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If We Can Built In It, We Will Come
January 30th 2004, 03:05 CET by Dumdeedum Making stuff in 3D is slow. Even once you've dragged yourself up a painful learning curve. Even once you've mastered a counter-intuitive interface. Even once you've adopted the Approved Way Of Doing Things. Even after all that it's still pretty damn sluggish. Maybe there's no replacement for time and effort, but it doesn't mean things couldn't be simpler. Epic and Valve both have full-time employees dedicated to working on their editors which means they have some of the best tools in the industry, but both are still largely mimicking the design ideas found in commercial 3D renderers. So why not use third party software? Why re-invent the torus when you could use something like Discreet GMax? Not having to learn a whole new editor for each and every game certainly helps, but 3D modeling software tends to suffer from the same problems as game editors so it's no great gain. How about the thought of walking through a huge warehouse, picking out doors, windows, tables, walls and suchlike to slot together a bit like a massive game of The Sims? It sounds nice, and after all, movie directors don't personally build each bit of furniture in their movies so why should game makers? But even without the copyright issues, prefab models have problems of varying levels of quality, clashing visual themes and incompatible filetypes. Of course this doesn't invalidate copy & paste entirely, people are unlikely to care too much if the pot plant they're throwing at NPCs looks uncannily like the one they were throwing at NPCs five minutes ago. But the never-ending-hell-of-yet-another-fucking-square-room that was Halo should stand as a dire warning to all that ctrl-v should be used carefully. Well, apart from RPG makers. There's a rather novel idea from the dirty, open-source hippies behind Cube. Editing levels is done in the game itself, you press E and it toggles to an edit mode where you can fly about pushing and pulling surfaces about (much like the old Duke3D editor) which is nice but not revolutionary, the clever part is they've tied it into the multiplayer code so you can have, for want of a better word, multiediting. Now I don't see public servers turning out works of levelling art, but a small team working simultaneously on different aspects of a map could theoretically boost creation time significantly. So how do we take a sad song and make it better? Can it be made better or is it just hard to model in 3D? Will Valve's tastefully orange placeholder textures solve everything? What's the future of level editing? Is it all Warren's fault? |
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Topic: If We Can Built In It, We Will Come
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True, but at least those things are exciting. Hell, I can even forgive the flying back when hit with a shotgun nonsense - but the problem with the turning to jelly is the odd flip and flapping around and ultimate landing in obsene poses that just look wrong. I don't mind things not being realistic, as long as they don't look absurd. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Jeet: Yeah, but it's a step up from picking at random from three or four death anims and having the model's heads dissappear into a wall. Or, almost as bad, having them float in midair at the top of a stairs. You just don't Get It
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Jibble: Hopefully at some point in the future, Hollywood will realize that explosions don't look cool and bullets don't spark when they hit things. You mean... American cars don't explode in a ball of flame when they hit a lamppost? I feel so abused... You just don't Get It
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Bullets do occasionally spark if they hit a metal or stone target. I'd like for developers (and Hollywood for that matter), to be better about the difference between concealment and cover. |
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To save time: Intuitor Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Surely the ragdoll thing is a case of kinematics? i.e. the knee joint can't bend backwards, and only has x degrees of motion, so adjust pose accordingly. I saw someone on IRC the other day talking about something like "endorphon animation" or something like that (can't locate the log for verification). The basic gist was that a model had a skeleton set up, along with some extra parameters. If, for example, that player/AI got shot in the shoulder, it would "know" to bring it's hand up to press against the wound. Part of me thinks that this person was talking complete bollocks, whereas a smaller part of me thinks this could be pretty cool (if there was enough variation involved) 9 years later you're the fat kid with his face pressed against the window of The Industry. - crash
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I don't know why ragdoll physics are so spastic, they just are. If you don't believe me, go load up DX2 and have Alex D sneeze on the little left toe of a dead body. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Yeah I understand the use of the silly string, and why it's so long and not centered around the leak or the likes. The tracing of where it intersects with the leak is what bothered me. But then maybe I've followed it from the inside out all that long, which, in retrospect I can see is a pretty idiotic way of going about it. Indeed with the no leaks in Unreal, mm.. But then, Unreal gets to content with invalid double-substracted brushes or something to that effect? Ah, whatever. I guess I can understand your physics answer Warren, it would indeed very possibly work on that specific sequence. That was just an example, and so I'm not sure if I managed to explain the point I was trying to make well enough. I could come up with another example that would not be solveable by applying physics, but the core idea here is how would one go about animating brushes when the brushes needs very very specific movement? I'm interest in your opinion because I know you're a professional game developer, but everyone feel free to reply. And I'll certainly accept Shut The Fuck Up Gaggle postings if I come off as ranting or annoying. .. well I always come off annoying, but, you know. Specifically on applying physics on a largescale sequence such as the ground tumbling away I have to say, in my most armchair developer opinion, that I find that sounding a little too easy. My work is in the 3d movie buisness, adding CGI to movies and making misc. commercials etc., and while I don't pretend to be mr. Top Dog movieeffect expert I can't imagine solving a pivotal rocks-comes-crashing-down sequence in a movie by applying physics to a bunch of objects. Realistic physics is one thing, but even in the non-realtime medium of movies where you can have months to perfect important shots, you still more often than not end up manually keyframing things. Or at the very least you end up heavily tweaking the results of the physicsbased movement. Simply because it looks better. The first example that pops to mind is the story of some awesome explosions that were made for Pearl Harbor, where CGI aircrafts explode using a delightfully complicated physics-based setup. But the results were dismissed by the instructor because he felt it wasn't dramatic enough. It may have been realistic and taken ages to to setup, but he wanted a wing to fall of in a very specific way. The story goes that the guy responsible for the explosion cried a bit too, because of all the wasted effort that went into making it. The effort put into every scene of movies could be applied to gamedevelopment with awesome (singleplayer) results I think. But not only is that again venturing into armchair mode, I also fear I've digressed horribly from the point I was originally trying to make. |
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Jeet, I've owned guns. I've fired guns. I come from somewhat of a gun family, mostly southern relatives with farms or military experience, and then Mom was a cop back in the day. Bullets occasionally spark when they hit a metal or stone target. Occasionally. That doesn't mean I don't agree that Hollywood and videogame's depiction of the behavior of guns and bullets isn't stupid. |
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Neale, he speaks the truth regarding the ragdoll system. Or, at least that a company promises that sort of behavior coming soon. For the live of me I can't find the link to their site, but it was a system so advanced that it would learn how to walk by having a bunch of their ragdolls try to walk, most would fall over, but since each one would try things with slightly different parameters one of them would walk better than the rest. You pick that one, rinse repeat until you have a walking ragdoll. Honestly I don't quite buy that happening, but it's what they promised on their website back when it appeared. |
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I live in Texas and you're telling me about guns? I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Hrmmm, are they also working on the Phantom by any chance? I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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I'm telling you about my personal experiences. |
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Not only that, but Prey will appear as a launchtitle from what I understand. |
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I'm not disagreeing with you Hugin, there are always exceptions. But by and large normal bullets don't spark. Now if they're not made of copper or lead, then I imagine the chance of seeing a good spark is pretty good. But speaking of today's standard ammunition, one visible spark every few hundred rounds is pretty much a non-spark in my mind. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Indeed with the no leaks in Unreal, mm.. But then, Unreal gets to content with invalid double-substracted brushes or something to that effect? Ah, whatever. No, it handles that. You can screw up your level in Unreal, granted, but it's a hell of a lot harder than in Quake engines. Usually people vertex edit their brushes and create non planar faces. The BSP compiler doesn't like that. "Cheap Garbage Disposal Can’t Handle Femur"
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gaggle: from that kind of perspective, it'd ultimately make sense from an animation perspective. Make your mesh, rig it, tweak some parameters and export it. Let the physics engine handle the animations fluidly, and with infinite variation, rather than playing a set sequence for specific events. Of course, you're going to take a nasty CPU hit... ....physics accelerators anyone? 9 years later you're the fat kid with his face pressed against the window of The Industry. - crash
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Guns in holywood also sound like canons, instead of the flat retort the usually generate, not to mention people firing handguns that in real life generate enough torque and kick back to dislocate wrists (desert eagle, Im looking at you). Its also amusing how every bad guy and his army has H&K MP5's when H&K keeps very tight controls on who it sells their firearms too. Do not go gently into that good night.
Old age should burn and rage at the close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
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Thus my original "occasionally". |
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Apparently not, as a BBC (I think) reporter found out recently. He went through a third party, and was able to buy any amount of H&K kit 9 years later you're the fat kid with his face pressed against the window of The Industry. - crash
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I remember being angry at Richard Garriot for insisting on putting Newtonian physics into Ultima 8, because my machine ran it like ass. I didn't see why we needed to accurately model (well, close enough to accurately for the time) the physics of a door in a role playing game. Looking back on it today though, that was only so much smoke up our asses. Doors and stuff were probably treated just how they'd been in the previous Ultimas, where everything was assigned the same base physical attributes that could interact with another object attributes. Basically, this translated to If door str=10 and avatar str=20 + a magical axe of plus ten door smashing, he can smash this door. Oooooh, physics! I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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And thus my not arguing with your "occasionaly" - I just posted a link that talked about the stuff. Sue me. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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.38 and 9mm rounds being fired sound like..not much. A cracking sound typically, sort of sharp but not very intimidating. A .45 has a deeper, flatter sound, but still not so much of a big deal. Sort of a banging cough. .357 and .44 are the only handgun rounds I've experienced that have a legitimately damn loud, booming, cannonlike sound. To the point where I find being around them when they're fired a lot unpleasant. This is assuming standard pressure rounds. +P and +P+ ammo are louder of course. The grip the Desert Eagle has on the imagination of Hollywood always amuses me. |
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I think it should be noted that The Stranger's pistols sounded very reasonable and realistic. Yay, Nocturne! I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Walking auto-animated ragdolls sets off my moon pony alarm. But yeah if possible to do it'd be pretty neat. I know Hitman uses a rather fancy combination, the animation* is canned, but part of the outfit can be physicsified. The hitman's tie is a simple example, and capes and shit some NPCs wore. You can accomplish a lot of things with blending as well. If you make a normal walk, and a limbing incapacitated walk, you should be able to blend between them and get all the shades inbetween. If one made enough of such blendable animations it seems possible to have characters that all move slightly apart. Not as sexy as purly dynamic-driven walking, shooting, etc. though. *refering to the walking, shooting, etc. The deathscenes are indeed full-body dynamic. |
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It should be noted that Nocturne was amongst the first games to feature a physical cloth simulation. Granted, it mostly just looked like The Stranger had a pack of coked up gerbils tearing around in his ass, but it was there dammit. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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So the Stranger really was Jerry Penacoli! -DKI(ID
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Ahh, economic Darwinism, how I love thee. If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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I've got a cool pellet gun He's the worst kind of stupid, the accepting kind.
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For the record, I much prefer the grouping of a level artist and a designer in order to make levels for a game instead of just this idea of a 'level designer'. Making the levels in Max from a pre-determined design is a much better route as far as I'm concerned. Making the levels in max allows a lot more visual freedom, and it's easier to someone already familiar with max to do it that way. On the flip side, I find that too many Level Designers (the people who make levels with unrealed) need enough artistic skill that they end up focusing on trying to make the level look good rather than play good. It also tends to result in more of a "I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll just freeform until I get it" kind of approach. If you separate it, what you get are two specialized people doing their jobs quickly and efficiently, instead of one person who has to split his skills. Of course, it requires the industry to accept the idea of a pure designer, and few people are willing to do that. Which is pretty sad. Coincidentally, I also feel that's why so many games end up playing like shit. (Sorry if I'm rehashing points, I wanted to get my views in before the topic went south). -chris
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And when I say using a 3d app sucks as a level editor that's just an opinion of mine, as clearly Eric harbors little or no hatred towards such a workflow. I worked on projects that used a proprietary level editor and projects that used Max. Since I'm an art monkey that already knows Max I tend to side with using Max. I do see the benefits of having using an engine's proprietary level editor of course. But in the end I have no say on the matter since it's the suits that decide which engine we use (the best one I've used is the Unreal Tournament 2003. It was love. |
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See, the problem with ragdolls is that you've thoroughly mangled this dead body, and the knee still doesn't bend backwards, and those arms are all strong as steel. The moneky poured coffee in my MOOTZ!
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I eagerly await a game that lets you throw a body into a combine with an adequate body-separation-and-parts-flying physics model. If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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You could do that in Nocturne, I'm sure of it. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
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Why must you turn this message board into a house of LIES?! If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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HARDWARE THREAD! So I'm pretty sure my video card is fucked. This morning when I went to turn on my computer, I was greeted by my monitor happily informing me that there was no signal found. Also, the system refused to POST. Noticing a funny sound emanating from the video card fan, I swapped out the Radeon 9500 Pro with my old Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO. Now everything is hunky-dory again. I take it the 9500 is fucked? Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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Send it to me and I'll check it out. If I had to choose between the '80s classics "Beat Street" or "Breakin'" for a prestigious award, I'd probably have to go with the latter, since its sequel introduced the mind-shattering concept of marrying *electricity* with the boogaloo.
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Sounds fucked. -chris
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#127 Charles Sounds fucked. yeah, I just sent an RMA request to ATI. Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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ATI is really good about RMA, I even exchanged a stolen MAXX I bought off Polish Mike and they sent me a brand new AIW card that was worth more. Are you here right now or are there probably fossils under your meat
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Polish Mike? Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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Shoplifter extraordinaire. A very shady character. Are you here right now or are there probably fossils under your meat
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#131 lwf Shoplifter extraordinaire. A very shady character. I see, and you know this man from where? Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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High school, I think he had some lackey doing most of the actual shoplifting, mainly from the likes of London Drugs and Future Shop. Are you here right now or are there probably fossils under your meat
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#133 lwf High school, I think he had some lackey doing most of the actual shoplifting, mainly from the likes of London Drugs I'd like to smash in his head and Future Shop. nevermind. Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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Fucking Polish. I don't believe in athiests. -Trolly McTroll
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Is she cute? |
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It's a sort of wax you apply beforehand. Life without shame.
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#122 Jibble I eagerly await a game that lets you throw a body into a combine with an adequate body-separation-and-parts-flying physics model. Games need more human-processing facilities like those in Quake 2. |
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geek wet dream? Got throat problems? Why not try sucking on a Fisherman's Friend!
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