Cinematic physics

[Zombine]

I read somewhere that Episode two will have so called cinematic physics. What exactly does that mean?

We all saw strider use it's cannon to destroy that country house in the ep2 trailer. But will these scenes be scripted or will strider have multiple objects from which he will choose which one to fire at?
I mean only thing we saw being destroyed was that bridge and country house.

And there are about three screen shots of the same destroyed house, all over again. I know that episode is still being worked on, but I am concerned that that will be the only thing that is going to be destroyed.

So, what exactly is this cinematic physics?

 

[Barnz]

Scripted physics done on Hammer.

 

[Oppressor]

For all I know its' large, non-scripted events like those you mentioned. How often its going to be used is another thing, but VALVe will execute cinematic physics often enough, I don't doubt that at all. We'll probably get to see some really mindblowing scenes the likes of which have never been seen in a game.

 

[soulslicer]

stage 1: frame by frame animated physics..
stage 2: the objects convert to standard physics objects..

 

[Iron_cube]

A strider aiming its anti-matter cannon at something (bullseyes for instance) will always be scripted no matter what.

 

[Godron]

I think it's semi-scripted, like Alyx jumping over those gaps at the start of Ep1. A specified trigger will activate the scripted physics sequence. I don't think bridge and the house are the only cinematic physics sequences we've seen; I heard somewhere that some of those explosions in the gameplay video where the Hunter chopper is attacking the rebels are cinematic physics, too. For example, where the that tower explodes and sents bits of burning debris flying down at you.

As for how it works, I've heard it's a mixture of key-frame animation and physics. I have my own crappy little theory that the developer specifies the key-frames, then an algorithm calculates a set of vector forces that would cause the physics objects to move in the way the key frames specify. That way the whole sequence is effectively being calculated in real-time, because the moving parts are still physics objects.

There are a couple of better theories here.
I hope we they update Hammer with this stuff after Ep2 is released, that would be fun. I suppose if they do then they'll update the online documentations as well, which will probably explain how it works.

 

[Planetary]

I rememeber one of the new screenshots shows the aftermath of that strider-house-attack a bit more, and you can see that all that rubble can be picked up now, it won't just fade away as it did before.