Destructable Environments in DNF?

[Sir Robin]

Hey all, first post been a bit of a shadow on this forum for a while.

Now I know that the meqon physics promise all sorts of breakable objects, but is there really going to be that much destruction in a similar fashion to Red Faction?

I know it wasnt that great a game, but will we be able to blow a hole in a wall with the rpg anywhere or at least in certain sections of a game, creating a new doorway?

Destructable environments have been done before but you have always been very limited in the amount of damage you can do. I'm guessing that proper destruction is a long way off but now I'm entering the realms of the physx card so ill keep quiet

What do you think?

P.s. Very sorry if this has been discussed before.

[Emultra]

Well, it's quite strange that destructible geometry hasn't been used to the same extent as in Red Faction, since that same game, since.

[Micki!]

This has been discussed before, but you couldn't know that so i'll tell you...

DNF will not feature dynamic destructable environments... However, every object can be broken in the game... If it can't, it can be used instead... So at least you'll get alot of interaction rather than total destruction...
I hope you're not dissapointed with that...

[Cerberus_e]

that isn't strange, it allows you to skip the whole levels (skipping intended routes of the developers in levels, allowing you to immediately finish a level )

serious sam 2 has destructible environments, look into that

[Micki!]

Cerberus_e said:
that isn't strange, it allows you to skip the whole levels (skipping intended routes of the developers in levels, allowing you to immediately finish a level )

serious sam 2 has destructible environments, look into that

Really..?! If that's true, i want this game MORE THAN EVER... (not more than DNF though )

[FireFly]

Not fully destructible environments. You can just blow shit up.

[Micki!]

FireFly said:
Not fully destructible environments. You can just blow shit up.

SS2 or DNF..?

[Cerberus_e]

ss2, you can destroy entire houses

[Micki!]

Cerberus_e said:
ss2, you can destroy entire houses

Can the surface, tree's and other geometric environments be destroyed too..?

[FireFly]

Micki! said:
SS2 or DNF..?

Both, but I was talking about SS2.

Cerberus_e said:
ss2, you can destroy entire houses

Yeah, but the houses are the equivalent of props. You're not going to get Red Faction style destruction for a while.

Micki! said:
Can the surface, tree's and other geometric environments be destroyed too..?

The core geometry cannot be destroyed. I think I remember you could destroy trees with the chainsaw in the Second Encounter.

[Simon Charles]

As long as there are a few bullet sparks and a bit of rubble after I've pumped an entire magazine into an alien that was standing in front of a concrete wall, I'll be happy.

It's so boring these days to see elaborate levels and constructions that feel completely flat when you shoot them. No bullet sparks on metal, no sand or dust kicked off when you shoot... hell, even the water barely reacts when you shoot in it.

[Emultra]

Bullet sparks are fictitious and unrealistic. It's pure Hollywood.

[FireFly]

I'm hoping that's the feel they're going for in DNF; movie realism, not true realism.

[Mr.Sociopath]

no destructable environnements in DNF

I stopped living when I heard that for the first time

If anyone want ot make a petition for it to be in, I'm in(the petition of course )

[FireFly]

A petition wouldn't do anything. It's a fundamental limitation of the tech.

[Mr.Sociopath]

FireFly said:
A petition wouldn't do anything. It's a fundamental limitation of the tech.

but still I wonder why.. the "tech" (mequon) allow to break glass.. what about modifying parameters for different elements?..

and on a general point of view..
a more actual and improved geo-mod engine couldn't work in todays game?.. why? I don,t get it..geo-mod had physics..kind of cheap but still it had some.. in the training/playing square map ..you could make a circular hole in the roof so a big fat block fall on the ground.. that was pretty cool to do..no other games allow that kind of thing..
i'm almost sure it,s conspiracy related joking but..well.. I kind of really have some doubts about it actually.. since the american army said about the game america's army that it couldn't be used by another country to predict the ways of an attack by americans, and to train against it, mainly because it doesn't allow walls destruction .. funny ain't it?

[Emultra]

FireFly, you mentioned something about static meshes and geomod before.

[FireFly]

Yeah, basically gaming worlds today are built out of static geometry - BSP. This has to be 'carved out' in the level editor beforehand and you can't modify it in-game. Geomod on the other hand doesn't have these limitations - it uses a portal based system, so geometry can be dynamically modified.

Now until games move completely away from static BSP, we're going to be stuck with static environments. Even Doom 3 uses BSP for collision detection, so you still couldn't incorporate a Geomod system without rewriting the engine. Now the good news is games are using less and less BSP, and more static meshes, which are essentially imported models used as gemoetry. These can be dynamically modified, so for example, where a pillar would have been BSP a few years ago, it's now likely to be a static mesh, and if the developer wants it can be destroyable - as some are in HL2.

In next generation games these static meshes will be augmented with the physics system, so a wall could be made out of hundreds of bricks which break apart when the wall is destroyed. As George says, things will get really spectacular, but under all the destruction they'll still be basic undestroyable geometry.

[Emultra]

Would it be possible to make the ground geometry itself with static meshes, even with several square miles of area?

[FireFly]

I think so, but BSP would still need to be used to bound the level.

[Emultra]

And it would make everything destructible?

[Otto von Keisinger]

BSP was entirely unnecessary with D3, and I was disappointed to find out it still had it. As I recall, GeoMod was simply a workaround for the static geometry that BSP cause; I don't think Red Faction entirely got rid of BSP. Otherwise, BSP would have been removed much sooner.

[Little Conqueror]

I long for the day when we'll have FULLY destructible environments... as in explosions destroying wooden doors, being able to tear down plaster walls, snap branches in half, etc.

I don't mind if DNF doesn't have that level of destructable environments, because I can just imagine the difficulties involved.

[Simon Charles]

Emultra said:
Bullet sparks are fictitious and unrealistic. It's pure Hollywood.

I don't give an airborne coitus about realism. Sparks are fun and add to a game.

[Mr.Sociopath]

FireFly said:
Yeah, basically gaming worlds today are built out of static geometry - BSP. This has to be 'carved out' in the level editor beforehand and you can't modify it in-game. Geomod on the other hand doesn't have these limitations - it uses a portal based system, so geometry can be dynamically modified.

Now until games move completely away from static BSP, we're going to be stuck with static environments. Even Doom 3 uses BSP for collision detection, so you still couldn't incorporate a Geomod system without rewriting the engine. Now the good news is games are using less and less BSP, and more static meshes, which are essentially imported models used as gemoetry. These can be dynamically modified, so for example, where a pillar would have been BSP a few years ago, it's now likely to be a static mesh, and if the developer wants it can be destroyable - as some are in HL2.

sorry..but I still don,t see why it makes it impossible to have at least partially destructable environment.. like you said in hl2 some stuff were destroyable..in painkiller too..but in painkiller they only used it in a precise area(boss level)
why can't they make walls the same way? only because it's called walls?
in bloodrayne 2..they did it at somepoint..wasn't realy usefull since the level was so linear, but it was kind of fun to destroy walls..(it wasn't greatly done..but it was done at least)

FireFly said:
In next generation games these static meshes will be augmented with the physics system, so a wall could be made out of hundreds of bricks which break apart when the wall is destroyed. As George says, things will get really spectacular, but under all the destruction they'll still be basic undestroyable geometry.

well.. I dunno why but I have an impression of virtual reality kind of thing coming if it really goes this way..

like the water in one of the mequon demo.. it's made of "molecule" (almost)..so I guess that after they make wall made out of bricks.. they'll make bricks made out of minerals.. and then minerals made out of molecule..and then molecule made out of atom.. and then we won,t know which world is the real one.. and suicide rate will increase because people will jump from the top of building thinking that they are not in a real world which could at this point be true since there would be no difference..

[Boinky]

Duke3d had destructable walls. Im sure some areas in DNF will follow.. just not Dynamic blow up any wall I point my RPG at!

[Yatta]

I want to blow shit up like in this game: http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/sh...p;page=0#945459 (Watch its gameplay video)

[dark_angel]

You mean the game Black...

I guess this is the minimum DNF engine can do

[hell-angel]

FireFly said:
Yeah, basically gaming worlds today are built out of static geometry - BSP. This has to be 'carved out' in the level editor beforehand and you can't modify it in-game. Geomod on the other hand doesn't have these limitations - it uses a portal based system, so geometry can be dynamically modified.

Now until games move completely away from static BSP, we're going to be stuck with static environments. Even Doom 3 uses BSP for collision detection, so you still couldn't incorporate a Geomod system without rewriting the engine. Now the good news is games are using less and less BSP, and more static meshes, which are essentially imported models used as gemoetry. These can be dynamically modified, so for example, where a pillar would have been BSP a few years ago, it's now likely to be a static mesh, and if the developer wants it can be destroyable - as some are in HL2.

In next generation games these static meshes will be augmented with the physics system, so a wall could be made out of hundreds of bricks which break apart when the wall is destroyed. As George says, things will get really spectacular, but under all the destruction they'll still be basic undestroyable geometry.

And with this a PPU will come in handy for the physics models. The future looks bright for gamers

[motionblur]

Emultra said:
Bullet sparks are fictitious and unrealistic. It's pure Hollywood.

Who cares? Give me Hollywood! I demand over the top urealistic effects. I want coolness!
Devastation had realistic gun sounds and so forth and people complained because it sounded too weak. And I can understand it.
BTW - it is also unrealistic for one man to carry more than 8 guns at one time without becoming slower changeing between them in splitseconds and using it to kill hundereds of aliens all on his own.

[Micki!]

motionblur said:

Who cares? Give me Hollywood! I demand over the top urealistic effects. I want coolness!
Devastation had realistic gun sounds and so forth and people complained because it sounded too weak. And I can understand it.
BTW - it is also unrealistic for one man to carry more than 8 guns at one time without becoming slower changeing between them in splitseconds and using it to kill hundereds of aliens all on his own.

I agree with this...

[Suppressor]

Of course one man can´t carry all weapons at the same time... but we don´t want this kind of realism. I want a cool guy, mutilating aliens, levels full of interactivity (smashing enemies with a crane in HL2 was cool), destruction, vehicles etc... Well it is unrealistic, but it is so cool...

[hell-angel]

Micki! said:

I agree with this...

As do I, if I want realism I go to iraq. Since I don't I play DNF (when is it finished that is. )

[Emultra]

I didn't say sparks shouldn't be in.

As for the boss in Painkiller, the "destructible" pillars were simply solid objects stacked upon each other. But thanks to the physics engine (Havok 2.0 for Painkiller) they fell down quite nicely.

[dudetheman19]

In the "active environment" thread I posted a suggestion of how to make some nice destructable environments :-)

dudetheman19 said:
Some people have been talking about being able to blow everything up, even houses.... I just have an idea to that.

What if all walls were made in three layers?
1. Outer layer - This layer you can shoot holes in with machinguns and handguns
2. middle layer - When you shoot at walls with rocketlaunchers/simular weapons both the 1st layer and the 2nd layer will be blown off, so the holes in the walls appear larger
3. Last layer - This layer in unbreakeble

Then 3drealms can descide that houses are made of three layers, and things that you can blow up of two, and things you can shoot through is made of one layer Then we all can have fun writing our names with rockets and just shooting at everything while it doesnt ruin the game What do you guys think??

[FireFly]

Emultra said:
And it would make everything destructible?

Yes, and you could always use deformable geometry topped with a destructable floor.

Mr.Sociopath said:
sorry..but I still don,t see why it makes it impossible to have at least partially destructable environment..

As I said, it is possible, and George never said we wouldn't see this in DNF (you can even see the player blow chunks off a wall in the E3 video). What we're talking about is being able to destroy everything.

[bobk]

I think this discussion shows how much progress is yet to be made in video games. Imagine a game galaxy where you fly to a planet, into the planet's atmosphere, land on the planet, walk up to a building, blow out a support structure, and the building falls down realistically, all this with no perceptable load times. Probably 7-10 years away. I believe it will require special hardware...

[Emultra]

dudetheman19, I like your suggestion.

[Cerberus_e]

FireFly said:
Yeah, basically gaming worlds today are built out of static geometry - BSP. This has to be 'carved out' in the level editor beforehand and you can't modify it in-game. Geomod on the other hand doesn't have these limitations - it uses a portal based system, so geometry can be dynamically modified.

Now until games move completely away from static BSP, we're going to be stuck with static environments. Even Doom 3 uses BSP for collision detection, so you still couldn't incorporate a Geomod system without rewriting the engine. Now the good news is games are using less and less BSP, and more static meshes, which are essentially imported models used as gemoetry. These can be dynamically modified, so for example, where a pillar would have been BSP a few years ago, it's now likely to be a static mesh, and if the developer wants it can be destroyable - as some are in HL2.

In next generation games these static meshes will be augmented with the physics system, so a wall could be made out of hundreds of bricks which break apart when the wall is destroyed. As George says, things will get really spectacular, but under all the destruction they'll still be basic undestroyable geometry.

I thought HL2 was the only game that "still" used the BSP tree, and that causes the abysmally long loading times (I heard that)
also, what's the fun of destructible environments? then it makes levels with cool layout impossible, since you can skip everything.
there was something else I wanted to ask you, but I forgot

[Otto von Keisinger]

bobk said:
I think this discussion shows how much progress is yet to be made in video games. Imagine a game galaxy where you fly to a planet, into the planet's atmosphere, land on the planet, walk up to a building, blow out a support structure, and the building falls down realistically, all this with no perceptable load times. Probably 7-10 years away. I believe it will require special hardware...

No. There's a little something called procedural generation.