Collision detection: Let's hope Valve didn't forget

[infin|ty]

With all the talk about physics and the amazing graphics HL2 will have, I hope they don't forget about collision. A good example is when the player throws the pherimones at the soldiers camped up behind the beds on their sides in the movie. The ant lions simply walk through them almost. Some of them have their bodies right inside the beds. That kills realism.

Almost every game I've ever played has had this problem. There are very weak boundaries that NPCs must follow. I guess the one problem I see with this is, let's say you have a room littered with corpses. If you have proper collision detection, you would walk on top of the bodies, not go through them. How this would affect gameplay, I don't know, perhaps negatively.

My last small gripe is how the ant lions moved. I realize this is alpha stages, but when they jumped, there was no real animation for them, they just kind of flew up in the air and landed flat again. Would be nice if they had some sort of leaping animation. That is all.

 

[$pazmatazz]

This has probably been discussed before, but aren't some of the video's of HL2 that were shown at E3 almost 8 months old?

I remember reading interviews where certain developers and site creators had seen HL2 demos before anyone else, and they claimed that the build date on those demos was from a while back. Then when watching the E3 demos, the ones descriped in those interviews sounded like the same ones that we all saw.

I know there's a few things that don't back that up, like the crowbar being newly added before E3, but who knows. It would be interesting if what we saw was that old, because it would mean that wherever they are now is that much better.

Anyways, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[neva]

NO no its totaly right... The vids from E3 were pretty old... so they are probably gonna fix this problems :cheers:

 

[GOoch]

Laguna NO no its totaly right... The vids from E3 were pretty old... so they are probably gonna fix this problems


Apparentley they are from and old build (September 2002).
one of the press guys noticed this (not E3) but the big press event ValVe had to acctualy unvail the product. He noticed the date in the corner of the screen and when he asked the ValVe Bod, The press bloke said the (Valve bloke just smiled).

 

[Vertigo]

So wait, wait a tick, here...the stuff we've been ogling at from E3 is actually more of that stuff from September?! Sweet jesus...I want some brand new stuff...recorded from today! I know...I'll contract somebody to break into Valve, play the game, and record it into one huge .mov file. It's a flawless plan!

-Vert

 

[GOoch]

Well basicley what the press saw at the unvaling was whet was shown at E3.. Based on the rivews i read before E3 the movs were the same ones.:dozey:

 

[simmo]

ooo I cant wait! for some new stuff to be featured, but September ? that was ages ago, must of been really hard to keep it under wraps

 

[skogum!]

8 months?

That cant be right...I was told that hl2 was a secret until just a few weeks before the e3! :bounce:

 

[FireBall]

Just because it was a secret doesnt mean they cant record demos

 

[skogum!]

aaah...got a point there but why dont they record the demo when they are tellin' us about it? They must have done some changes so why not show the better demo?

 

[FireBall]

Well probably they want to surprise us with new stuff at the release

 

[skogum!]

Good point :bounce:

 

[neva]

Yeah... sure they will... just look at the HL alpha... looked preetty crappy

 

[skogum!]

HL alpha?

:bounce:

 

[[Re4lity]Jeff]

Ahh, no wonder they said those vids were produced on a moderate-spec PC with a GF4. Makes you wonder what graphical improvements'll be in the final thing!

 

[TrueWeltall]

Halflife one wasnt known about until the month before its release so anything is possible

 

[A_M]

Nah I really don't think the collision detection will be "fixed", I don't think the dev team will be implementing animated collision zones for creatures nor do I think they would use the actual displayed models for precise per-poly collision detection. I think the best we can hope for is for the collision zones to be tweaked so the problem might be slightly less apparent in the final build.

On the other hand I think that we'll have less problems with humanoid corpses clipping through walls than in most games - thanks to the ragdoll physics.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

you guys are getting a lil too excited here hehe,
the "vids" were in-game recorded demos (played ala q3 demos)
they were played in-engine.
the tech demo your refering to (I assume) is the pczone ones etc, those were shown before the hl2 embargo was lifted, and this was before e3. although some things sound the same, its not the same demo. (take a gander at the old screenshots) anywhoo.

the vids were recorded specifically for e3, the crowbar was added just before e3 (hence the demos would have to be re-recorded, otherwise you wouldnt have seen it) perhaps the TECH DEMO was similar to the one shown to the press or even the exact some one, but not the in-game ones.

collision detection seems fine, there are a few instances I noticed that were a little off, but theres a line you have to draw somewhere, you cant have it all physics/collision/graphics/sound/big levels/decals etc and expect it to run on a med system (which is their goal... for it to be able to be backwards scaleable for lower end systems) every calculation, whether it be physics or collision detection eats up resources that could be wiser spent elsewhere.

Half-life 2 will be revolutionary, as was hl1 but lets not expect the world from it, that only creates expectations that it cant live up to.
as for the jump animation, it most likely will be corrected, you dont go ahead and make one hell of an impressive title and then have no jump animation on an antlion lol. (same goes for that infernal crowbar, eesh I cringed so bad when I saw it the first time)

whew
okies peace out, all views expressed are my own.
not too bad for a first post
if you read it all you get a cookie!

/me hands out cookies

 

[Dave]

Thank you kind sir!

And an interesting read I might add.

/me munches hungrily on cookie.

 

[righte0us]

eeek! a cookie :E

/me grabs one

 

[derby]

Remember only 3 of the demos featured the crowbar. These three must be new as valve said they didn't add the crowbar till right before E3. The other demos may be older, I think that Valve would have recorded the demos as video files (rather than recording them for playback using the eingine). It makes sense as there is much less that can go wrong on the day (it would be embarresing if there was suddenly a bug and the engine started misbehaving). This allows them to cut together footage from different points in the games development. One more thing that suggests the demos were recorded as movies: The old G-man at the very start. I doubt that they would have modified the engine just so that they could put the G-man form HL1 in for a few seconds. It's not impossible that the demos were played 'in game' but I think it would make much more sense to prerecord them.

 

[Hazza]

The game isn't even at a beta point yet, they can't even play it all the way through, well from what I last heard, so I wouldn't go worrying about little bugs. I thought I read somewhere that the demos were played in game, but I'm not sure where. Hmmm...

 

[Straylight]

I also noticed that in the scene right after the 2 sentries there is one bug up on a elevated walkway that seems to be stuck up there. He doesn't path to the bomb gordon lobs at the last soldier he just turns and looks at the soldier and then turns back to gordon when it dies.

-Straylight

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by infin|ty
With all the talk about physics and the amazing graphics HL2 will have, I hope they don't forget about collision. A good example is when the player throws the pherimones at the soldiers camped up behind the beds on their sides in the movie. The ant lions simply walk through them almost. Some of them have their bodies right inside the beds. That kills realism.

Almost every game I've ever played has had this problem. There are very weak boundaries that NPCs must follow. I guess the one problem I see with this is, let's say you have a room littered with corpses. If you have proper collision detection, you would walk on top of the bodies, not go through them. How this would affect gameplay, I don't know, perhaps negatively.

My last small gripe is how the ant lions moved. I realize this is alpha stages, but when they jumped, there was no real animation for them, they just kind of flew up in the air and landed flat again. Would be nice if they had some sort of leaping animation. That is all.

Yeah that.. And the damn blood. The game had the HL1 blood splats. Hope theres more gore, blood and spittin ass everywhere.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

-gamespot-
(http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/preview_6027872.html)

excerpt taken from the bottom of the page:

"Frankly, we were blown away by what we saw of Half-Life 2 here, and though this was a rolling demo (albeit of real-time gameplay), Valve proceeded to demonstrate the bug bait level in action, which looked just as good as in the rolling demo"

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Originally posted by Straylight
I also noticed that in the scene right after the 2 sentries there is one bug up on a elevated walkway that seems to be stuck up there. He doesn't path to the bomb gordon lobs at the last soldier he just turns and looks at the soldier and then turns back to gordon when it dies.

-Straylight

maybe its lazy like me (lol)
now thats what I call AI!!!
we call them kindsa bugs "features" (hehe)

 

[Dr.Sbaitso]

I guess we will just have to wait about 4 more months and find out. How cool would it be if they put in a Hitman 2 style blood thing where when you shoot them and it hits the wall behind them you see the blood run down the wall, i love that.

 

[worldspawn]

the collision detection i believe is better than in some of the screenshots (ie: feet clipping through feet in two corpses) .. but might not be as crazy as the engine reacting to you walking over bodies.. (but who knows.. in a preview someone recently posted.. the writer describes walking on broken wood and how it effects how gordon freeman (you) walks ).. either way it's going to kick ass..

 

[TrueWeltall]

Originally posted by Hazza
The game isn't even at a beta point yet, they can't even play it all the way through, well from what I last heard, so I wouldn't go worrying about little bugs. I thought I read somewhere that the demos were played in game, but I'm not sure where. Hmmm...

When i beta tested BF 1942 it wasnt all the way done yet. You dont know much if you cant even tell what a beta is.

 

[worldspawn]

Originally posted by TrueWeltall
When i beta tested BF 1942 it wasnt all the way done yet. You dont know much if you cant even tell what a beta is.

yeah for sure.. the bf1942 beta.. while cool.. was nothing compared to the multiplayer final version in all it's glory.

 

[TrueWeltall]

Originally posted by worldspawn
yeah for sure.. the bf1942 beta.. while cool.. was nothing compared to the multiplayer final version in all it's glory.

IMO i think beta was the best time i had playing, Very little asshats to ruin it. There was alot of teamwork, more then youd see on todays random sever games. And there was a stunt server which rocked but sucked when people got on it to play the game and not stunt. Also i think beta ran better on my system then.

 

[worldspawn]

Originally posted by TrueWeltall
IMO i think beta was the best time i had playing, Very little asshats to ruin it. There was alot of teamwork, more then youd see on todays random sever games. And there was a stunt server which rocked but sucked when people got on it to play the game and not stunt. Also i think beta ran better on my system then.

i was talking about the sp beta that came out with only the desert map.. maybe you didn't play this.. but it was even less advanced then the wake island multiplayer beta.

 

[TrueWeltall]

I played thru the whole beta, There was the wake map and tobruk(sp?) it was all one beta with just two maps.

 

[worldspawn]

Originally posted by TrueWeltall
I played thru the whole beta, There was the wake map and tobruk(sp?) it was all one beta with just two maps.

there was an earlier sp only beta.. don't **** around with reality.

 

[Hype]

Im sure theyve thoght about that.:dozey:

 

[worldspawn]

Originally posted by Hype
Im sure theyve thoght about that.:dozey:

what do you mean.. thought about what.. he brought up a few points in his post.. be more specific.

 

[Dave]

I think Hype just meant the Collision Detection in general. Eg. I'm sure they have thought about how Gordon and NPC's will react when they hit bodies on the floor or objects, as am I.

 

[Alzxul]

Well on one of the articles it says, when Gordon moved over some fragmented wood, he tried to gain his balance and some such, so presumbly the collision detection is going to be fine.

 

[TrueWeltall]

If you were i it id like to see some proof, i have mine. Here's a picture of the e-mail and files that i got during beta.

 

[worldspawn]

Originally posted by TrueWeltall
If you were i it id like to see some proof, i have mine. Here's a picture of the e-mail and files that i got during beta.

i'm talking about the public betas.. there was an early SINGLEPLAYER ONLY public beta.. i don't care if you were included in a beta.. all i ever said was that the first beta released was nothing compared to the finished game. are you arguing with that fact?