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About the damage models in ITF...
Since we at Space Dream Factory are in the process of designing damage models for the capital ships used, I was wondering if someone in the original ITF team could tell me a bit about how you guys thought when you designed: "The Omega Destroyer has 56 different hit areas, including turrets and other ship-critial systems. (7.18.99)"
How did you design the hit areas? In what way did you design the debris that was "summoned" when the ship exploded? I don't mind if you go into technical terms here, but any kind of insight would really be helpful... that is if your ideas aren't a secret [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
cheers!
Henrik Nordgren
3D artist
Space Dream Factory
currently developing Babylon 5:"I've Found Her"
How did you design the hit areas? In what way did you design the debris that was "summoned" when the ship exploded? I don't mind if you go into technical terms here, but any kind of insight would really be helpful... that is if your ideas aren't a secret [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
cheers!
Henrik Nordgren
3D artist
Space Dream Factory
currently developing Babylon 5:"I've Found Her"
Comments
-Rick
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
[b]Was debris actually summoned? IIRC, wasn't the ship model simply split into sections, depending on the area of the ship damaged?[/b][/quote]
Your memory is obviously wrong. It was a shitload more complicated than that, and pretty damn incredible to.
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
Each model was thought about in terms of where various systems would be located - drives, weapons, command, crew areas, etc. Each area of each ship was given a relative strength of hull/ shielding, based on decisions about the relative advancement of technology for reach alien species, based on canon material. The strength of hits from each kind of weapons system was calculated too, so that when a specific kind of weapons system, which featured a specific strength rating, hit a specific point on a specific ship with a specific strength rating, a degree of damage could be calculated. I think that the damage calculations were thought about in terms of how a ship would behave if a specifc area was damaged - a weapon stop operating? Would the ship become less maneuverable? How could be quantify the psychological effect on damage to crew quarters? Maybe the amount of damage the ship would take before fleeing would go down? I'm not sure how much of this was incorporated.
The models were built to break apart in areas that were judged to be "weak" based on each specific model.
Collision models were built to tightly conform to the visual models, so that, for instance, you could fly your Fury right through open areas of some ships without hitting the collision models. And of course if you fired on one of these ships, you could “miss” by having your shot go through the open area.
We were talking about switching out body parts at a certain hit calculation so that the ships could have “scares” that they would carry around for a specific amount of time before they were “repaired”, but I don’t’ know if this was ever incorporated, since the project moved up to Seattle and I stayed in Oakhurst to continue my writing from home as an independent contractor. The idea was that explosion effects would mask the switch of the body parts.
When models broke apart, the debris was the broken model parts. This debris would exist until the player left the area, then would be “clean up” in order to free the engine from having to keep track of these objects. We toyed with the idea of having bodies be seen on occasion, but I don’t know if this was incorporated.
Anyone who was really involved in building this stuff feel free to correct me or add to what I’ve written here, including the coding ideas that I’m not including.
[This message has been edited by Randy (edited 09-09-2001).]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
Thanks, Randy!
[img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/frown.gif[/img]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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[i]This is crazy. I hope I haven't brain my damaged.[/i]
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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Essentially, as I understood it, the larger objects were to be divided into sections, numbers depending on the size and geometry of the object. The team was in the process of perfecting this device on a beta model around the time of cancellation. Dan and I discussed this technology a bit, but, if memory serves, Stuart was in charge of it’s implementation (Stu was quite the SAK* of the group).
The basic idea was that the ship was divided into sections. Attached to each section was a database of information including, (but not limited to), superstructure content and the systems content of that section of the ship (fury bays, power plant, guns, crew quarters, fuel cells, etc.)
If a hit was registered on a particular section, that section’s damage model was brought up, points were taken away from affected systems, and necessary textures and fire & explosion FX would be spawned in the proper locations, with the proper magnitude and intensity.
Now, here’s the real trick. Because we planned for this ahead of time, we were debating making “pseudo” beam cutting weapons that would allow shadow ships/whitestars to slice the hulls of the larger cap ships at these “section joints”. So, for instance, in the historical missions you would be able to see a Shadow ship slice a Vorlon vessel in half. There were still some essential technical issues that needed to be dealt with on this, but it looked like we might have been able to make it work if we got started again.
The other “cool factor” on this is that, in theory, a ship could get cut in half, but still continue to fight until the appropriate systems went critical. So, for example,
[i]
* Starfuries would begin launching like crazy out of an Omega that was just cut in half by a shadow beam weapon in an effort to escape the pending explosion.
* One ship could ram another, and the guns of the rammed vessel could continue firing until its reactor (maybe in a section that wasn’t rammed?) went critical.
[/i]
Randy already talked about the “snug fitting” collision models, so I won’t go into too much on that. Essentially the collision models for “sectioned” vessels was one of the items being tweaked at cancellation time, but, as the game code was modular, it would have been easy to drop it in after we got started again, and finished test and verification.
Add to all this the rather spectacular results we were seeing from the particle based fire and explosion engine (another one of Stuart’s wonderful creations), and you had some pretty damn cool stuff that people have yet to see in a released game.
As for IFH: Getting a system like this to work is all about data and modularity. This type of a system may not work in a game unless it is coded in a manner friendly to this technique. ItF was drawing all of its data from a “nested database” of information, the resolution of which was strictly dependant on the limits of the hardware we were targeting at the time (RAM, CPU overhead).
Dan, please step in here if I flew way off the mark…
Best regards,
-Rick
* FYI, (because I know people will ask), SAK= Swiss Army Knife…
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
[This message has been edited by Rick (edited 09-10-2001).]
Rick hit the highlights about right. An example would be the Omega, where we had the 'breakapart' version separated into around 7 sections. Based on where the majority of damage occured, we would pick an appropriate seam to break the ship apart at. So if you kept your fire to say the rotating section, that's the general area that would come apart from the rest of the ship. Each section would rotate away dynamically, with an internal 'fire/electrical' volumetric explosion traveling acrossed the exposed surface.
The neat part was that we could separate the ship apart at different sections / at different times, giving a unique look to each destruction (nice eye candy reward) that wouldn't get old after the first time you'd seen that type of ship blow up.
The damage model's polygons were color coded as to what section and function it was - so it would be possible to silence individual guns/turrets, as well as disable indididual engines, or shut down the fighter bays. (Important for strategy).
The damage model wasn't planned to be super elaborate, but enough to add some variety to the gameplay, and keep a sense of realism. I'd also planned to put a weak spot (the "death star exhaust port") on an obscure part of each ship, so that a single fighter could go in and take one out if they learned the trick (with a lot of effort).
- Dan
A couple of other details - the fighters didn't have elaborate damage models, since they were so small, it wasn't especially useful to worry about what section of a fighter was hit. They would get individual fires on different points they were hit, and some of the organic type hulls didn't show fire, just an electrical/plasma dispersal.
The other thing we chose not to do is to allow capital ships to ram each other. This would have been hugely expensive in development and CPU time, and wouldn't have added much to the gameplay itself. We could get away with establishing this rule, since players never actually steered the capital ship, they just gave it orders as to where to go. The helmsman would ensure that any collisions between capital ships were avoided.
Along these lines, there was one funny thing we saw in development. When John was working on the fighter AI, we attached it to the Sharlin to get it to do a patrol route. However, when we approached it in our fighter and shot at it, it reacted like an elephant afraid of a mouse (it still had the 'avoid the oncoming fire' mentality of a fighter pilot!)
Sorry about that, John. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
- Dan
[url="http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon1_wip.jpg"]http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon1_wip.jpg[/url]
[url="http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon3_wip.jpg"]http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon3_wip.jpg[/url]
[url="http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon2_wip.jpg"]http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon2_wip.jpg[/url]
[url="http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon4_wip.jpg"]http://mods.firstones.com/ifh/shots/gquon4_wip.jpg[/url]
Do anyone know if a big archive of "non sierra published" ITF screenshots can be found somewhere on the web? That would be interesting..
take care!
Henrik
3D artist at Space Dream Factory
[This message has been edited by Aargh (edited 09-11-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Biggles (edited 09-12-2001).]
Actually whats the url for your site?
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://www.nialb5.com"]B5 site[/url].
[This message has been edited by Falcon1 (edited 09-11-2001).]
[b]Thank you gentlemen for that fantastic response to my questions. Don't be surprised if you will see something similar in IFH. In the mean time, here are some screenies for you all to behold...
Do anyone know if a big archive of "non sierra published" ITF screenshots can be found somewhere on the web? That would be interesting..
take care!
Henrik
3D artist at Space Dream Factory
[This message has been edited by Aargh (edited 09-11-2001).][/b][/quote]
No worries, Henrik--you're doing some fabulous looking work there.
As for screenshots, what are you looking for shots of? I have everything on file that was ever released on the web (a result of several months of working on this project). I can't give out anything that wasn't public, but if what you're looking for was part of that archive, I can send it over to you.
Best regards,
-Rick
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
Another question that has reached the surface during the following days: Hyperspace. How did you make it look so good? I have tried texturing a simple sphere, but the result wasn't good. With both spherical and planar mapping, the edges were too obvious. And the texture map has to be of high res if the result isn't to become too blurry.
/Henrik
I think the way FreeSpace did it was have a series of billboarded sprites that would be removed when they passed the camera and would be moved so they were always in front of the camera. This produces the layered result that is so clear to see, especially when other ships move around you.
The way B5:ITF did it could have been like this:
Use a fog system to give the bulk of the fade effect. Maybe two fogs of different colours mixed together to give colour variations. You could also have a set of spheres of increasing diameter. These spheres would contain the (semi-transparent) textures for hyperspace. The spheres would be permanantly centered on the camera. However, this would still produce the layered effect similar to that in FreeSpace. I'm not sure how they overcame this.
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[b]Thanks for that comment Rick. Well I am quite interested in the G'Quon, Hyperion and if you have any pictures that show the 3D HUD of the fighters, it would be great. Any HUD pics whatsoever, for that matter...
Another question that has reached the surface during the following days: Hyperspace. How did you make it look so good? I have tried texturing a simple sphere, but the result wasn't good. With both spherical and planar mapping, the edges were too obvious. And the texture map has to be of high res if the result isn't to become too blurry.
/Henrik[/b][/quote]
Henrik--
I have shots that match most of what you're looking for. Let me know how/where to send the. My addy is in my FO profile.
Regarding Hyperspace, as I recall there were two spherical texturemaps that could be rotated along independant arcs. One map was semi-transparent (had an alphamap), that gave it the same "etheral" look of the series. Let me talk to Dan/Marc on this one, but, unless I post otherwise, I'd go on what I just said.
From a generic standpoint, the key to making spherical maps or skybox textures successful is to actually try and get a tool that will let you "paint on the shape" you're using. This makes the seamlines clean, and distortion effects are accomodated for in the texture when you turn it into a flat bitmap file.
I believe that DeepPaint does this.
I KNOW Maya 3.x+ lets you paint on 3D objects directly with a limited array of tools, and allows you to export the "rough texture" for cleanup in PS or another similar tool.
I haven't had a chance to play with LW7 enough to see if it has a method for doing same (it does texture baking, but I haven't seen painting tools in modeller yet....still learning [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img])
I'll let you know.
-Rick
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
I remember Nicolas working on this part of the engine, and I believe, although I could be wrong, that he created a lower res procedural to mimic what was used in the Lightwave surfacing of the hyperspace model.
Whether this procedural was real time, or used to generate an image used for mapping later, I can't remember.
There was indeed a fog effect included at a certain distance from the game camera. And they had also managed to include that weird lightning like effect from the show also.
Maybe someone can get ahold of Nick and get his input...
[img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
Dan: Ha ha [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img] Yes, you, Jeff, and Nicolas continue to enjoy ribbing me about that "zombie-like bug".
You see everyone. It didn't just happen once. The problem kept coming back... again and again. To this day I don't know how I managed to do it; usually during the final crunch before a significant conference, demo, or marketing build. (sigh)
To quote from Dogbert (Scott Adams) "Zombies make bad gifts." [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
Air travel has become "interesting". It was quite surreal to see people's finger-nail clippers and shaver "cartridges" (two strips of metal 1 mm x 20mm encased in plastic) being confiscated at the security gate. It only took about 3 hours to get through both check-ins and security, so I guess it wasn't too bad for us.
[b]The two spheres part is correct, with the inner sphere being semi-trans.
I remember Nicolas working on this part of the engine, and I believe, although I could be wrong, that he created a lower res procedural to mimic what was used in the Lightwave surfacing of the hyperspace model.
Whether this procedural was real time, or used to generate an image used for mapping later, I can't remember.
There was indeed a fog effect included at a certain distance from the game camera. And they had also managed to include that weird lightning like effect from the show also.
Maybe someone can get ahold of Nick and get his input...
[img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img][/b][/quote]
I think it was pre-rendered. I'll go back and check with Nick, unless Dan gets him to post here first [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
-Rick
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
The spheres were both pre-rendered, and both had alpha channels. Very distance ships were fogged out to black (and were outside the two spheres). The outermost sphere was at a fair distance from the camera compared to the near sphere, to allow approaching ships to be 'between' the mists, partly obscured.
Nicolas came up with the solution to this (after much experimentation), and it worked very well.
- Dan
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
(nods to Dan)
I mailed you about it, but the mail seem to have disappeared in cyberspace [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
cheers!
Henrik
Space Dream Factory