Smoke and wind and such.

bastard_loud

bastard_loud

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I did a couple searches on smoke and smoketrails but i didnt get anything.

So my question is, are there any games out there that feature smoke (from fire, guns, flares nades etc) that interacts with some sort of wind or force? For example, if a player runs through a cloud of smoke, will that behave realistically? Will HL2 feature it? It's a minor detail yea, but it was something that was on my mind.

Feel free to flame, as long as you provide me with a true answer to my question.

Thanks!

:E
 
Yes there are games. You're mostly looking for "particle system" here. And before you ask, yes source can do it.
 
Well it doesn't react dynamically as far as I know, but the smoke effects in America's Army: Operations are some of the best I've seen in a game.
 
no the smoke probably wont react dynamically, we dont have wind physics
 
Smoke effects abound in games as a billboard particle effect. Interactive smoke/mist would be difficult as it would require the simulation of many many particles. About the same processing load (slightly less) than virtual water. I doubt interactive smoke will be in hl2 as an engine effect, though it may apear in a preset location.
 
I can imagine it would be quite a strain. I guess that leaves something for the future right?
 
Originally posted by spitcodfry
Well it doesn't react dynamically as far as I know, but the smoke effects in America's Army: Operations are some of the best I've seen in a game.
Click to expand...

AA:O is a 1337 game. I just wished more people got into it....
 
I don't believe there's any engine at the moment capable of a particle system that's physically simulated, therefore making it a more dynamic effect that's affected by wind or turbulance and vibrations from an object.

The best we can manage so far I think is a particle system that seems to melt in to the wall. CS's smoke effects clipped through the wall and looked horrendous.
 
I agree, i've seen quite some games that have smoke in some sort, and everytime i keep thinking 'Is this the best they can do nowadays?'

If it's not in now, i bet we'll see it in a coupla years. It would do wonders for the atmosphere of games i think.
 
I have a question to....will Source engine have capiability to do that wind and smoke stuff that bastard_loud asked?
 
Watch the HL2-Tunnels video off steam. When the combine soldier gets put on flames you will see the most realistic smoke you have ever seen in a 3d game, not even mentioning the fire...(in my opinion).

Of course the sprites can be given collision and "wind effects" simulations by set of particles.

It's just that you cant do it globally and like make wind a 'thing' in the game itself if you know what I mean.
 
So you're saying hl2 will have smoke interacting dynamically with objects? I understand what you're saying with no global wind system.

Thanks for replying,
 
yeah, im pretty sure somewhere someone asked about wind making the wires blow around in the city square and gabe said something about a universal wind entitiy that will only affect some entities, such as those wires and smoke effects
 
Doom3 uses particles for the smoke from guns and lots of other stuff.
 
Good news, seems like i'm getting what i like in the upcoming games.. :)
 
Basically the sparks coming from the manhacks in the tunnels video are sprites in form of particles. You can see that they collide as they do in the real world.

Smoke is a bit lighter so it will be given a proprety to float a bit but still if it comes in contact with a wall or something my guess it that it will disintregrate naturally, all they need to do is add a sprite animation and tell the program that when it hits a horizontal wall it plays this animation and then dissapears.

:)
 
Also if you want to see a nice smoke sprite animation look on the dr kleiner video and then end when the strider blows in.

:D
 
I don't think any of these examples are what he had in mind. Interactive smoke means if you swing a crowbar through it, is swirls and reacts. That requires major raw computational power... something we aren't able to expend yet on smoke effects.
 
Originally posted by FictiousWill
Smoke effects abound in games as a billboard particle effect. Interactive smoke/mist would be difficult as it would require the simulation of many many particles. About the same processing load (slightly less) than virtual water. I doubt interactive smoke will be in hl2 as an engine effect, though it may apear in a preset location.
Click to expand...

Unreal Tournament 2003 uses this method. You can shoot a rocket through a cloud of smoke and watch the smoke seperate and blow away.
 
Really? Since I've never played that game I don't know if it is a real particle effect or a render trick. That's cool - I wonder how they do it.
 
I'm guessing there's a particle system. Gabe said one of thier developers made a good mini-tornado. So I'm betting that they hsve done the particles well. But we really dont know about at least(I dont, at least. Maybe Gabe sent an email about it).
 
I seen dynamic smoke done before, in Metroid Prime when you fire at sandy ground smoke comes flying up. Its a pretty nice effect, and its easly modable into Source if its not already there.
 
Originally posted by |CC|Hudson
no the smoke probably wont react dynamically, we dont have wind physics
Click to expand...

Gabe said one of he guys doing hl2 made a twister/tornado get going and it was picking shit up and pulling stuff to it. so wouldnt that make this even more possible?

/edit Tyrion said it before me :(
 
Originally posted by Adam
I seen dynamic smoke done before, in Metroid Prime when you fire at sandy ground smoke comes flying up. Its a pretty nice effect, and its easly modable into Source if its not already there.
Click to expand...

This is not dynamic smoke.
 
Originally posted by FictiousWill
This is not dynamic smoke.
Click to expand...

Its a level of dynamics since dynamics involves change, and since the state went from sand to smoke floating above, thats dynamic. A low level of dynamics but still. Half-Life 2 will support a much much higher level degree of dynamic smoke. Just like the flashlight is dynamic light, but very low level compared to dynamic light in Doom III.
 
I'm afraid such smoke puffs and clouds are not dynamic (i.e. interactive) at all. (although I can't speak for the ut2k3 ones that I haven't seen :D) Something appearing doesn't make it interactive. Smoke effects are smoke effects. Dynamic interactive smoke/mist you can push, blow and waft.
 
Originally posted by FictiousWill
I'm afraid such smoke puffs and clouds are not dynamic (i.e. interactive) at all. (although I can't speak for the ut2k3 ones that I haven't seen :D) Something appearing doesn't make it interactive. Smoke effects are smoke effects. Dynamic interactive smoke/mist you can push, blow and waft.
Click to expand...

Shooting the ground to create puffs of smoke is a level of interaction leading to smoke appearing wherever you shot. Once again, its a low level form. But I will agree that the smoke itself as a entitie that is already afloat is not dynamic since the interactivity ends there.
 
I would call that a scripted event

Thiers most likey a on hit trigger set up for the rocket that checks the tag of the object hit and plays a animation based on what it hit. I.E. smoke,blood,fire,etc. None of these things are actual objects in the game just animations beeing played, so they can not be interacted with.

I don't expect these things to be dynamic for quite sometime, but with enough triggers and animations. They can still provide great visuals, and thier is room for improvement in this area. I think HL2 will do a good job.
 
I remember Gabe talking about how one of his employees implemented a tornado into HL2 and It would effect everything accordingly. Birds, smoke, people, boxes... you name it.
 
Dynamic Smoke is much like Dynamic Water. To put it simply, it is teh 1337.
 
It is very possible and is probably in use. Unreal 2 and UT2K3 both used this effect with both particles and sprites. They simply added Karma (Their physics system) to the particles or sprites and when objets like rockets or what have you flew through them they would react in a very convincing manner.

There is an old Unreal 2 video that demonstrates this effect, if I feel up to having to prove myself I'll try and find it, otherwise you can all just take my word for it ;)
 
Hmm so as of now it's quite unclear what will or will not be in the game, but i'm sure valve figured out a way to make it look good.
 
Originally posted by ThrasherX9
It is very possible and is probably in use. Unreal 2 and UT2K3 both used this effect with both particles and sprites. They simply added Karma (Their physics system) to the particles or sprites and when objets like rockets or what have you flew through them they would react in a very convincing manner.

There is an old Unreal 2 video that demonstrates this effect, if I feel up to having to prove myself I'll try and find it, otherwise you can all just take my word for it ;)
Click to expand...

i'd love to see that video if you have a link for it.
 
The unreal2 particle movement system was quite good . I don't think it reacted to wind but areas of force ,presumbaly mapped to the damage radius on nades and blasts.

I know a lot of people dismissed the game and I do agree that it's pretty naff but chuck a smoke grenade out and when the smoke has started to spread chuch an explosive grenade in after it, very impressive effect.
 
Thats some of the stuff i had in mind, MoJo.
I thought about the subject when i was playing Natural Selection.
The flying Lerks in there have clouds of spores that do damage to marines, i thought it would be pretty cool to see the cloud react dynamically to the force of wind that appears as you flap your wings through it. I can't wait to see whats possible with Source.
 
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