Destructible Environments ?
Daworm
Join Date: 2009-06-22 Member: 67900Members
Join Date: 2009-06-22 Member: 67900Members
<div class="IPBDescription">If not environments - objects?</div>I believe I saw something saying no destructible environments... but is it possible the engine will support dynamic environments in the way of warfare through the area will leave obvious damage?
Say a kitchen with pots / pans / stoves.
If you go through the area and start fighting.. can the objects in this room be affected by damage?
Say a stove that gets hit a few times explodes and has a semi-permanent jet of fire that's deadly to all/most players.
I say semi-permanent because if it was gas powered or similar some emergency procedurs might kick in to seal the gas pipe stopping the fire, in game terms. It's timed to go out after 20 seconds (as an example)
Or Glass partitions / lounge suites in a room get shot-up.
Can these show some signs of damage rather than just decals on the objects looking like shot glass / wood and similar?
I'm sure even the strongest bullet-proof glass hit with enough rounds from a hmg (or 40) would eventually start to wear thin and break.
Excluding the affect of nanites making the bullets disintegrate on contact meaning no damage, because then you can't show the aliens behind the glass with bullets that would __normally__ penetrate an object depending on it's makeup (stone / metal / wood / re-inforced glass).
EDIT:>>
Further to this idea, what if you run through a room with the flamethrower. If an object is wooden in construction, will it burn?
If so will multiple "models" or "states" of a model be needed for a "normal" -vs- "burnt" object?
Or will properties have standard effects for how they are affected by things. IE: if it's shot it gets holes in it / disintegrates.
If it's burnt it'll blacken and eventually turn to ash/dust (and if game engine designs it so) will disappear or become no-clip destroyed doodads in the room.
Say a kitchen with pots / pans / stoves.
If you go through the area and start fighting.. can the objects in this room be affected by damage?
Say a stove that gets hit a few times explodes and has a semi-permanent jet of fire that's deadly to all/most players.
I say semi-permanent because if it was gas powered or similar some emergency procedurs might kick in to seal the gas pipe stopping the fire, in game terms. It's timed to go out after 20 seconds (as an example)
Or Glass partitions / lounge suites in a room get shot-up.
Can these show some signs of damage rather than just decals on the objects looking like shot glass / wood and similar?
I'm sure even the strongest bullet-proof glass hit with enough rounds from a hmg (or 40) would eventually start to wear thin and break.
Excluding the affect of nanites making the bullets disintegrate on contact meaning no damage, because then you can't show the aliens behind the glass with bullets that would __normally__ penetrate an object depending on it's makeup (stone / metal / wood / re-inforced glass).
EDIT:>>
Further to this idea, what if you run through a room with the flamethrower. If an object is wooden in construction, will it burn?
If so will multiple "models" or "states" of a model be needed for a "normal" -vs- "burnt" object?
Or will properties have standard effects for how they are affected by things. IE: if it's shot it gets holes in it / disintegrates.
If it's burnt it'll blacken and eventually turn to ash/dust (and if game engine designs it so) will disappear or become no-clip destroyed doodads in the room.
Comments
Some things are interactive/destructible while others that should be desctrucible are static = BAD
Nothing is interactive/destructible unless it holds tactical/strategic/gameplay value to do so = GREAT
Everything that should be interactive/destructible/dynamic is interactive/destructible/dynamic = SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN GREAT (but probably not worth the effort it took to put it all in, and in the heat of the game goes mostly un-noticed)
I say provide the tools to the mapping community to do this, and support them with tweaking and modifications AFTER release, but don't spend pre-release time on designing/including/troubleshooting/balancing/coding prop gimmics.
The more you "get into" the game, the less important the environment seems. You're focussed entirely on killing your fellow gamer and blowing up his ######... Making these actions more entertaining/visceral has a much better pay-off and makes the game all that more addictive.... "JUST ONE MORE GO". Exploding ovens don't do that. Rooms full of stalemate carnage do.
In RTS games I get a kick out of holding territory. In FPS games I get a kick out of shooting bad guys. If you can add to the entertainment of shooting the bad guys (with dynamic death animations/ragdolls/gibbing/blood splatter) then you've enhanced a major part of my immediate return on investment. Enhancing things that are periphery to the object of the game definately adds to atmosphere (won't snort at that), but they aren't the focus. There's a reason action movies have people die dramatically. I don't know what that reason is but it's entertaining! If I kill an enemy at the top of some stairs I want to see his body tumble down it. If I pluck a fade out of the air I want to see him collapse in a painful looking way doubled over the railing, then slide over into the bottomless pit.
In summary, I agree that done fully and well, this would give value to the product and end user experience, but not in equal meassure to the effort required to get it right, and runs risk of being done slightly wrong, maybe very wrong.
I'd love a game that was 10000% destructible to the point where you can tunnel through the freekin walls to a hive... or under the hive to set up some stealth-black sieges... ya digsiege is the most epic map :P
Hmm.. ofcourse it should be possible just the same to cave in such tunnels... i guess marines should spawn with shovels instead of a knife!
Have fun digging in your metal spaceship... with a shovel :D
My ideas I'm thinking of for a concept map at this stage involve some of the things I mentioned above, but the main intention of implementation is using those concepts but in a different manner. The goal is to create a semi-dynamic environment that if left alone provides one feel / atmosphere to it, aliens and marines will want to tread careful as anything could be hiding anywhere. Where-as if they trash the place, destroy the opaque glass panels in the office area, or blow up the ovens in the kitchen as an alien runs past.
Obviously only useable once in this situation but it provides a tactiful advantage in an encounter (assuming that no-one random blows it up) could be used to lead to a hidden res point. IE: destroy an object over a res point so you can cap it, which in turn might set an alarm off in the map to one degree or another. Altering one or another team that the opponent is moving in on a certain key resource that can provide a turning point.
Comes down to map-design and backstory for the map.
<i>Please no comments about "I don't want alerts for doing certain things etc. etc." that's your want, if I design my map to be themed in a certain way for gameplay reasons, then I'll damned well do it.</i>
xD
who's to say that our space ship doesn't have a dirt floor basement! lol :P
That being the case, I second what I hinted at earlier. Devs should give the engine the extensions for creating and including dynamically collapsing or interactive objects, even if they stop short of actually creating such objects and designing maps that suit having action props.
Even if they add the placeholders for these types of additions and don't bother to test them before release, then map makers trying to utilize these destructible items can say "Hey, I'm trying to do X with Y, but it's not working"... At least the rest of us are out playing the game while the devs say "Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Give us a copy of your map and we'll make that thing you're trying to do work in the next patch"
Of course,I'd completely understand if the dev's heard this idea and went "Nah... not gonna happen"
Me too :)
I wouldn't expect fully destructible, just semi. IE: being objects reacting to player interactions, esp with dynamic infestation. Will make the game that notch better, if not straight away then in an update down the track. As you said, they code a rough functionality but don't test it, map maker tries and it doesn't work and they go "righto" *patches* we end-users give them more love at the "fixes" that come!!
Would be cool if this could be adapted even further for dynamic infestation to cause changes to an environment. IE: Infestation spreads through a room and over dynamic objects IE: Chairs / Boxes / Metal. As a result marks are left on said obects, metal probably with corrosion left on it from where the infestation has spread (but not as soon as it touches said area) boxes could collapse after a time, chairs could then in turn injure the player if infestation is repelled and a player tries to run through chair.
Just some ideas for now.
In the mean-time you can still have fun knocking down doors with the onos! ;)
Actually - saying that makes me think that yes, there will be destructible environments to a certain degree.
Some map ideas I have had flash through my brain have this feature as a core element to the map design.
what would be cool though is if the level designer had control over how they can be destroyed:
perhaps a only a type of life form, or attack could destroy it,
perhaps multiple players would need to do the destruction
perhaps a certain amount of damage and any one time or over a period of time would need to be dealt
perhaps something else would need to be destroyed first
Ah good ol' Red Faction, now that was fun game, wounder how next RF is going to be.
Sry for offtopic just had to say it..
Sry for offtopic just had to say it..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
its gonna be garbage, you can't dig into the ground so its nothing like the old ones yet the have the gall to call it geomod 3.
Like in the Trailer, but not that shaking walls.