Not nitpicking to nitpick. Just curious.

[Raziaar]

Hello... the topic is the disclaimer, so please don't flame me ;(


Anyways... I was watching the tunnels movie, with the flying chopper things. When Gordon first sees the first chopper, it hits a slanted leaning plank of wood(or two I think). Anyways... I noticed that the planks broke off completely different than where the thing hit em.

The image I have here, is just as it hits it from the top half, and the wood splinters at the middle half.

http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/sapphire/Half-break.jpg

What I am wondering, is do we have to model each little fragment line, or will the computer model it for us, IE being able to break almost anywhere it is mathematically possible? If thats the case, it seems to be slightly flawed here.


The other question I had was about normal mapping. Normal mapping, watching the video is great, but what happens when we walk RIGHT UP to the normal mapped surface... with our nose right up to it. Will we be able to tell it is flat, or will it still look 3d? Also, what if we look at that very same, 1 polygon flat normal mapped wall surface from a completely parrallel angle? As if it were made into a box, and we looked flush down one side of it as we turned the corner. It'd look COMPLETELY flat, right? Hmm

 

[Direwolf]

As for the first part of your post: its been mentioned here and there, but nothing's perfect. It looks pretty darn good anyway.
And normal mapping to my knowledge was created partly to PREVENT textures from having the "flat" look that we see in games like Half-Life. The parallel question has me curious though...anyone know the answer?

 

[Raziaar]

I guess the thing to do... would be to make your normal mapped surfaces those surfaces that won't be able to be accessed well by the player? Such as across a chasm or whatever?

And if you have an area where the player might get RIGHT up against to probe around, you make the area full 3d?

 

[scribblehead]

Originally posted by Direwolf
anyone know the answer?

ummm the video was showing a build more than 6 months old??

Anyway, i think its safe to say, 'bugs' like this might already have been corrected before we get the game---if not, that why we have steam.

 

[Tropics]

you are right in that if you look at a normal mapped wall, it looks flat. at least if you are standing still. the point in normal mapping is, that shadows can be generated that simulate some kind of "bumpiness" of the wall. when you are looking at a real wall, you can only see its hights and lows by the small shadows they cast, and that is done here. when you are moving, the shadows move too, giving you the feeling that the wall indeed has depth. so actually nobody can tell a bump-mapped or normal-mapped wall from a wall that is only textured just by a screenshot. you can only see the difference in-game, when you are moving. and i can tell you, normal mapped surfaces look really realistic ;-)

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by Raziaar
As if it were made into a box, and we looked flush down one side of it as we turned the corner. It'd look COMPLETELY flat, right? Hmm

Well what the hell do you expect man? Thats when you add more polygons, no trick can replace polygons.

 

[spitcodfry]

For anyone that has an ATI Radeon 8x00 series or higher, I recommend going here: http://www.ati.com/developer/demos/r8000.html and downloading the 'treasure chest' real-time demo. It really shows a good example of textures that appear to have depth, and that do not look flat.

 

[TheOriginalEvil]

Dude that racheal demo is ugly. LMFAO

 

[spitcodfry]

Originally posted by TheOriginalEvil
Dude that racheal demo is ugly. LMFAO

Yeah, gotta love the dialogue too. "I am a virtual person."

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by Direwolf
As for the first part of your post: its been mentioned here and there, but nothing's perfect. It looks pretty darn good anyway.
And normal mapping to my knowledge was created partly to PREVENT textures from having the "flat" look that we see in games like Half-Life. The parallel question has me curious though...anyone know the answer?

It will look totally flat from a small angle. Normal mapping is awesome for small details, but no texture/lighting trick can replace polygons.

 

[HeatMiser]

On your question about fragmenting wood, this was discussed quite a bit a while back:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2154

(Old thread, you might not want to post in it and bump it back up.)

It has been officially stated that the level designer specifies break points on wooden objects, and said objects will break only at those break points and won't break at all if there aren't any.

So, for example, the wooden ramp in the yet-to-be-released-in-Bink-format "buggy video" will not accidentally break and leave you trapped since the level designer didn't want it that way.

The flip side is that it seems that things like chairs and tables won't necessarily break because they are made of a wood texture and simply "ought to"; the break points need to be added specifically, and placed wherever the level designer thinks best. This explains the discrepancy in the picture you posted.

Now, much has been of this, as you'll see if you read that thread - people jumped to the conclusion that the physics engine would make everything breakable in a realistic way, in real time, and that simply isn't the case. Nor is it necessarily desirable.

Given that, I think the most reasonable conclusion to your orignal question is "the level designer must indicate the break points, but the engine generates all the splinters and the breaking sound and the other stuff associated with breaking wood".

 

[Styloid]

The wooden box probably did not use the breaking point system, it looked like a swapped out model like HL1. I don't expect that to still be in the game.
I think textures looking flat up close is easily fixed with higher resolutions... you just need a killer machine to do it.

 

[Raziaar]

Sweet, thanks. I was really just curious on if we were able to specify break points and stuff... I hope its an intuitive way so that we can quickly draw a line or a couple in a part of a polygon and it will fracture in that spot, instead of having to vertice shape etc.

 

[Pol]

What I am wondering, is do we have to model each little fragment line, or will the computer model it for us, IE being able to break almost anywhere it is mathematically possible? If thats the case, it seems to be slightly flawed here.

that is not the case.