Volumetric Entities in HL2

[mrxskinny]

I wonder if there are going to be volumetric entities in HL2 like smoke or fire. That would be so cool if there was a room with some zombies and I lit up a flamethrower and toasted all of them just by firing into the doorway. :bounce:

 

[Anthraxxx]

I'm sure that Source is capable of having Volumetric entities.

 

[Shinobi]

well by description there are volumetric entities in HL1 (world entities, usually triggers),, people even tried to use them to create a fog effect

but I think the best you can hope for (and best overall option) is a sprite emitter, which you can also do in HL1



or another thing you could do is make world brush entitiy that simply plays tiled polygonal fire (or go with fancy procedural if you're a programming genius )

 

[$niper]

Yes, they're called particle systems. It's one of the touted features of Half-Life 2. Many Half-Life mods already have particle systems, including Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike.

 

[mrxskinny]

Cool, so if I shoot a smoke gun into a big L-shaped pipe, then it would come out the other end without clipping through the rest of the pipe?

 

[$niper]

Yes, provided the given particle system has proper collision detection.

 

[KiNG]

lol he said smoke gun. valve also stated that you could mod the particle system to create pretty effects like a swirl following a rocket going through smoke.

 

[Jadewolf5675]

KiNG I must say that would be quite $$

 

[Gordon'sFreeman]

lol he said smoke gun. valve also stated that you could mod the particle system to create pretty effects like a swirl following a rocket going through smoke.

god damn that sounds sweet!

 

[magnetmannen]

sounds perfect for a fireman mod, u could put out a fire in coop, using volumetric fire, and smoke.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Apparently Doom 3 can do the same swirly thing with volumetric smoke, and you can also do it in Unreal II although I doubt it looks as good (but I haven't played the full game so I can't say for sure).

 

[Maxi]

This game just keeps getting better and better, can't wait for E3 to finally see some HDR screenshots!

 

[obsidian]

some one asked about smoke and if it reacts to rockets and that type of thing. the answer was no rockets wont make a swirl in the smoke as smoke isnt physically simulated, but it could be done in a mod.

 

[Sorze]

some one asked about smoke and if it reacts to rockets and that type of thing. the answer was no rockets wont make a swirl in the smoke as smoke isnt physically simulated, but it could be done in a mod.

If smoke isn't physically simulated, doesn't it react to wind? Like the hdr-video, they do have wind in the game (which I think is great for immersion), but it would be a bit ghey if the smoke acted like there was no wind at all... ?

Does anyone know anything about that?

 

[Dagobert]

Yes, they're called particle systems. It's one of the touted features of Half-Life 2. Many Half-Life mods already have particle systems, including Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike.

Dude, particle effects have been around since the beginnings of 3D. Doom had particle effects.

Sometimes I wish people would refrain from posting if they don't have the nessesary expertise...

 

[PvtRyan]

some one asked about smoke and if it reacts to rockets and that type of thing. the answer was no rockets wont make a swirl in the smoke as smoke isnt physically simulated, but it could be done in a mod.

I think it's a matter of optimization, for example, the particles that make up sparks do check for collisions with objects and the level. So it's possible, but making all particles of rocketsmoke of every fired rocket check for collisions would eat up too many resources.
But I'm sure Source could do it, for example in the old engine of Comanche 4 the smoke reacted to wind. But it did slow down the system a lot.

 

[The Brick]

By "volumetric smoke" I think you mean something like this?
http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/animations/smoke.mpg (130 mb)
http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/animations/smoke_rising.mpg (4.8 mb)
http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/animations/smoke_around_sphere.mpg (6.3 mb)

BTW, that site ( http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/animations/ ) is really cool.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

If you look at the tunnels video the sparks rebound from all materials in the game world that tells me that those particles are capable of volumetric properties.

 

[Dagobert]

What has rebounding got to do with being volumetric? Collision detection of particles has been around for as long as particles.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

wooops, looks like I missread this thread.

Ignor my comments.


But anyway, I *think* but am unsure that valve said volumetric stuff was possible...


I am too knackered to be sure though

 

[Sorze]

Seems like you know then Dagobert.. What is volumetric?

I've heard the expressions volumetric smoke before, but I'm not sure exactly what it does.. It rolls n stuff... ?

 

[The Brick]

check those movies I posted above (right click, save as)

 

[mrchimp]

particles don't have any volume, there generally point like objects represented as a sprite. which is just a 2d texture on a quad.

volumetric smoke is different to normal particle effects, it actually has a depth. When you have fog or mist in games, thats normally a volume with a 3D texture with a high alpha transparency applied to it, that causes objects to become dimmer as you move away from them. You can give particles a volume but it is rather expensive if you have alot of particles.

I have seen some nice volumetric fire effects useing shaders but I'm not sure how they work. However the last time I saw a HL2 fire effect, it didn't look like it was volumetric or useing a great deal of shaders.

 

[$niper]

Dude, particle effects have been around since the beginnings of 3D. Doom had particle effects.

Sometimes I wish people would refrain from posting if they don't have the nessesary expertise...

I was explaining what "Volumetric entities in HL2" are to the poster. I'm not sure why you're saying I don't have the "nessesary expertise..."

Explaining what something is (In Half-Life 2 in this case) doesn't mean I must list all past generation games which have had particle effects/systems. I've programmed my own particle system before, it's not difficult to do. I believe that means I have "nessesary expertise..."

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Woot for $niper!


Just so you lot know he is the lead programmer for sven co-op...

you know the co-op mod for HL and hopefully soon HL2.


I wouldn't insult him. He knows what he is talking about.

 

[wonkers]

For all you people who want to know what volumetric smoke is, go check out Call of Duty. It has some of the best smoke I have ever seen and it doesn't seem to slow anyhting down like it did in MOHAA. I can only hope that HL2 gets smoke like that. So far I havn't seen a single thing that's special in the special effects department.

HL2 seems to ride pretty high on the physics. Althought water effects are better in source than I hav eever seen in a game. Including Unreal 2