Impossible things, and things that just shouldn't be...

[Raxxman]

another thing is the antlions go 'crazy' cause of vibrations, yet you can pick up a couple of planks of wood and slap them on the ground and they don't seem to mind

 

[Danimal]

Raxxman, next time slap them with the wood planks and they will mind

 

[Combine Hybrid]

It's strange when you throw things or go close at metrocop, he starts following you and try to smash you with a tazer, but they suddenly stops and goes back. Shouldn't they follow you untill you are dead?

 

[Pai-Mei]

It's strange when you throw things or go close at metrocop, he starts following you and try to smash you with a tazer, but they suddenly stops and goes back. Shouldn't they follow you untill you are dead?

I think that if you play cat-mouse long enough they just figure its not worth it.

Lets not forget that you can climb up a ladder backwards while firing a two handed weapon...

 

[Sid Burn]

It's strange when you throw things or go close at metrocop, he starts following you and try to smash you with a tazer, but they suddenly stops and goes back. Shouldn't they follow you untill you are dead?

Hmm... I think they are just trying to frighten you away... must be hard for them to kill their own... unless necessary. :smoking:

 

[ZoFreX]

I can run up a ladder whilst sniping someone AND using a flashlight.. go figure.

The shadows sometimes cast through each other, on my machine at least - example: strider shadows when you first meet them, hide in a tunnel or bunker and you can see the shadows.

DOUBLE BARRELLED PUMP ACTION SHOTGUN!
That one pisses off any army cadet within a 200ft radius I can tell you.

 

[rpgprog]

My friend there was no cheating. I never said I cheated.

I never said you cheated.

I find it hard to believe they made 2 different antlions.. can anyone whose played with the SDK tell us? It HAS to be a bug. Why else would they attack me when I'm holding the pheropods? It's a mistake in the programming somewhere. If they made 2 NPCs, that just means the bug is allowing the aggressive ones to catch up to you after you get the bug bait.

Why is it hard to believe? Thinking as a programmer, I think it is very smart. The two Antlions require completly different coding, and if you had to test which to use every cycle, when there are alot of Ant Lions, the game would run much slower.

And remember, the friendly Ant Lions do not attack you when you do not have the bugbait even out.

 

[NJspeed]

Thats fine but that still means the bug is not making agressive ones disappear after you get the pheropods or something. Since bugbait is supposed to make them follow me.. and meanwhile they attacked.. theres something wrong.

 

[ZoFreX]

Yeah, if you manage to get attacked by antlions while holding pheremones then it ruins the illusion beacuse it shouldn't happen - and so it shouldn't be allowed to happen. Personally I wouldn't have created two different creatures, how hard can this be:

antlion.cpp
If (PlayerHasBugBait)
{
// FRIENDLY AI
}
else
// HOSTILE AI
}

 

[ríomhaire]

I can run up a ladder whilst sniping someone AND using a flashlight.. go figure.

The flashlight is built into the suit.
Also the suit has a helmet for zooming and crab protection.

A strange thing is you can't use the crossbow scope unless you have a HEV suit.

 

[Combine Hybrid]

Lets not forget that you can climb up a ladder backwards while firing a two handed weapon...

I'm talking about the beginning of the game in trainstation, genius.

 

[Wilsonator]

Here's my lot.

Launching a saw blade at high velocity towards a zombie will cleave it in Half, even if you hit it's head/ legs.

Any ailment, from radiation poisoning to deadly toxins can be cured with medkits and morphine.

Weapons technology will not advance for the next ten years.

The field of robotics however, will pitch forward dramatically.

 

[Pai-Mei]

I'm talking about the beginning of the game in trainstation, genius.

Don't flatter yourself. I wasn't responding to you with that line, I was keeping up with the "unrealistic elements" theme of the whole thread.


Lets see... fuel barrels, gun grenades, hand grenades, and rockets all explode the same way.

Gordon NEVER needs a nap, nor ever needs to stop moving.

You can kill a soldier by shooting him in the hand repeatedly.

The Gravity gun will launch a full fuel barrel further than it will launch a loose tiny missle.

In fact, I seem to notice that the gravity gun has reverse what it should be! It launches small things (medkits, loose grenades) LESS far than it launches barrels and axels and stuff! I tried it on the bridge! Its not air resistance cuz the missle would have less than a fuel barrel...

 

[Jintor]

There is no toilets in Breen's office, or Eli's Lab, or Kleiner's lab. Or beds, and stuff.

What? It's unrealistic!

 

[theace55]

Maybe the grenades are the kind that attach to the barrel to be fired? Though there isn't an animation.

The small objects that don't go as far are less massive and don't seem to carry much momentum than the other objects. Try throwing a chunk of styrafoam. A physics genius would probably have a better explanation.

I noticed the crossbow bolts also seem to hit enemies if the aim is off slightly. maybe it was exagerated to make sniping easier

 

[Pai-Mei]

There is no toilets in Breen's office, or Eli's Lab, or Kleiner's lab. Or beds, and stuff.

I know you're being sarcastic, but actually, I can argue that. There are PLENTY of beds in Eli's Lab as you go down the elevator... in addition to a kitchen and a lot of other stuff. I'm willing to wager there's bathrooms there too.

As for Breen's office, that's only his office. I'm sure theres a bathroom abd a bedroom out the door and down the hall. How many offices do you know that have a built in comode?

And as for Dr. Kleiner's lab, I think its safe to say that he doesn't actually live in the Lab itself. Im sure outside of the openning drink machines hes got a nice little apartment and a comode.

Considering that there are mattresses, bed frames, comodes, water bottles, milk jugs, beer bottles, chinese food containers, watermelons kitchens, and washing machines all over the place in this game, I don't think that they forgot any of life's essentials. You even see Vortigaunts cooking and people laying on mattresses and having drinks in parts of the game.

 

[NJspeed]

I wish Valve would fix Black Mesa East so you could look around without cheats. You can see all the areas on the monitors in the room next to Eli, but it's not the same as being able to really walk around.

 

[Pai-Mei]

The small objects that don't go as far are less massive and don't seem to carry much momentum than the other objects. Try throwing a chunk of styrafoam. A physics genius would probably have a better explanation.

That's all due to air resistance. Nothing to do with mass... take the same styrofoam cup, wad it into a ball, (or better yet, a nerf dart) and then see how far it goes.

The only thing i can think of is that maybe the Gravity gun USES its own mass to accelerate the object. We have no idea how it works, really, so this is as good a concept as any.

 

[Sid Burn]

Hmm... yeah maybe ur right. there's no other explanation on how the G-gun can throw objects.

 

[kupocake]

Don't think anyone's pointed out the unrealistic passage of time in the game - for starters, it's triggered by you moving between areas, so you could stay in the same area for 24 hours and it'd still be daytime, but usually the whole 72 hour (probably less, but it's considered to be 3 seperate days) can be contained within an average 12 hour play session. It's kind of a shame, but at the same time it makes sense: Ravenholm would still be in the daytime, and would lose all its appeal.

 

[theace55]

I wasn't talking about a styrafoam cup, of course if you change the shape it will travel through the air differently, but what I meant earlier was like this: with a soda can, throw a full one, and throw an empty one(seal the hole, even). The light one will be slowed down faster as it goes through the air than the heavier one because it can't carry as much momentum as the heavy one even though they have the same shape.

 

[CREMATOR666]

The zombies being all male.

 

[FireCrack]

the gravity gun uses Zero Point energy to accelerate the object, hence it's real name.


The styrafoam cup thing has to do with air resistance wich will exert a continuous force in the oposite direction of movement with magnitude related to velocity as long as the cup is traveling

Becasue Force=Mass * Acceleration

aceleration = force/mass


in this case aceleration is actualy the deceleration of the cup, you can see from this last equation that as mass increases deceleation decreases.

 

[HadouKen24]

I doubt that the grav gun actually has a set force with which it fires. If it uses zero point energy, then it probably manipulates within a certain area the subatomic particles of an object. If the object is smaller than the area, then it isn't hit with as much force as a bigger object.

 

[Pai-Mei]

in this case aceleration is actualy the deceleration of the cup, you can see from this last equation that as mass increases deceleation decreases.

Yes... but while the main points are true its not as simple as that. You also have to take shape into account to account for the surface area.

"The light one will be slowed down faster as it goes through the air than the heavier one because it can't carry as much momentum as the heavy one even though they have the same shape.

This is true, and you are right. But you can shoot an empty barrel FURTHER than you can shoot a loose RPG round. Shooting the high-surface-area low-mass barrel would cause it to act like the soda can.

RPGs are EXTREMELY dense, as they are made of heavy metals (usually something like Tungsten) and have a LOT less surface area than barrels.

Plus, mattresses, which have an extremely high high surface area-to-mass ratio go just as far as boxes.

So............. whats up?

I think that valve tried to make an illusion of wind resistance by making larger objects go further. I.e. fuel barrels go further than a crate which goes further than a chinese food container. This all works and seems fine to the layman eye, but I think they never wrote in volume to the physics, only mass. And the higher the mass, the further it goes with the gravity gun.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Wooden fence still remains when shot with explosive barrel

Everything is too shiny with a DX9 card (even wallpaper)

I expect a responce from an NPC everytime I touch them (like in HL1) but I didn't

 

[rpgprog]

Yeah, if you manage to get attacked by antlions while holding pheremones then it ruins the illusion beacuse it shouldn't happen - and so it shouldn't be allowed to happen. Personally I wouldn't have created two different creatures, how hard can this be:

antlion.cpp
If (PlayerHasBugBait)
{
// FRIENDLY AI
}
else
// HOSTILE AI
}

Its not difficult, but just think, that test will be running multiple times per second per antlion. And it is possible to have lots and lots of antlions, which would mean lots and lots of unneccesarry processing.

 

[CreamOfetus]

also they didnt bother to model a speed loader for the .357...
valve is strangley lazy when it comes to weapon models. there actually is no excuse for this shit... the weapon design choices are just... stupid.

 

[sfc_hoot]

also they didnt bother to model a speed loader for the .357...
valve is strangley lazy when it comes to weapon models. there actually is no excuse for this shit... the weapon design choices are just... stupid.

The world .357 model sucks! Even the Blue Shift HD pack one is better. Here's a comparison:

The Blue Shift one has an actual trigger, while the HL2 one is just a texture. And look at the HL2 ones grip, it's sh*t. The Blue Shift one actually curves. Never thought I'd see a HL1-engine model look better than it's Source engine counterpart.

 

[SLH]

Its not difficult, but just think, that test will be running multiple times per second per antlion. And it is possible to have lots and lots of antlions, which would mean lots and lots of unneccesarry processing.

Anyone who's spawned and played around with NPCs (including antlions), or who's used hammer to place them knows about NPC relationships.

Basically you can set a particular (individual) NPC to be aggressive/passive etc. to another individual (in this case the player).


I guess what the map designers did was to have all antlions placed in levels before the player had the bigbait be aggressive, and all those after he got it, be passive.

The bug (haha!) came about because the NPCs that were in the level were set to aggressive, and aren't checking for the possesion of bugbait.


BTW. The number of condition statements (if's etc.) needed for this relationship system would be more than just one, and the code to actually render the game would absolutly dwarf one check for bugbait so really complaining about 1 if statement done per antlion is a little pointless.

Producing 2 identical antlions, the only difference being their repationship with the player would be more effecient, but it would be more efficient by so little that it's not worth doing it.

 

[rpgprog]

Anyone who's spawned and played around with NPCs (including antlions), or who's used hammer to place them knows about NPC relationships.

Basically you can set a particular (individual) NPC to be aggressive/passive etc. to another individual (in this case the player).


I guess what the map designers did was to have all antlions placed in levels before the player had the bigbait be aggressive, and all those after he got it, be passive.

The bug (haha!) came about because the NPCs that were in the level were set to aggressive, and aren't checking for the possesion of bugbait.


BTW. The number of condition statements (if's etc.) needed for this relationship system would be more than just one, and the code to actually render the game would absolutly dwarf one check for bugbait so really complaining about 1 if statement done per antlion is a little pointless.

Producing 2 identical antlions, the only difference being their repationship with the player would be more effecient, but it would be more efficient by so little that it's not worth doing it.

I have never played with Hammer because I don't have mapping skill, just coding.

True, the one statement is small, but when designing highly CPU intensive programs, it is better to get as efficent as possible.

Although, its not just adding one statement per Antlion; the check would be run, many times per second. I didn't want to have to do this, but I guess I have to. The Math behind this:

For arguments sake, it will do the check at say 24 fps.
Then when on the ground 3 Antlions pop up every 5 seconds you're on the sand.
And say you're on the ground for a really long time (30 seconds)
during that time 3*(30/5) = 18 Antlions are now running about.
Now say that it takes 2 seconds to kill each Antlion and no more are being spawned.
You try and figure it out: I did

Spoiler

So you have 24*18 checks for the first 2 seconds + 24*17 for the next to + ect. This relationship simplfies to the Sum of (48*(18-x)) for x = 0 to 17. This equal 8208.

As you can see, this is a lot of unnecessary calculations

 

[FireCrack]

Yes... but while the main points are true its not as simple as that. You also have to take shape into account to account for the surface area.
[/b]

It was a simplification for understaning purposes

This is true, and you are right. But you can shoot an empty barrel FURTHER than you can shoot a loose RPG round. Shooting the high-surface-area low-mass barrel would cause it to act like the soda can.

RPGs are EXTREMELY dense, as they are made of heavy metals (usually something like Tungsten) and have a LOT less surface area than barrels.

Plus, mattresses, which have an extremely high high surface area-to-mass ratio go just as far as boxes.

So............. whats up?

I think that valve tried to make an illusion of wind resistance by making larger objects go further. I.e. fuel barrels go further than a crate which goes further than a chinese food container. This all works and seems fine to the layman eye, but I think they never wrote in volume to the physics, only mass. And the higher the mass, the further it goes with the gravity gun.

Ah ok, yeah things here are quite screwy. Probably wouldve been better to just write in a general 'drag' value instead of volume to speed up calcs but whatever.


Matresses are quite heavy, but i agree they shouldnt go as far as crates.



Also, keep in mind that while a empty metal oil can is not super heavy, it is generaly heavy enough to conserve alot of it's momentum at high speed.



But yeah, loooks like valve did take a shortcut here, would require a peek at the code to actualy find out if this is the case or if drag/volume whatever is not being set for all the objects, wich sadly is often the case with matters like these.

 

[Sid Burn]

The world .357 model sucks! Even the Blue Shift HD pack one is better. Here's a comparison:

The Blue Shift one has an actual trigger, while the HL2 one is just a texture. And look at the HL2 ones grip, it's sh*t. The Blue Shift one actually curves. Never thought I'd see a HL1-engine model look better than it's Source engine counterpart.

Hmm... Valve is indeed lazy. or maybe they have no time to make the .357 magnum prettier due to release schedules.

 

[SLH]

As you can see, this is a lot of unnecessary calculations

Not a lot compared to other parts of the code.

I realise that it's more effecient to eliminate the if statement by having 2 antlions, but the system that valve have in place is far more versitile that that - even though this is many more if statements.

Just FYI an if statement (on most CPUs) takes the equivilent of 1 clock cycle if the CPU assumed correct (i.e. the CPU got the next instruction and the if statement was true, or it got the one after the if and the statement was false). It takes the equivilent of 2 if the CPU assumed incorrectly.
I say equivilent because all CPUs are piplined (with some using hyper threading, which complicates things further), so it's evaluating the if statement while it's getting the next statement, so it's not actually using one/two cycles, that's just the delay it causes.

Lets say the user has a 1.5ghz CPU. It doesn't take a genious to work out that 2*25 extra clock cycles per second is not a lot. You'd have to have loads of antlions before it was a significant number, and then it would be the GPU causing the slow down.

You could continually optimise and optimise, but at some point you've got to release the thing. As a game developer, i'd rather spend my time seeing if i could reduce the number of polygons to render by a few (for example), since that would have a much greater impact on game performance.

Also, maintaining duplicate code is a real pain.

 

[FireCrack]

Not to mention, you dont need to check 25 times/second. Once or twice a second should give the proper illusion in most cases

 

[SLH]

Not to mention, you dont need to check 25 times/second. Once or twice a second should give the proper illusion in most cases

True, but you'd need to check whether it was time to check in that case though.

 

[john121]

actually, gravity guns are a reality, of course, Valve wasn't supposed to tell me, so they'll come and kill me.. hold on, there's a knock at the door... *gunshot* oh crap... they found me!!

 

[FireCrack]

@SLH


Yeah, but the processor achitecture can do time very efficiently.


Either way, it's not a big drop in preformance.

 

[Tynan]

Gordon never eats, sleeps, talks, urinates, defiecates, drinks, gets tired, feels pain, or finds a weapon too heavy to carry.

 

[PvtRyan]

To clear up the antlion thingy: it's a setting in Hammer 'Ignore Bugbait yes/no'.