I
Illuminati
Guest
I tend to type too much, so if you just want the info, go down to ****DISCOVERY**** below. The rest of this is just back-story.
I'm a real fan of the physics made available in the Source engine. Ever since I buddied up with a guy at Havok who let me try out a few of their "super secret
" concepts for the Source physics engine, I've been playing with the physics like crazy.
Well today I booted up HL DM to play around in my own private server to experiment with the hundreds of items featured in DM_overlook.
I decided to stack up some explosive barrels against the combine retaining wall, then pack as much of the physics enabled stuff around them, blow them up, and watch my CPU explode trying to calculate all the trajectories of the different objects.
Here is a pic of about halfway through the stacking process.
Hunk O Junk
After that, I gravgunned the car and dumpster right up against the pile. It was around this point that I noticed something odd. None of the objects were jostling around, floating or hovering in odd ways. When I walked into the pile and bumped against it, it didn't budge, and was solid.
I exploded the barrels with a well-placed magnum shot (could you imagine how much fun satchel charges would be? Someone make them!)
Most of the outer objects flew off, but I noticed a good number of the larger tables, etc, hadn't moved an inch. In an attempt to investigate, I jumped on top of the remaining pile, only to find it was rock-solid! I threw grenades, rockets, even launched the dumpster at it from close range. It didn't budge. I was able to climb all over the structure without my weight causing any of them to move or jostle at all.
Then, I took the manipulator gun out and tried to pick up a cabinet that was wedged in tight. It didn't move either. These objects had become a solid mass that no longer reacted to physics! Now at first, I thought that Valve, perhaps had written in coding that would turn off physics for a certain number of physics-enabled brushes that were touching each other at the same time. This would be a smart move to save CPU power.
Then I booted up the console and lo and behold:
*****DISCOVERY******
The brushes had not suddenly lost their physics-enabled status, rather, they had become dependant on the other objects they were resting on or under. The top items could be removed with the manipulator, but they could also be stepped on without that strange "tipping" sensation.
The processes in the console told the story:
Essentially this feature is a structure-building aspect to the coding. It allows a stable (extremely stable) structure to be created out of individual, physics enabled objects. These structures can be dissassembled, but only in a realistic manner, in which objects are only removed from the top down. Untill they are "freed" this 'stasis' one by one by the gravity gun, the objects function as one immovable entity.
This melding stasis is initated by a specific script apparently, and theoretically should be able to be enabled and disabled via console.
The implications of this script (which I have not heard mentioned yet) are far-reaching, especially in the multiplayer mode. A large structure fashioned by players working together on the same team could serve as a bridge critical to reaching a mission objective. This script is special in this case, because as anyone who has stacked brushes in singleplayer to reach out-of-the-way areas knows, they are very unstable normally, and it is easy to destabilize an object stacked upon another object simply by walking or jumping on it if you don't do it just right.
What I do not know about this script is EXACTLY what triggers the "stability script" to engage a series of objects. I do know that stacking an extremely large number of heavy, non destructable brushes together creates the effect. I do not know if it is simply the number of objects stacked or the collective weight of the brushes touching each other that causes the script to engage.
I would really appreciate some of the more code-savy users out there to attempt to re-create this phenomenon while monitoring the console and other physics statistics.
If you do attempt to re-create what I have done in the above screenshot, you will notice at a certain point objects launched via gravity gun into the pile no-longer bounce off as they would a wall or another group of brushes like barrels. Instead, they seem to impact and "lock" into the mass, almost as though the stack had become magnetic.
I would be more than willing to create a demo of this phenomenon if someone could direct me to a link explaining how to record a demo, where the demo is saved, and how to export the demo to another user.
P.S. I know I can be long winded, sorry about that, but I hate posting to forums and getting replies from people who didn't understand what I said. For example:
Anyway, if any of you do understand the script and are able to re-create it as I have done or in any other way, please let me know. I'd also kinda like to hear what you guys think some of the possibilities of this aspect of the physics engine could produce in mod form or otherwise.
Thanks for reading.
I'm a real fan of the physics made available in the Source engine. Ever since I buddied up with a guy at Havok who let me try out a few of their "super secret
" concepts for the Source physics engine, I've been playing with the physics like crazy.Well today I booted up HL DM to play around in my own private server to experiment with the hundreds of items featured in DM_overlook.
I decided to stack up some explosive barrels against the combine retaining wall, then pack as much of the physics enabled stuff around them, blow them up, and watch my CPU explode trying to calculate all the trajectories of the different objects.
Here is a pic of about halfway through the stacking process.
Hunk O Junk
After that, I gravgunned the car and dumpster right up against the pile. It was around this point that I noticed something odd. None of the objects were jostling around, floating or hovering in odd ways. When I walked into the pile and bumped against it, it didn't budge, and was solid.
I exploded the barrels with a well-placed magnum shot (could you imagine how much fun satchel charges would be? Someone make them!)
Most of the outer objects flew off, but I noticed a good number of the larger tables, etc, hadn't moved an inch. In an attempt to investigate, I jumped on top of the remaining pile, only to find it was rock-solid! I threw grenades, rockets, even launched the dumpster at it from close range. It didn't budge. I was able to climb all over the structure without my weight causing any of them to move or jostle at all.
Then, I took the manipulator gun out and tried to pick up a cabinet that was wedged in tight. It didn't move either. These objects had become a solid mass that no longer reacted to physics! Now at first, I thought that Valve, perhaps had written in coding that would turn off physics for a certain number of physics-enabled brushes that were touching each other at the same time. This would be a smart move to save CPU power.
Then I booted up the console and lo and behold:
*****DISCOVERY******
The brushes had not suddenly lost their physics-enabled status, rather, they had become dependant on the other objects they were resting on or under. The top items could be removed with the manipulator, but they could also be stepped on without that strange "tipping" sensation.
The processes in the console told the story:
Essentially this feature is a structure-building aspect to the coding. It allows a stable (extremely stable) structure to be created out of individual, physics enabled objects. These structures can be dissassembled, but only in a realistic manner, in which objects are only removed from the top down. Untill they are "freed" this 'stasis' one by one by the gravity gun, the objects function as one immovable entity.
This melding stasis is initated by a specific script apparently, and theoretically should be able to be enabled and disabled via console.
The implications of this script (which I have not heard mentioned yet) are far-reaching, especially in the multiplayer mode. A large structure fashioned by players working together on the same team could serve as a bridge critical to reaching a mission objective. This script is special in this case, because as anyone who has stacked brushes in singleplayer to reach out-of-the-way areas knows, they are very unstable normally, and it is easy to destabilize an object stacked upon another object simply by walking or jumping on it if you don't do it just right.
What I do not know about this script is EXACTLY what triggers the "stability script" to engage a series of objects. I do know that stacking an extremely large number of heavy, non destructable brushes together creates the effect. I do not know if it is simply the number of objects stacked or the collective weight of the brushes touching each other that causes the script to engage.
I would really appreciate some of the more code-savy users out there to attempt to re-create this phenomenon while monitoring the console and other physics statistics.
If you do attempt to re-create what I have done in the above screenshot, you will notice at a certain point objects launched via gravity gun into the pile no-longer bounce off as they would a wall or another group of brushes like barrels. Instead, they seem to impact and "lock" into the mass, almost as though the stack had become magnetic.
I would be more than willing to create a demo of this phenomenon if someone could direct me to a link explaining how to record a demo, where the demo is saved, and how to export the demo to another user.
P.S. I know I can be long winded, sorry about that, but I hate posting to forums and getting replies from people who didn't understand what I said. For example:
Anyway, if any of you do understand the script and are able to re-create it as I have done or in any other way, please let me know. I'd also kinda like to hear what you guys think some of the possibilities of this aspect of the physics engine could produce in mod form or otherwise.
Thanks for reading.
