HL2 simulation - how far does it go in certain areas.

[Sevv]

Ive been thinking about the HL2 physics. More importantly how the wood effects will effect the game. Now every single piece of wood we have seen at present in HL2 has been paper thin planks that, yes when shot break up as u would expect, in a very believable way.

However how would a tree trunk react, this is a very thick section of wood. In reality such a trunk would take a p90 some time to cut through it. So how do u think HL2's physics will handle this. Do you think we will be able to shoot out parts of the trunk, maybe shoot half way through it but leave the other half intact (chopping tiiimmbbeerr style ). If so you would imagine the tree could be completly destrucable.. shooting off branchs aswell.

So hows about this.. bad guy following you in city 17, tree on the side of the street. Get out a high fire rate weapon, cut through 80% of the tree trunk on a horizontal plain.. tree falls over. Ive emailed these questions to Gabe but with no reply as of yet. id imagine this is not the case and only thin wooden planks are destrucable like weve seen in the demos. But if my scenario is achievable.. fantastic.

In the source Dx9 demo, we see a room made out of wood, with wooded beams (quite thick) holding up the roof. Now could we get our p90 and shoot through the wooden support half way up, slicing it. Then again at a mid point and would we then have ourselves a nice chunk of the wooden beam ? However if u did this in theroy because a major supporting beam has gone, the intire room in the demo would collapse.

Im really very keep to see how far the wood simulation goes. If the ability to shoot part of a wooden trunk away and keep the rest intact is achieveable.. then in reality you could create a concret wall, give it a stronger wooden simulation and fire away, taking out pieces of the concrete wall, matrix lobby style.

Yes i know there has been threads touching on these issues, like trees and stone etc but amoungst all the delay / release date / valve hating threads I thought this would be a nice change and a good discussion. If the mods feel the need to close this, then please feel free. I do not want to cause any agro. Im posting this mainly beause I didnt get a reply from Gabe and wanted peoples opinions on the subject. It is interesting.

Take it easy

Sevv

 

[nw909]

The tree wouldn't have chunks taken out of it.

 

[ray_MAN]

Originally posted by nw909
The tree wouldn't have chunks taken out of it.

And why not?

 

[Joneleth]

If the tree was modelled and coded to be cut in half, then this would be possible... Trees and stuff won't just automtically be like that, though. Remember that Valve specifically made the zombies so that they could be cut in half. They wouldn't be that way otherwise.

 

[PvtRyan]

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're expecting too much of wood simulation. Source can't self calculate how wood needs to break, the modeler has to model it into the plank.
Although I'm doubting myself right now if Source can't make wooden planks break at the right point, but I'm a 100% sure it can't do something like you said without additional software and pre made models.

 

[nw909]

Originally posted by PvtRyan
I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're expecting too much of wood simulation. Source can't self calculate how wood needs to break, the modeler has to model it into the plank.
Altough I'm doubting myself right now if Source can't make wooden planks break at the right point, but I'm a 100% sure it can't do something like you said without additional software and pre made models.

You could take a ton of time and model like 30 breakpoints on a plank and have it look fairly realistic.

 

[Sevv]

Something just came to mind.. the Underworld trailer was on tv

Walking along a wooden floor, get a gun out, shoot the wooden floor in a circle. Then the circle would be detached from the rest of the floor and fall downwards with you on it.

Just like the film cool or what!

Sevv

 

[InsertNameHere]

The only destructible things are what are programmed to be destructible. They take up more memory, and with the large number of trees in Eastern Europe, odds are that they don't come apart.

Eventually we will have a true-to-life physics system. Someday, we will be able to boil the entire world down into one equation that will connect everything. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe in a thousand. Until then, physics engines can never be simulations.

I was also thinking about how computers render things today: polygons. In real life, everything is made up by particles build onto other particles. I truly think that we will eventually give up polys and everything in a game world will really have actual substance, that is, they will be literally built from a standard particle (atom, molecule, etc in real life). Different particles will have different properties, just like elements and compounds, and it will completely eliminate scripted events. Need sparks? Make that drum out of steel and that wall out of limestone. Of course, the sheer amount of engine programming will likely take 25+ years.

 

[Sevv]

PvtRyan I am sure you are correct, im not expecting anything really. Im just wondering what it is and what it is not capable off.

Sevv

 

[STAFFp18]

Red Faction was able to make all its environment destructible, I can see Half-Life 2 having something similar, only 10x better.

 

[SLH]

Originally posted by STAFFp18
Red Faction was able to make all its environment destructible, I can see Half-Life 2 having something similar, only 10x better.

They are NOT having geo-mod capabilities. Anything you want destroyed will be destroyed in a set way. i.e. no tunneling through walls.

 

[InsaneFool]

I remember way back during E3 that Valve said something about all wood (that is anything with a wood texture) could be burned and broken.

 

[Gage]

What's possible in the amount of time for the game to be released is limited - What someone making a mod can do is a totally different matter.

Like what was stated in one of Gabe's FAQ: The gravity gun wouldn't be able to lift creatures, but it could be changed to in a mod.

 

[InsertNameHere]

I thought I heard them mention terrain deformation in the GameSpy video....maybe they only meant it could be scripted to do so.

 

[Guest]

Actually a valve interview siad the way the zombies are cut in half with the blade thing in the traptown video was by building the model to split in half.

So if you can do that then you can model a tree to do the same.

Yes and 'valve' said if you built a house/village all out of wood (western anyone) the whole buildings could be destroyed.

 

[InsertNameHere]

I emailed Gabe asking him that same thing earlier. I wanted to know if destructible models such as the zombies have some sort of flag that tells what can and cannot deform the model.

I'll tell you if he replies.

 

[DaveKap]

The game uses the Havok 2 physics engine, a game I play uses Havok 1, and guess what, the only real differences between the two is ragdoll and better algorithms, so I know what I'm talking about when I tell you this:

No, the tree does not break that way, not unless you specifically code it to. No, I highly doubt that the wooden building in the tech demo will let you destroy the plank supporting it, not unless it was coded to.
HOWEVER, I was also thinking about Red Faction when I read this thread and I truly do wonder what it would be like if HL2 physics were mixed with RF geo-mod. That would really be the edge of insanity as far as realism/physics are concerned, and wouldn't doubt if this is the sort of thing we saw in Half-Life 3.

Oh, and if I'm wrong about the tree and the building with the support, then Valve are geniuses, or Havok 2 is a lot more specialer than I once believed.

 

[InsertNameHere]

Care to mention what game that would be?

 

[Guest]

Havok has too do with the movement/physics, that does not mean havok is responsible for destruction.

Valve have said destruction is material based.

 

[InsertNameHere]

Its coded to be destroyable because the texture is wood, and its given wood properties.

 

[Guest]

exactly, that does not mean havok is responsible or linked to the material destruction.

 

[Ender01]

What game was it that used Havok 1?

 

[InsertNameHere]

That's what I want to know. Dave, what game?

 

[TrueWeltall]

Cut thru a tree with a p90? What are you smoking? (Video game weed perhaps?)

 

[Direwolf]

The thing with Geo-mod as it exists now is that only works on homogenous materials like dirt and rocks and stone walls. If you shoot at a roof, geomod would just make an impression in it, and it would look really cheesy. The tech just isn't to the level yet where it wouldn't break the immersion.

 

[DannoHung]

Although no one can tell you utnil we've got a crack at the SDK, I can at least IMAGINE a way to program (maybe a more accurate word would be build) a tree that is destructable in parts. However it would largely depend on, like the other guys have said, of making areas that are already set to break.

However, if the deformation maps are dynamic enough, you could probablly do a whole lot more.

 

[harhar]

half life 3 will prob have realistic water and real life physics and the aliens will crawl out of the monitor and you will be holding a real crowbar instead of that puny little mouse whenever you play HL3.

 

[InsertNameHere]

A P90 is 5.7mm, and would easily penetrate a tree.

 

[TrueWeltall]

Probably a small tree, no way is it going to cut down a tree (avg oak) at its trunk.

 

[Aknot]

Back to the original thought process. It has to all be coded as such. Meaning, making Gordan able to fell a large oak tree with his crowbar the tree would ahve to be "told" to splinter and break when "X" amount of damage is done in "X" amount of spot. Meaning if he hit it 100 times in 100 different spots the mighty oak would not topple, but hit that same tree 100 times in the same place and away it goes. or I could be smoking video weed also.

 

[InsertNameHere]

I think its standardized damage. IE, the 'health' is determined by the volume of the particular texture (substance). More wood is more difficult to burn/splinter. Maybe there are even different types of wood.

 

[Seikeden]

It's like 1000 times easier to model a breakable tree atm then it is to have it modeled realistically .

e.g. Standard HD Tree: Model of about 500-2000 polys, not counting leaves. 5 minutes to an hours work.

Take that, and subdivide small parts of the tree trunk, with internal surfaces, turn them into entities, code them to break off when shot, and give the tree an overall health or something, +A "falling over" animation.

Result: twice or three times the polys, craploads more cpu time, and at least a couple of hours work. :/

Can it be done? yeah.
Is it worth doing? Unless you are making a treecutting mod, probably not

 

[ParaBellum]

Most of it is scripted

 

[Mr Neutron]

If you want proof of the set break points on the materials, look at the pachinko room fromt the e3 vid: when the wooden planks are shot, two different ones break with the exact same jagged lines.

 

[Typhon]

OK.

Giving something a wood texture means it gets certain wood attributes, like:
-Sounds like wood when you hit/shoot it.
-Has elasticity (things bounce off it) like wood.
-DOES NOT BREAK LIKE WOOD

Breaking has to be modelled separately. The tree scheme could be done, but it would have to be specially done. No reason not to except a lot! more work.

 

[Sporky]

Yes, we're a few years off modelling these things perfectly. Although technically there is a great range of software that will tell you how a bit of steel or something will deform when enough presure is put on it it tends to be a specialised sort of program for engineering buildings etc (which I do).

From that standpoint and as a mapper I'm quite interested to discover whether or not it will be possible to stick a huge brck structure on the end of a flimsy bit of wood in a highly unrealistic way and as such model something that couldn't exist fabricated from those materials in the real world (because of centre of gravity/relative mass etc). I suspect it still will be to be honest. And why not?

Like Tim Willits once said 'creating normal halls and stuff just isn't as much fun as creating a spikey organic pillar thing or something else that's a little weird..'

 

[smilez]

If a tree falls in the game world and no one is there to see it, will it still make a sound ?

 

[Sporky]

Originally posted by smilez
If a tree falls in the game world and no one is there to see it, will it still make a sound ?

No. It won't even be rendered.

 

[MrD]

Originally posted by InsertNameHere
Someday, we will be able to boil the entire world down into one equation that will connect everything. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe in a thousand.

As much as I would like this, I don't think it is actually possible.

For example, if I write a simulator on my computer to simulate my computer, it's just not gonna work properly. If you are trying to simulate a system inside that same system you will lose something in the simulation overhead. My simulated version of my computer cannot run as fast as my original computer because of the overhead of running the simulation.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you cannot simulate the universe inside the universe.

Having said that, I guess if you could set asside enough of the original universe to run a simulation with, you could simulate a smaller portion of universe accurately?? A bit like running a 286 simulation on a pentium.. mmm, yeah cool I like it.

Lol! I just argued with myself.

 

[Seikeden]

yeah you could do it. first we need a unified theory though. right now you have to cover one eye while you look at one thing, then the other while you look over here..