Scipio Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 I often wonder that I can blow a house into pieces, but see the rest of the map undamaged. Why don't make a tank a hole into a bocage when he drives through it? Same for walls and hedges - what of course would mean that following units can pass them faster and the LOS would be changed. And why don't artillery fire damage them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavScout Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Originally posted by Scipio: Why don't make a tank a hole into a bocage when he drives through it? Same for walls and hedges - what of course would mean that following units can pass them faster and the LOS would be changed. I raised this question soon after the game was released. Just one of those things that didn't make it in, I guess. Lucky we got as much as we did. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParaBellum Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 This is a feature that I would really like to see in CM2. Imagine enemy tanks thundering through some scattered trees, approaching your positions and leaving behind a trail of destruction. Aaaahh... nice! ------------------ Klotzen, nicht kleckern! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Originally posted by Scipio: Why don't make a tank a hole into a bocage when he drives through it? Original block shaped object: 5 polygons. Block shaped object broken up in two parts: 10 polygons. That means, if a tank breaks through a wall the amount of polygons that form the wall will double. And that is the easy part. The difficult part are the geometric calculations and the polygon book-keeping necessary to realize this. Hope this helps, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scipio Posted February 1, 2001 Author Share Posted February 1, 2001 Originally posted by Rollstoy: Thanx god that we have computers to calculate such things. [This message has been edited by Scipio (edited 02-01-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Mayer Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Fully deformable terrain is sort of the "holy grail" of a lot of games, including first person shooters. It's never really been done, and even games like Red Faction (in development now) that purport to offer it don't--at least, you won't be able to deform anything and everything. In a game like CM, it would be very nice to see terrain destroyed by the battle, but it would really have to be accurately depicted, not just graphically but in terms of the game as well. In other words, if I'm going to see holes torn in walls, I want units to be able to see and shoot through said hole. If mortars tear holes in bocage, I want to be able to move through those tears. Etc. And that, as has been described, puts a huge burden on the coders, not just due to performance issues, but because you have to have deformation routines for everything, covering every possible type of deformation. To my knowledge, no one has yet come up with the sort of algorithms necessary to do this reliably with a detailed 3D game like CM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rollstoy Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Originally posted by Robert Mayer: It's never really been done, ... Example 1: Syndicate Wars (fully destructible environment). Example 2: Shattered Steel (only terrain; Voxel based). Both years old. I want units to be able to see and shoot through said hole. Example: Panzer Elite. Both things that have to be developed from scratch for every new game, thus rarely seen (as you remarked). Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Mayer Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Hmm, I played Syndicate Wars, and yeah, you could destroy stuff, but I don't think it was fully 3D; i.e., I don't think the position of everything on the map was fixed in a 3D space, so that destroying a specific chunk of wall gave you a shot through just that chunk, at just that angle. Maybe it was, though; Bullfrog was very good at what they did. Didn't play Shattered Steel. In that case certainly though the level of AI processing and other CPU intensive number crunching didn't approach what is going on in CM I don't think. As for Panzer Elite, now there's a game that had potential that for various reasons never quite made it to polished and finished status. But I'll trust your recollection on this one, as I didn't play it much. Not that much of a simmer myself. Come to think of it there are some 2D games that have done something of what we're talking about. Both XCOM and Jagged Alliance 2 allowed deformable terrain to some extent, for instance. But I don't think anything along the scale of CM has ever had these features. Then again, has there ever been anything quite like CM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Yes, both Syndicate Wars and X-Com had some deformable terrain (not 100%, buildings were but not the ground IIRC). But these were 2-D sprite based games. I can't remember where I was reading it, but I do recall reading that this is a much larger CPU drain and very difficult to code in 3-D polygon based games like CM, which is why you don't see it even in graphics intesive games like Unreal Tournament or Quake 3. ------------------ You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddy Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 ------------------ "Original block shaped object: 5 polygons. Block shaped object broken up in two parts: 10 polygons. That means, if a tank breaks through a wall the amount of polygons that form the wall will double. And that is the easy part. The difficult part are the geometric calculations and the polygon book-keeping necessary to realize this. Hope this helps, Thomm" ------------------ My question is this - say you have a squad of men running across the battlefield and they get eliminated - they are replaced by a "static" graphic depicting the dead unit, right? Why can't we run a tank through a hedge and replace the damaged part of the hedge with a static graphic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Originally posted by buddy: My question is this - say you have a squad of men running across the battlefield and they get eliminated - they are replaced by a "static" graphic depicting the dead unit, right? Why can't we run a tank through a hedge and replace the damaged part of the hedge with a static graphic? That was my thought too, or very near it. But I am not up on this stuff enough to render an informed opinion. Experts? Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogface Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Buddy, cause thats just what it would be a picture, no better los, movement, cover, makeing the picture aint the hard part, its making the game enviroment recognize that there is a hole WxYxZ in dia. ant how it affects the rest of the stuff <-----high tech term in action [This message has been edited by Dogface (edited 02-01-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnesota Joe Posted February 2, 2001 Share Posted February 2, 2001 Just for the record, Syndicate Wars was almost completely 3-D. The available camera angles were limited, though. Terrain was almost completely, also. Craters could be "made", among other things. If you think about it, running over a tree with a tank could in theory destroy siad tree. This would in turn lower the polygon count, would it not? ------------------ Ah scheist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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