not sure if this is the right forum, but hey, some of the article is on HL2, so that's good enough for my thinking.

 

[AfternoonLemon]

Hmm... well spotted. I can't believe they mentioned Doom 3 though, Half Life 2 has set the benchmark for physics engines. HL2, in terms of physics, can do everything seen in Doom 3 and beyond - they may aswell have mentioned Sonic The Hedgehog. They also should have included a picture of the GG launching a file cabinet at someone too!

 

[Solver]

No need to bash Doom3 on that one. Doom3 also has a very good physics engine - the main thing that sets HL2 apart is the sole number of objects in the game world that the physics are applied to (almost any), while in Doom3, those are only a few. Still, the physics that are in Doom3 also look quite similar to real physics, which is what matters for the purpose of the article.

 

[AfternoonLemon]

Doom 3 = overrated. It was good looking, but boring and unimaginative.

Half Life 2 = underrated. It is good looking, involving, groundbreaking and creative.

It's only my opinion, but I doubt anyone who's played both will disagree

 

[Ames]

HL2 is not at all underrated. It has received multiple awards from its peers and multiple magazines.

Millions of people have bought it. Most likely more than Doom 3.

 

[Foebane]

Hmm... well spotted. I can't believe they mentioned Doom 3 though, Half Life 2 has set the benchmark for physics engines. HL2, in terms of physics, can do everything seen in Doom 3 and beyond - they may aswell have mentioned Sonic The Hedgehog. They also should have included a picture of the GG launching a file cabinet at someone too!

Oh, STFU, AfternoonLemon! At least id Software CREATED THEIR OWN PHYSICS ENGINE, rather than RIPPING OFF FROM AN EXISTING ONE!

 

[MarcoPollo]

^^ Oh god, not you again, foebane. Go to your Halo forums..... Anyways I like D3, the engine coulda been better. And HL2 took an existing engine and made it better.

 

[Cole]

Foebane GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.
Yes they did use Havok, but they worked with the creators of Havok to produce a Havok with tons and tons of modified code. Not just a few tweaks, but TONS rewritten and modified..alot of that also went into Havok 2.

Yeah they rewrote so much very very little is the same.

They didn't just rip it, they used it as a base, and made a skyscrapper.

 

[MarcoPollo]

HA! Minerelwned! Those were the words I wanted to say but didn't know that I did.

 

[enthused]

Doom 3 = overrated. It was good looking, but boring and unimaginative.

Half Life 2 = underrated. It is good looking, involving, groundbreaking and creative.

It's only my opinion, but I doubt anyone who's played both will disagree

You forgot
Sonic the Hedgehog = hugely underrated

 

[AfternoonLemon]

Shens - despite it's inevitable success, I still believe HL2 is underrated. It is such a pioneering game, and has substantially raised the bar ( ) for videogame standards.
However, console gamers seem completely unaware as to why it is so good - but with the release of Doom 3 on the consoles they are well aware of that. It is always the same I suppose, and by the time they port HL2 to the consoles, other games will possibly have met the same standard.

 

[MarcoPollo]

You forgot
Sonic the Hedgehog = hugely underrated

ET for atari...EXTREMLY UNDERRATED!


shit Im late for an important date!

 

[Foebane]

^^ Oh god, not you again, foebane. Go to your Halo forums..... Anyways I like D3, the engine coulda been better. And HL2 took an existing engine and made it better.

Why mention Halo to me? I hate that even more than HL2!

 

[Cole]

And HL2 took an existing engine and made it better.

That was just the physics engine, which was massively modified.
The Gfx, Sound, and all the other stuff is valves own work.

 

[Top Secret]

While I'm not saying which game has the better physics engine, I DO think that some of you are seriously ignorant when it comes to the power of the Doom 3 physics engine.

 

[Cole]

I do think that when I seen a hammer, or whatever it was(memorys a bit lost) standing straight up with no support or anything that it just landed like that....well that it had some physics problems.

 

[AfternoonLemon]

Foebane - are you seriously suggesting that Doom 3 is better than Half Life 2 and Halo?? Lol, it isn't even better than Halo, but to suggest it's superior to HL2, well that's just plain :rolling: bonkers :rolling:

 

[KoreBolteR]

in the future every 'particle' of game maps will have 'physics'

 

[MarcoPollo]

OMG I INHALED asbestos! cough cough /dies

 

[Orion.Instrument]

While I'm not saying which game has the better physics engine, I DO think that some of you are seriously ignorant when it comes to the power of the Doom 3 physics engine.

He's right, everyone just knocks Doom 3 cause it's Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2, since this a Half-Life 2 forum, you get the point.

 

[Foebane]

Foebane - are you seriously suggesting that Doom 3 is better than Half Life 2 and Halo?? Lol, it isn't even better than Halo, but to suggest it's superior to HL2, well that's just plain :rolling: bonkers :rolling:

Doom 3 is superior to Half-Life 2, engine-wise. And I've always been one for the superior 3D engines in games and will not play any games using inferior ones.

That's the only reason I played Half-Life in the first place, because it had an id Engine.

Source sucks, basically.

I honestly hope this will not change your own personal opinion of Doom 3, but if it does - so be it, we have plenty of fans willing to take your single place.

[stupid infantile remark removed - sorry]

 

[Insano]

ID RULES! VALVE SUCKS!

You just ruined all your arguments, made above, by saying that.

Congratulations :thumbs:

 

[Beerdude26]

That guy still isn't banned? Seriously, I've only seen him make ONE constructive comment in the entire time he's been on this forum. And they forced him to make that one.

On-topic : Graphic-wise the engine of D3 wins over HL2, but physics-wise HL2 wins absolutely.

 

[MarcoPollo]

I didn't understand the above post...btw ur sig hurts meh eyes!

 

[JNightshade]

good lord...

Beerdude is absolutely correct on this. Doom 3 graphics ARE better, however HL2's are far more realistic (due to all the overdone normal mapping and whatnot in D3). And Doom 3's physics engine can't even touch source (in real life, when you punch straight down at a bottle of pills, does it come flying straight up at you? I thought not.) Oh, and yeah, Insane's completely right also. I'm no Valve fanboy (in my opinion, nothing will ever be as good as Ocarina of Time) but I can easily say that what little respect we have for your opinion just melted into the air, Doom 3-style.

 

[Foebane]

good lord...

And Doom 3's physics engine can't even touch source (in real life, when you punch straight down at a bottle of pills, does it come flying straight up at you? I thought not.)

Did I say Doom 3's physics were better than HL2's? NO. I too agree that D3's physics leave a lot to be desired. But at least id tried all by themselves.

My main problem with Valve is that they license almost everything from others, instead of developing all of it themselves. They seem to have no desire to create all their own code, they just heavily modify existing stuff. Look at Unreal. Amazing engine created from scratch, instead of using existing tech. Same goes for Build, the Duke Nukem 3D engine. These people didn't pinch off others, they sat down and made new and better tech they could fully call their own.

On the flipside, you could argue that licensing existing tech is cheaper than developing it yourself, and it saves time and reinventing the wheel so to speak, but which works out cheaper, I wonder?

Granted, I understand that Source's 3D engine was fully developed in-house by Valve - good for them - but they still licensed the Havok physics like they licenced the Quake 1 and 2 engines from id for HL1, even if they were hence heavily modified to fit Valve games.

That's all I want to say on the subject, and I retract that infantile "ID ROCKS! VALVE SUCKS!" nonsense I spouted earlier - I was drunk when I wrote that, and opinions and alcohol mix badly within me. I also want to apologise to everyone here for being such an ass.

Lastly, I didn't mean what I said about only liking HL because it used id code. I have still got the original HL disc I bought when it first came out, and it has given me many many hours of pleasure, not least with TFC and CS.

 

[Insano]

Did I say Doom 3's physics were better than HL2's? NO. I too agree that D3's physics leave a lot to be desired. But at least id tried all by themselves.

My main problem with Valve is that they license almost everything from others, instead of developing all of it themselves. They seem to have no desire to create all their own code, they just heavily modify existing stuff. Look at Unreal. Amazing engine created from scratch, instead of using existing tech. Same goes for Build, the Duke Nukem 3D engine. These people didn't pinch off others, they sat down and made new and better tech they could fully call their own.

You think that developers, who license their engines from other developers instead making one themselves, should stop doing so?

Well, tell that to Epic with their Unreal 3 engine. That engine was made to be sold.

Doom³ engine was also made just to work in one game with a lot of indoor locations (Doom³) and then to be sold for games with a lot of outdoor locations (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars).

 

[Jintor]

Did I say Doom 3's physics were better than HL2's? NO. I too agree that D3's physics leave a lot to be desired. But at least id tried all by themselves.

Huh? Wait, didn't you say this...?

Doom 3 is superior to Half-Life 2, engine-wise. And I've always been one for the superior 3D engines in games and will not play any games using inferior ones.

And since this is a thread about physics in games, not graphics, I assume you're talking about the PHYSICS engine. Watch wording next time.

 

[JNightshade]

eh... apology accepted. You seem much more lucid, now that you're sober... at least now I can take your opinion seriously.

 

[ríomhaire]

The gravity gun was one of the many factors that made Half-Life 2 fun to play despite its linear plot.

Yet another person you isn't paying enough attention

 

[WaryWolf]

Yet another person you isn't paying enough attention

come on, you can't say that the plot wasn't linear. there was only one ending!


now look at blade runner. multiple plotlines and and endings. that's a non-linear plot.

Half-Life 2's plot was like a movie. very linear, like a movie. sure, stuff like the physics and the weapons make it fun to play over again, but that doesn't mean the storyline's exactly the same each time.... :/

(note: i must say though, hl2 has a lot more plot than doom 3)

 

[thorvale the red]

It's fun watching you all cry about which game is better... but to get on the topic, good article.

 

[c-Row]

Doom 3 is superior to Half-Life 2, engine-wise. And I've always been one for the superior 3D engines in games and will not play any games using inferior ones.

You are sure to miss some really great games then...

 

[Varsity]

Game phsyics haven't taken off at all, technologically. Heck, we are still calculating it all in software!

 

[ríomhaire]

If a computer tryed to do a few drops of water it would crash!

 

[Iced_Eagle]

If a computer tryed to do a few drops of water it would crash!

Sorry I missed a few pages and not sure if this is like a joke or anything.

But the PS3 has liquid physics already as a tech demo. They took cups in the real world, and picked up water out of the bath tub and threw it to/from another cup, and some drops fell and such. It's quite impressive! I think it's somewhere around the 45 minute mark in the Sony press conference from this year's E3.

 

[ríomhaire]

But the PS3 has liquid physics already as a tech demo. They took cups in the real world, and picked up water out of the bath tub and threw it to/from another cup, and some drops fell and such. It's quite impressive! I think it's somewhere around the 45 minute mark in the Sony press conference from this year's E3.

Maybe the real PS3 won't be as impressive.

 

[Jandor]

I read in a paper or something that the PS3 is more powerfull than a PC.

I was upset...stupid human mind giving me illogical loyalties to the PC.

anyway, I don't think it is. Just look at the Unreal 3 Engine .

 

[Cypher19]

No need to bash Doom3 on that one. Doom3 also has a very good physics engine - the main thing that sets HL2 apart is the sole number of objects in the game world that the physics are applied to (almost any), while in Doom3, those are only a few. Still, the physics that are in Doom3 also look quite similar to real physics, which is what matters for the purpose of the article.

No they're not.

You might have to increase your brightness

*hahaha*

Anyone else just hear an anti-Doom3 fanboy laugh?


Edit: damn, size 1 font is bigger than I thought it'd be...

Oh, by the way, I recently posed a question in a chat room where more than a few pro game devs (including one of the Quake4 devs) and some hobbyist game devs head to: "How would you rate Doom3's physics engine based on a scale of 1-10, Karma (UT's engine) being 3, Havok being 6, Meqon being 9?"
First one corrected me: "You mean Karma being 5, Havok being 7, Meqon 9 and Novodex 10?"
Anyways, the answers were in the 2-4 range, with that one Q4 dev ranking it at 3 (according to him the force integration and ragdoll collision is absolutely awful, the former being demonstrated above.)

 

[[w0f]Oblivion]

moted


(char)