Pain Skins?

[Andy]

I was one of the ones who really enjoyed the game Hitman for the pain skins and was extremely pissed off when they got rid of them for the sequel.

So imagine my joy at the possibility of pain skins (or bullet marks if you will), for Half-Life 2.

You have to watch the video to really appreciate it (and its not very clear even then), its on the street fighting scene with Barney. I spotted this when the bloke gets hit in the hip by the sentry gun, what do you reckon?

 

[Sadako]

Interesting! I wonder what grenades do

 

[Axyon]

Yeah, I already noticed that.. it's one of the things that's getting me very excited about the game.

I'm also certain it's 100% real, some people have complained saying that it's the symbol on the back of his shirt, but it's in the wrong place.. it's got to be a bullet mark.

 

[Apos]

I dunno. I could be that blood decals can now attach to characters. It's too simple, and too oddly placed, to be just a pain skin: this character DID just get shot in the side/back.

 

[Axyon]

Uh.. if it's a blood decal, where did the blood come from? It has to be a shot wound.

 

[Andy]

The Marines (or whatever) are too dark to see stuff like that, and this is the only real shooting section so probably the only place it visibly happened. I'm just surprised that if Valve had something like that (if it is true) and didn't show it off (or even talk about it).

That's kind of stuff would attract attention.

 

[Axyon]

Look, there's a pain skin on the Antlion, two even.. believe me, they're in.

 

[Reiska]

They should be in. I waited them to be in HL1 back then.

 

[djkanuk]

...and your ragdoll, too!

I'm pretty sure you're right there Andy. I just watched the scene where the guy gets shot in the street in a using quick frame advance to get a slow-mo effect. And do you know what else I noticed? He drops to the ground with totally realistic ragdoll physics based on where he was shot and the direction of the bullet (confirming the discussion in http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=819).

If you watch, he seems to get hit in the back/right side and gets pushed to the left and crumples to his front. The location of the 'pain skin/blood decal' on his back would be consistent with the angle at which he was shot.

Way cool.:bounce:

 

[Andy]

Originally posted by Abom|nation
Look, there's a pain skin on the Antlion, two even.. believe me, they're in.

Natch! Didn't notice that before!

Also talking about ragdoll physics, djkanuk, there's a few interesting movies halfway down the main page of www.halflife2source.com showing off the Havok engine in that respect. I think one of them's called "Zombie" or something.

 

[simmo]

I really hope the blood effects are cool, I mean when blood splats on the walls and stuff, it better be good

 

[Axyon]

Originally posted by simmo2k3
I really hope the blood effects are cool, I mean when blood splats on the walls and stuff, it better be good

Well, there are parts where you can see already - at the start of the antlion pheremone level, there's blood splatter on the window - it looks good.

Also in the video that's not in the 600mb trailer, the one with the hydra, when gordon shoots a combine with the USP match, you can see the blood splatter on the wall behind him, and again, it looks rather good!

 

[Apos]

Uh.. if it's a blood decal, where did the blood come from? It has to be a shot wound.

WTF you talking about Willis? The blood decal attaches to the body wherever a bullet hits it. That's different from a "pain skin" and, in fact, probably a lot better. Pain skins are replacements for normal model skins that show damage: but the skin can't be very specific to the actual wounds, because it's just a static skin. Being able to lay decals over models, however, allows you to show damage that's specific to EXACTLY where the damage was taken. THATS cool.

 

[Axyon]

What the hell? Haven't you heard of pixel-perfect pain skins? Just like in SoF2, I'm betting HL2 has this. You shoot them in the shoulder, a bullet wound appears RIGHT THERE.

 

[Lupus]

Yeah SOF2 did that very well. To test it I once went up to a corpse, pulled out the pistol and shot a smiley face in his chest (I'm not sick! I was just testing). Bullet wounds appeared exactly where I hit him, and behold...

 

[BDC22]

Originally posted by Abom|nation
Look, there's a pain skin on the Antlion, two even.. believe me, they're in.

your right, and even if you wouldnt have pointed this out, this fact was known even BEFORE e3... if you saw the leaked scans, that same picture of the antlion has text explaining that "Bullets leave their mark on the world, objects, characters - everything."

in other words, there is per-pixel bullet holes on everthing.

 

[KiNG]

i had noticed this in the exaples u gave awhile ago i hoped it would be in(btw i loved hitman pain skins too) it would also be cool to see it in multiplayer, could be one of those things that n00bs think is cool and skilled players use to test and see how skillful other peopl are.

 

[BDC22]

guys, i was just looking at the 600meg vid... i saw something. now that were on the subject of painskins and wounds, look at the part of the vid when the zombies are getting chopped in half by the fan. look VERY closely when he shoots the barrel that sends the car flying and kills the zombie. when the car hits him, if you pause it, you can see an object that looks like his leg come flying off. i have my movie paused on that part, but does anybody know how to go frame by frame??

 

[Axyon]

Originally posted by BDC22
guys, i was just looking at the 600meg vid... i saw something. now that were on the subject of painskins and wounds, look at the part of the vid when the zombies are getting chopped in half by the fan. look VERY closely when he shoots the barrel that sends the car flying and kills the zombie. when the car hits him, if you pause it, you can see an object that looks like his leg come flying off. i have my movie paused on that part, but does anybody know how to go frame by frame??

Tap the right hand arrow key on your keyboard, and yeah, it does look a lot like gibs.

 

[BDC22]

thanks, i just found that out... also, take a look at the part with barney... when he throws the nade at the two combines, play it in slomo... omg ive never seen anything like it

 

[Axyon]

Just to confirm, I quickly outlined the visible gibs:

Click

 

[talleyban]

Heh, I think HL2 has enough publicity as is

 

[BeauTox]

your right , all tho i dont believe its a leg , it appears to be its head... watch as he gets hit by the car and you see what appears to be his head go flying.

 

[Insert]

Sorry guys, wtf is pain skins

 

[Apos]

Every model has a "skin" that determines how the model is textured. The idea of pain skins is that, upon taking enough damage, the normal skin will be switched out for a skin that sows the model being damaged. The problem is, this is just another static skin: it only shows whatever damage the artist has pre-drawn as part of the skin. You could shoot someone in the head, and when his "pain skin" switches in, it will show a gaping chest wound.

HL2 appears to use something different: dynamic decals on models. In this version, you have little textures that you can place on the surface of a character's model wherever it is needed. This allows an almost infinate number of detail to be added to a model to show things like bulletholes, blood, etc. Notice that, if the thing on the guy in the OP really is a bloody bullethole, it's different from the bullethole on the Antlion in the old screenshot.

 

[The Mullinator]

Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for the N64 used very simple blood decals on the models. At least im pretty sure they did.

 

[FireBall]

Originally posted by The Mullinator
Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for the N64 used very simple blood decals on the models. At least im pretty sure they did.

Yes they did. It was even more visible if you switched to paintball mode on Goldeneye

 

[Wesisapie]

something similar is when the sentry gun is shooting at the ant lions, and the bullets go through the door. they actually appear to make holes right through the thin (blue) door. take a closer look, i wonder if the bullets hit the wall behind the door, etc.
that just got me a bit excited.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Wes you're right, I thought this was a fault at first but it appears thin materials can be penetrated realistically. Oh man it's gonna be cool just finding out what the game can DO

 

[NiteStalker]

I love when Gordon first looks at the sentries, and they leave those realistic marks on the bullet proof glass!

 

[KiNG]

thoughs windows in the doors werent bullet proof. it simply went through them. :dozey:

 

[NiteStalker]

Did it? I have to check the High quality video again... The marks looked great in any case.

 

[Tull91]

Whoa! Ive just checked it out and...WOW!:bounce:
/me rolls down stairs in anticipation...

 

[Slash]

A little Info

You don't even have to look at the E3 videos to know that "pain skins" or whatever you want to call them will almost definatly be in the game. Why you ask? Not only because it is a mainstream feature nowadays, but also because they were originally planned for Half-Life 1. So obviously Valve was one of the first companies to even consider such technology and if they don't use it in HL2, they will most certainly use something better than it :cheese:

This article on Valve history makes specific mention of it:

History of HL 1996-1998

Valve had entered "Crunch Mode" after the 1998 E3 Show, i.e. everyone was working extremely hard to get Half-Life finished. Some of the planned features did not make the final code: "Pain Skins", which showed characters reacting according to where you shot them, were scrapped, as was a sequence where you piloted a helicopter.

 

[Andy]

The main reason I asked was that it is still quite rare to find really good pain skins in games. For example, they took it out of Hitman 2. When I asked the developers (whose name currently escapes me) about this they claimed that they had created another (faster) way to render the characters, and that bullet hits were a

"real bitch"

to code to moving meshes of that type.

If HL2 therefore didn't come out with pain skins, I'd be disappointed but not surprised. But since we seem to have decided, that this is not a fallacy why hasn't Valve talked about it? They mention their dynamic collision hulls and materials, but not this? Why? Why dammit!!

 

[thenerdguy]

What did SOF2 use? Pain skins ? I liked blowing peeps heads to little pieces of junk with the shot guns!

 

[Axyon]

Originally posted by thenerdguy
What did SOF2 use? Pain skins ? I liked blowing peeps heads to little pieces of junk with the shot guns!

Correct, pain skins.

[Added]

Wait, no, the gore was the Ghoul 2.0 engine.. nothing to do with pain skins.