water spliting

[zmaster]

i think when players shoot beams across the water the water should um...well...split

 

[KarrdeKNR]

Fluid dynamics is really not a realistic possibility. Not at least physics simulated fluid dynamics. I don't think any game has actually done that yet. What we can (and do) do is create particle effects to create ocean spray, bubbles, etc. What you actually want, though is still future tech.

 

[sub]

I haven't played it, but Hydrophobia for the 360 is supposed to have simulated dynamic fluid. Keep in mind that none of this could ever be done for ESF, but check it out if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZceJsTwdcg

 

[Z Power]

I feel that consoles are holding the games back. PC technology is advanced enough to do some seriously amazing stuff. Havok's cloth and destruction physics are truly awe inspiring. Nvidia has been doing some serious breakthroughs in this regard as well.

This was a 3D preview but it gets the message across.
[video=youtube;1JrM4ujLY_A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JrM4ujLY_A[/video]

[video=youtube;EfrSaIY0YQA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfrSaIY0YQA[/video]

Edit: I'll just throw this in here because of how awesome it is.

[video=youtube;8cy1ty4nvmc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cy1ty4nvmc[/video]

 

[Raven]

yea lets do it and include tessellation as well, I guess no one will mind buying at least a 480 to play it ESF isn't an ingame shooter after all where you can clip away huge amounts of the map.

 

[Z Power]

We don't want all that in Esf, i was just talking in general. :3

Esf is wonderful as it is.

 

[dutchmeat]

An posible alternative to fluid simulation is to fake the effect of the water being split.
I don't know if it can be done in HL, but if you would take a semitransparent cylinder that you place in the water plane. With a special texture material which is invisible above the water plane, and mirrors the water effect on the sides of the bottom of the cylinder.

 

[Grega]

Wouldnt it be easier to just use 2 rows of particles formed at the sides of the beam that take the shape of the water splashes.

 

[dutchmeat]

You will need to create the illusion that it's splitting the water, not just have water splashes

 

[Tenzo]

Wasn't something similar tested once? I'm sure it could be done for beams too.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/earths-special-forces/videos/underwater-fx#imagebox
Tweak that thing and i'm sold.

 

[Grega]

Wasn't something similar tested once? I'm sure it could be done for beams too.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/earths-special-forces/videos/underwater-fx#imagebox
Tweak that thing and i'm sold.

That is the effect that i was talking about you know ^^

 

[Prozac]

Though it's already possible to simulate liquids pretty damn good. It's just hard to do it in real time while keeping the quality of the simulation , and the animation that goes with it, high. Hence it's something that's not commonly used yet.
The thing is, we all know how water reacts. If you want to simulate it properly, it requires a lot of processing power. If you change the math behind it or increase the size of the actual water(There should be a better way to put this into words, but I fail, so I can't ), so it becomes less intensive to simulate, you'll lose realism. Losing realism here, tends to be a bad thing.

 

[Z Power]

At 2:00, something happens.

[video=youtube;GkUGZGwklwA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkUGZGwklwA[/video]

It did not exactly split, but i guess on a bigger scale it would be similar.

 

[Sicron]

You keep forgetting, Spidey, that those are demo's. You should see some Nvidia demo's from a couple of years ago, just now these things are being put into games. While the demo might run fine on your PC if it is good enough, that doesn't mean it will work in a game yet. These simulations require quite a bit of processing power, but games include far more than that. More interactivity, complex AI code, more action (which causes a lot more graphical stuff on your screen), all of which cost a lot of processing power. Consoles aren't holding back games, consumers are, because not everyone can afford to buy the best available graphics card. And these games need to stay accessible for a larger crowd. You can't add fluid simulation just like that, because adding such a dynamic system, would probably have some meaning to the game (eg. you have to solve a puzzle using fluid dynamics) and if only the people would a 1000 dollar graphics card can play those games, those companies wouldn't earn a thing.

 

[Z Power]

But imagine if the next generation of console had already been out. It would still take time but it would cause the implementation of these features a lot sooner then it would be now.

I agree with you, getting the most expensive graphic card just to justify some tech like Fluid physics and such is totally uncool, hardly anyone would buy it. But right now the gap between the console hardware and PC hardware has reached a point where companies like Nividia have to slow down their development just because there is nothing out there that would use all that power. There is currently no game besides Crysis and Metro 2033, that a medium-end PC can't handle at full. Had a new console come out by by now, the very hardware that is too expensive now would've been your average sold hardware.

Consoles aren't the ONLY reason, but they are one of them.

 

[Prozac]

Consoles aren't holding back games, consumers are, because not everyone can afford to buy the best available graphics card.

I disagree. consoles are holding games back. Nowadays everything gets ported from PC to console and vice versa. Meaning that games need to be toned down, make sure they are playable on those "outdated" consoles too. Sure PC games might get better resolution models and what not. But gameplay wise, no changes will be made to take advantage of a computers processing power.

 

[Sicron]

By the way, shouldn't dynamic fluid surfaces be possible (for the hardware, don't know how much coding it would take)? Basically it's like a map above the water surface, making it look 3d. I seem to remember that Fable the Lost Chapters (PC version) had something like this and also the Unreal 3 engine seems to use it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4pe6UAS2M (from 1:15)

 

[KarrdeKNR]

Well, I spent some time monkeying with this today. Might be hard to get it to look good. I'll ask Dalte to look at what I've done and see if he can make it better.

 

[Z Power]

[video=youtube;JYiVkHEzThk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYiVkHEzThk[/video]

What the heck is that? I didn't know we could do all that awesomeness with Source.

O_O

 

[Ryokeen]

Well dynamic day/night cycles can be done in HL1 aswell^^