Graphic Destruction

[Hyper-space]

Its not something you do "on the fly", it requires concept artists to first plan out what the battle-damage would look like, then for the digital artists (dunno the english word for it) to make the textures AND THEN for the programmers to implement the feature. This times 500 (if you want to make dynamic battle-damage and not just copy-paste the same texture over and over). All of this requires man-power and resources that could be better spent on the core gameplay, people think that you can have EVERYTHING in a game. They have to make priorities, especially when you talk about RPG's and other games with multiple armors/weapons/clothes.

It's all available for devs right now, and this type of stuff is in it's infancy, really.

But the thing is, they would still have to make unique battle-damage textures for each and every item, f.x. leather would have to be torn up differently than cloth or metal.

Also, that bridge, that is mostly just different units (like the metal and wood beams) that break away from each other, that is, not dynamic battle-damage. If there is a video that shows the destruction engine somehow procedurally generating battle-damage TEXTURES (nota bene), then i would change my mind. As having cloth and other lighter material break away like a wood-and-steel structure is probably not what is desired.

 

[Wicky_42]

Its not something you do "on the fly", it requires concept artists to first plan out what the battle-damage would look like, then for the digital artists (dunno the english word for it) to make the textures AND THEN for the programmers to implement the feature. This times 500 (if you want to make dynamic battle-damage and not just copy-paste the same texture over and over). All of this requires man-power and resources that could be better spent on the core gameplay, people think that you can have EVERYTHING in a game. They have to make priorities, especially when you talk about RPG's and other games with multiple armors/weapons/clothes.

Well you can keep thinking small, but it can be done on the fly. If things like this can be done real time, in game, there's zero reason it can't be applied in different ways.

That would be the way I'd like to see it done, and not just in RPGs but also RTS games and space sims as well. Dynamically adding battle-damage as it was received, accurately representing weakened armour sections that can feed back into game-play.

Say you're wearing plate armour, but each blow each plate absorbs deforms it until it rips and snaps. Not some artist's pre-conceptions of what a damaged piece of armour would look like, but each blow and slice's impact shown.

Picture dog-fighting your way through space to launch an attack run on an enemy capital ship. Each laser blast you take leaves a burnt welt on your armour that will be weaker to subsequent kinetic fire, and shrapnel and kinetic slugs tear rents into your fuselage, potentially hitting sub-systems within. Finally in range of your target, each of your missiles' impacts will dynamically deform not only the capital ship's armour but also potentially the substructure - the ship having been rigged with a basic structural skeleton to support the dynamic deformation. The first missile explodes on the surface, weakening the hull, allowing the second to penetrate and explode internally, opening the ship's guts to space and explosively decompressing multiple decks. Unfortunate crewmen are sucked out into space, riding the expanding blast-wave of released gasses. Your third and final missile breaks the ship's back, cracking it nearly in half and setting its reactor into overload. 20 seconds later and all that remains is an expanding cloud of debris, all dynamically created by the ship's cataclysmic destruction.

Graphically demanding? Yeah, though not beyond the hardware coming out these days - and not even just the high-end stuff. Processor heavy? Maybe, depends on how the software works as to whether it's generating polygons and all that heavy stuff, or if it's all awesome dynamic surfaces n stuff that's all about the graphics processing. Thing is, it takes the work off the artists. There just needs to be some textures and effects for damage decals and effects, but those are kinda small fry compared to modelling complex, comprehensive damage on everything. As you've shown with your vids, the tech for that is already available; it just needs to be adopted and applied.

 

[Wicky_42]

Its not something you do "on the fly", it requires concept artists to first plan out what the battle-damage would look like, then for the digital artists (dunno the english word for it) to make the textures AND THEN for the programmers to implement the feature. This times 500 (if you want to make dynamic battle-damage and not just copy-paste the same texture over and over). All of this requires man-power and resources that could be better spent on the core gameplay, people think that you can have EVERYTHING in a game. They have to make priorities, especially when you talk about RPG's and other games with multiple armors/weapons/clothes.

It's all available for devs right now, and this type of stuff is in it's infancy, really.

But the thing is, they would still have to make unique battle-damage textures for each and every item, f.x. leather would have to be torn up differently than cloth or metal.

Also, that bridge, that is mostly just different units (like the metal and wood beams) that break away from each other, that is, not dynamic battle-damage. If there is a video that shows the destruction engine somehow procedurally generating battle-damage TEXTURES (nota bene), then i would change my mind. As having cloth and other lighter material break away like a wood-and-steel structure is probably not what is desired.

The idea would be you have an engine that can accurately handle different materials, just as you mention: parameters for leather, various metals, woods, fabris, each with its own hardness, rigidity resistance to deformation, crystaline or organic nature etc. Most of these parameters are just real-world facts, the trick would be getting the engine to simulate them correctly, but once done you're sorted.

That would negate the need to make textures; textures are just there because the material itself doesn't change in current games. However, if you can dynamically scuff, burn, slice and batter your materials then the amount of damage textures would actually be reduced as the game would be generating the effects itself. You'd still need some, eg, for the edges of burns, unless you made your engine really comprehensive and it could model discolouration and 'being on fire' as well as just deformation. It's not done yet, but it's a definite possibility for the future as machines become more powerful.