Half-life 2 Physics comparisons.

Raziaar

Raziaar

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Well, i'm sure we all played with that AWESOME physics demo in the other thread... but we all know that that isn't havok, and definately not valve's edited version of Havok. What do you guys think the physics of half-life 2 will be like compared to that demo? Think it will be remarkably similiar in alot of respects, poorer or better in some other areas? I'm falling in love with that demo, and I don't think I could ever get tired of physics in a game... so if half-life 2 has it incorporated as well as we're led to believe, I think this will be a remarkable game of course, just from the physics alone.

*NO BETA SPOILERS!*
 
could you post a link to the demo? i missed it.
 
HL2's physics look great, but yeah, seeing the Meqon demos just made HL2's physics look bad (concerning water dynamics) ;(

The water physics seemed far more advanced in the Meqon demos whereas in HL2 there are no physically rendered water dynamics, just sprites and DX9 effects. I'm hoping Valve will upgrade this in the future though...

nonetheless hl2 will be great :thumbs:
 
Trust me, HL2 phyics will match and probably surpass that demo.
Except for the clothe thing.
 
Physics seem to be implimented well in hl2. My biggest fear is that they will go overboard with it. A physics demo is fun to toy with for a while, but I really don't want to jump into an FPS and feel like I am in a glorified physics demo. I hope the traps aren't overly obvious and contrived. Like in the traptown video wihere the large container ontop of a building was blown off and fell on the combine. That is a good use of physics. But the Iron bar set up to swing through the courtyard at waistehigh, thats a little too contrived for me. I just hope there aren't too many like that.

I also fear the impact this game will have on the community. I can imagine the 15 or 20 different attempts to rip off the Manipulator in other games after hl2 is released. We shouldn't get caught up and start thinking that just because we can have elaborate physics in a game doesn't mean every game should be built around physics gameplay like hl2 is.
 
That demo was better it has water and cloth physics!!

HL2 physics IS SUCK!!!
 
But the Iron bar set up to swing through the courtyard at waistehigh, thats a little too contrived for me. I just hope there aren't too many like that.
Click to expand...

Remember, father gregori set up those 'traps'.
 
Evil^Milk said:
HL2's physics look great, but yeah, seeing the Meqon demos just made HL2's physics look bad (concerning water dynamics) ;(
:
Click to expand...


the only thing that looked like being better than in hl2 was the water. and the rest of the physics, can it even get any more realistic than hl2/megon ?

there´s like hundreds of all those litle testprograms where they´re trying to create the most realistic physics and having blocks you can drag around etc etc, but do you feel any difference between them? at least i dont.
 
HL2 doesn't simulate water.

It simulates the objects in the water.
 
Since when does HL2 have water physics? wtf!

/loads up beta to check this out...
 
We shouldn't get caught up and start thinking that just because we can have elaborate physics in a game doesn't mean every game should be built around physics gameplay like hl2 is.
Click to expand...

You say that like physics could be a bad thing for most games. I haven't seen a game yet(well, okay, maybe I have... but still...) that couldn't be improved by good physics...
 
Yea, I remember. But when I'm in a game I still don't want anything that contrived, no matter the excuse for it being there. I guess the way I see it, physics are good for making the world act more like it should, but I feel developers must reach a balance or they risk destroying the realism with cheap gimmicks. Don't take that as an attack on hl2, it isn't. I just hope that now that we can do this kind of stuff, developers keep a cool head and don't **** up any good games by using cheaply.
 
HL2's physics look better then that Meqon demo but not by much.
And who the heck cares for water physics right now? IF they spent another month or two, delaying the game to add realistic water physics, that would be in the game for a couple of levels, and would only really be used in one or two instances (the boat), would you really care that much? I'm not gonna be noticing the water physics when 2 helicopters and a ton of combine are trying to kill me
 
From what valve's released, HL2 won't be really gimmicky, but they will take advantage of the phyics system they took 5 years to make.
 
HL2 doesn't simulate water.

It simulates the objects in the water.
Click to expand...

Meqon doesn't simulate water either. It simulates a water surface, not water flow or anything. Also, Meqon's water simulation, while pretty to look at if small things hit it... is *VERY* crude when you're talking actual water distortion. ITs more like a giant mesh like the cloth. Tell me, when does water react like this?

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6619/Insanewater.jpg

It's more like a 'very very thick goop'
 
their cloth and water are the most impressive I have seen.
the physics are pretty damn impressive too....
cant wait to see some games incorporating this.

the water was nice... but the cloth simply just owned me.. havent seen anything come close to it.
 
I like how 'precise' the physics can be. This can be seen in the block stack demo, with the giant triangle. That is by far my favorite... and you can manipulate the little blocks *VERY* minutely. If you move one outta place, you can easily ease it back into place to maintain the stability of the structure.

I can see someone using a physics engine like this to make a 'jenga' game. :laugh:


EDIT: The block stack demo also showed me how INSANELY fun it can be to simply have a bunch of blocks to play with... and be a kid again. It should be illegal its so fun. I only wish they gave me a gigantic square made out of tons of those little squares to play around with... 'that' would be wicked. I spent literally 7 hours playing with that square triangle.
 
Yea the cloth is simply awesome!

The water didn't impress me extremely.

That scaffold was pretty cool :)


Oh and RealFlow ( on that nextlimit.com site) was used for the lava in RoTK at the end in case you were wondering :)
 
I actually wouldn't be surprised if we aren't too far from being able to render water like that shown in the nextlimit demos, albeit on a smaller scale. Currently, there is a pixel shader demo in the DirectX 9 SDK called "blobs" which uses a metaball effect. If you can have several thousand of tiny metaballs, I think you could get physics not unlike the water shown in those demos.

(Lemme see if I can find a good pic of the metaball demo...)
 
Devilphish said:
\But when I'm in a game I still don't want anything that contrived, no matter the excuse for it being there.
Click to expand...
I agree, although I didn't think the beam swinging down was -too- contrived. A little, sure, but not horribly so.

The whizzy motor with the fan blades is a little silly though - how would father Grigori get into there to put that trap there in the first place, and get out alive, if there were zombies anywhere? Or did he just decide to put it there 'for the future'? Seems like it'd be more sensible to use the trap against zombies which are currently attacking you, rather than go and waste one of your traps in the middle of no-where hoping that in the future it -might- be used.
 
Okay, found a download site for the metaballs:

http://clootie.narod***/delphi/download_dx90.html

The Blobs sample mimics a metaball effect in screen space using a pixel shader. True metaball techniques deform surfaces according to pushing or pulling modifiers, and are commonly used to model liquid effects like the merging of water droplets; however, metaball effects can be computationally expensive, and this sample shows how to fake a 3D metaball effect in 2D image space using a pixel shader.
More extensive documentation can be found in Readme.html in sample archive.

Image: http://clootie.narod***/Images/sdk_samples/Blobs.jpg
Download executable and source code: http://clootie.narod***/delphi/DirectXExamples/DX90/Blobs.zip

Note: As I do not have a PS 2.0 card (which is required for the demo) I don't know how fast it'll run.
 
Yea its a little silly, but then again why would air vents have ladders leading into them?

The nextflix or whatever its called physics are absolutely AMAZING... especially the water one, it looked real!

the meqon or whatever ... that demo video where they had the rogdolls and the barrels and stuff... that was awesome... i so want that demo lol!
 
I was amazed by the cloth demo, it looks amazing.

The water demo cocked up for me big time, everytime I manipulated any of the objects in the water, it shook voilently and continued exponentialy, until it was giant spikes coming up.

I thought the physics were very good - though everything felt a little to exaggerated. Objects felt much lighter compared to how they would react in real life. Like in the jeep demo, even if you moved at a slow pace, you'd seem to go flying off every small bump.

I thought the rag doll effects, animation blending and everything wicked. Specially shooting the balls at them, shooting a slow one at them (which makes no bat it down) and then throwing the fast ball and decking them :).
 
Its fun to play dodgeball with people that don't even know your playing it with them :-D
 
Devilphish said:
Physics seem to be implimented well in hl2. My biggest fear is that they will go overboard with it. A physics demo is fun to toy with for a while, but I really don't want to jump into an FPS and feel like I am in a glorified physics demo. I hope the traps aren't overly obvious and contrived. Like in the traptown video wihere the large container ontop of a building was blown off and fell on the combine. That is a good use of physics. But the Iron bar set up to swing through the courtyard at waistehigh, thats a little too contrived for me. I just hope there aren't too many like that.
Click to expand...


I think what youll find is that there will be tonnes of barrels and traps at the very start of game, because everyone will be looking to muck around as much as they can. As the game progresses im sure there will be less obvious things to manipulate and the game will concentrate more on story and killing as people accept physics as part of the game and less a novilty.
 
That demo really didn't showcase much. The physics were basic, something any allocation programmer should be able to showcase in their demo work. The most impressive thing was the table/spring unit cloth, which honestly isn't up to todays standards. Splinter Cell 2 renders the best cloth physics at the moment. The triangles shift orientation and ensure that impossible calculations are indeed made impossible. This demo just uses alg cor level shifting for the fastest rendering possible. The liquid was laughable.

Perhaps this is just me coming from a developers programming perspective, but that demo was decent at best.

The demo showcases so many set scenes, and it does them at an entertaining level, which I suppose is why it's getting so much praise from some people.

From a pure tech stand point and development perspective...its just...ok. Please don't say it's on par with HL2 or stalker for that matter, I will get sick to my stomach =p.
 
Evil^Milk said:
HL2's physics look great, but yeah, seeing the Meqon demos just made HL2's physics look bad (concerning water dynamics) ;(

The water physics seemed far more advanced in the Meqon demos whereas in HL2 there are no physically rendered water dynamics, just sprites and DX9 effects. I'm hoping Valve will upgrade this in the future though...

nonetheless hl2 will be great :thumbs:
Click to expand...
It's all exactly the same, even the water, in this demo, the water isn't real time calculated either. It's all the same ffs
 
I don't get it? HL2 does have water physics I mean things float - isn't that a physical property? or are you talking about fluid dynamics?

More over, you guys are acting as though the cloth physics are something out of this world - jeez play splinter cell pandora tommorow or prince of persia sands of time, the cloth physics are literally the same. I really still don't see what's so out of this world about the water physics you guys were talking about, I spent 10 minutes and found them no different than anything else coming out this year - I agree with polykarbon here.
 
jesus god come onnnn, there has to be limits, Valve said they'll keep adding little bits but don't expect to be using fully accurate fluid dynamics in it any time soon, and what the hell would the point be anyways i doubt we'll have good enough comps to make it worthwhile if they do. I seriously think just chilling out and being grateful for what is present is the best way to go.
 
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