Panzering Buildings?

(Codename_Ty) #1

Ok, I got a question for the experienced mappers here. Can you panzer buildings and blow chunks of them out and/or even topple them over/reduce them totally to rubble? Is it possible to do that to say, a whole village and the map still have good fps and playability? How would I go about doing such a thing? Thanks.

(Higgins) #2

Giving every thing a script for any kind of explosions. It would takes years to do, or you could just give every thing a func explosive and then any thing can blow it up.

(carnage) #3

i woulnt be so pesamistic about its, its very posible and if aproched right then could be done in a reasonable time scale

making func_expolosives is very simple and a good way to get this started, if you start making complex structures then you hit a much greater level of complexity where you require scripts to alow explosions only when other parts of the building have been destroyed so for most building it would be good to stick to simple things like blowing a hole in walls etc

try making a building and cut in squares where you want the explosions to be, then hide these and in the space make a rubble etc giving the wall the impresion it has been destoryed. then making this a func_static and the orignal pice a func_explosive then make the func_expolosive target the func_static
that will make the rubble and blast effect apear when the wall is destoryed
take this a set futher and you could make a hole village with destoyable walls, roofs, floors, doors, lamp posts, pavenmt, windows

conside the effect on the vis of the map, you are going to want all the explosives etc as detail and is best to plan ur map out in the fully destoryed state so you can see the final gameflow etc. also it would be good if the explosions didnt effect the gameflow too much or it would be extreamly unbalanced

other tips
if you wanted to make a wall with a windown destructable but wanted to make the window separatly destructable then set both up as separate func_explosives then make the wall target the window… this will alow the window to be destoyed but if the wall is destroyed then the winndow will disapear too

also try to build on the fact that every explosion will cause a trigger this alows you to add some more things into you map via the script, for example you could make a wooden beam swing from the roof when a part of it is destoryed

alos hide the exploive symbol from ur map or it would look wrong and try giving high altering health values for func_exlosives so every time there is an explosion something doesnt blow up otherwise it would be too predictable

wow sorry for the long post

(Codename_Ty) #4

No need to be sorry, I appreciate it. Keep the posts coming if you have anything more to add. I like indepth explanations and I’m sure I’m not the only one interested in learning how to do this.

(carnage) #5

if i get any more idea of how to add some nice effects to the map then ill post them here, ide like to give you more help but with exams coming up i got a lot on my plate at the moment and my work at venom-studios is alreay having to slow down

still ill try find an hour or so and make a 1 building map or something with all these things in so you can see how they work etc and maby get some feedback from people to see what they think of maps like it

(Codename_Ty) #6

Thanks, that would be great. Good luck with the exams.

(Ifurita) #7

If you use func_explosives, I don’t think you’ll be able to get rid of the breakable icon nor the health bar, which i’d find somewhat annoying if I saw them everywhere I looked.

(carnage) #8

ok made a test map, its ugly, ther is lots of things that i dont even bother to think about like the vis but here is the map file

http://www.freewebs.com/carnagepictures/test_explosive.map

its so small if you want to look at it just do a compile (do a 8 bounce light compile so you can see how light effect explosives)

fraom what i have learned from this. I was impresed by some of the results although it took about 2 hours to make this small section, although it was jsut randomly mapped i had a sorta idea in my head but nothing solid. IF a map like this is going to be made you will need a very detailed plan cos of all the wall spliting etc that must be done problems will soon arive if unprepared

i think also that to make sertain objects explosive damage only this must be done from the script in ET, a bit of a bitch but its the only whey its go happen

as you can see from my map there are no floors in houses etc, the room is no finished the upstaed was planed but never got built. When this is done i think the map would look realy nice

i hated the window explosives (ok the windows were a bit big and slopy made) but the square they left when distoyed was to man made it needed a nice pice of the wall to come away with it

as far is vis goes, ide prob make most of the map detial and go over all the walls etc with caulk to make nice vis portals, wall with explosive in i would leave out as they will not help blocking any vis and its realy gon be esental cos with that many angles your gona hit big numbers of vis portals

hope some of this helps… there are loads of other things that could have been done here like func_static that i never did and i though of making a chunk of the unstairs wall a func mover so would fall to the ground vis the script, using the rotate comand and the move to marker accelerate to get a nice falling effect

edit btw donw miss the func explosive int he roof its there its just realy tough try a couple of air strikes and if you dont blow the beam inside it should go with it automaticly

(SCDS_reyalP) #9

No.

Theres a number of problems.

  • If you village be completely flattened, then your map can only be a box, meaning you can see the whole thing all the time. That means your map will have to be pretty simple. Even if you keep your r_speed reasonable, you will most likely find that you run into serious CPU load.

  • entity limits. You get 1024 runtime entities. If you want to make a whole village destroyable, you are going to hit a good portion of this with just func_explosives etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other limits that you run into with too many dynamic entities.

  • lighting. ET lighting is pretty much static, which means it will either look right while the buildings are there, or when they are destroyed, but not both. There are some tricks you could do to improve that, but it certainly makes things harder.

  • destruct icons.

I’m not saying you couldn’t make something that sort of worked, but it would be very hard to make it something that was fun to play once the novelty wore off.

If you are willing to relax your requirements (either of having the entire village destroyable, or of good fps and playability) then you might get somewhere. One thing I would suggest is having a only parts of buildings collapse, so that you can still have vis. In other words, lay out your village as in terms of corridors, not a giant box with building in it. Then, when you blow up a building, the front of it collapses, but the back still goes all the way to the skybox (with rubble etc).

If you are new to mapping, I suggest you start with a serries of small experienments.

(Ifurita) #10

You can also use pre-rubbled buildings then add target_effects and shooter_mortars to add some more dynamic rubble. Check out MP_Breakout_ET (on PCGameMods) to see an example.

(carnage) #11

wow SCDS you just surgested everything i did and then put into the test map

but yes there is a definate probelm with the vis however i dont think that this entity limits problem will occour unless the map is large
judging by the test map 10 explosives is enough per building to create some good effects and some buidling can already start of semi destroyed so that gona save some etites

so if 1/3 or explosive plces are already distoryed and ther are 60 bulings in the map

6010 = 600
6002/3 = 400

so 400 entites for the explosives. probably a lot but i think will fit into the limits if not then the map will just have to start of more distoryed

and as for the speeds of the map i woulnt worry, the test map didnt notce any massive changes as long as the exlosive parts a okish though out so you dont create to many splits and the lighting looks pretty solid too as the indoor light in the test map doesnt go outside even when the walls are destoryed but it doesnt create a massive thing that makes you feel disgusted

i also find that many of the top mappers here (not SD guys obviously) actualy use very sub standard lighting i though some MLB maps could have used some better indoor lighting but ime going into another thread here so ill stop

(Mammoth Entertainment Inc) #12

about the high health for buildings, if you shoot something with a panzer dosnt teh panser go right through it if its destroyable (like a basic destroyable, no dyno or satchel keys selected). I made a map with tons of destroyables but the panser jsut blew threw them with no explosion and kept going, they were something like 400 health.

(carnage) #13

ah could be a probelm, what if all destructable were set at max health of direct hit from panzer?

(Chruker) #14

so 400 entites for the explosives.

The maximum number of models that needs to have their status transmitted is 256. However in practice other models and entities count against that limit. I have even hit the limit with less than 200 func_explosives.

(carnage) #15

a good point, so if there is 256 entites what does that put the actual total count or entites at? i supose if the map has lots of alternative spawns tanks dyno objectes health cabinates mg guns comands posts, movable objectives dynamic lights etc then the limit would soon be hit

i think even without that limit the map would still need to be small just to save the build time of the map

an alternate that could be used is to make larger func explosives rather than have the wall on a buidling that can have windows destoryed and chunks blown out just have the hole wall going so number of func_explosives would be cut by maby 1/3, but as long as they brushes are grouped as one entity then there it can still look realy nice

(Codename_Ty) #16

Very nice carnage, thanks for taking the time out to make that demonstration map for me, I appreciate it. I wish you had some more time on your hands cause you would definately be a valuable asset to the community as a whole and my map in particular. I’m sadly a little discouraged, seeing as how I have gotten a bunch of source files here for various maps that I like and I see all the work that has gone into them and I wonder, even if I make a great map, how long is this going to take me and is there still going to be an audience left to receive it, or am I only going to be playing it by myself or with a small group of close friends, perhaps a server full of 24 or so?

Then I see these other comments above and wonder if I can even do what I would like to achieve? Sad as it may be, I’ve even thought of commissioning the work out to one of the top mappers, should that help them stop from going to the Doom3 engine or at least have a final hoorah here.

What I want to do is have it set in a European town, by a body of water, big enough to warrant a patrol boat or two of the allies to arrive there (such as the one seen in Saberpeak). The first patrol boat tries to navigate a minefield and blow up the doors to an Axis base beyond the village, the second one secures the initial spawn and offloads a tank (don’t have to see this part), which starts off at the landing area, with a short ways to a bridge which is has to cross (it’ll eventually blow up several things later).

There are many different ways to navigate the village and all of it is accessible. The parts that aren’t are blocked by wrecks in flames of both allied and axis vehicles (you play the part of reinforcements). There’s also a C-47 broken in two in the mountains by the water and/or another sinking into (the water). Another patrol boat is on it’s side and in flames, almost blocking the channel and slowly sinking. Flak and AA guns dot the city as well as some barricades (all destructible) and there are several killzones that the axis have set up, though ways around them, like underground passages/sewer system.

Once inside the base you would have to ascertain whether or not any of the allies from the previous mission survived, rescue them (if they did) and/or steal important documents, such as a NOC list and blow up key pieces of their infrastructure to facilitate further incursions into the region (AA/Flak Guns, Power Generators, Radio Equipment).

While doing all of this I would want to make some of the buildings, if not all of them destructable. So now that I have let the cat outta the bag so to speak, I’m probably going to be told that this is impossible. I’m sure it’s almost impossible for someone as inexperienced as I am at mapping and I probably would have to cut down and pick and choose on the amount of objectives, since I doubt a lot of people want to spend 1hr plus on a map, no matter how good it is. So I would say that these things can be destroyed but only two or three HAVE to be done, including the documents.

Is it impossible? Would you need a better/different engine? Could SD develop something like this (and credit me with the idea? LoL, does anyone know anything like this that might already be out there and where I could pick it up? Thanks.

P.S. It would be great if there was a Ambulance model out for ET, it would make a good addition to a map like this.

(Codename_Ty) #17

Ifurita, it’s (Normandy Breakout) one of my favorite maps actually. You did a very good job on it and hopefully, we’ll be putting some customs on our public servers here shortly (we just got them less than a week ago) and will add that to the rotation. Is there any chance I could get the source/.map file for that? I saw that you released the ones for Vengenace and Byzantine and maybe one other, but couldn’t find that particular one. Thanks. I appreciate everyone’s comments, keep them coming.

(carnage) #18

well with this inforamtion it changes a few things…

the map u descrided is very heaviy using enties, the partol boat, tank etc adn would definatly need more separate spwan points when that many escortable things are coming into the map

however i would worry, althougn some of the map sounds a bit difficult its pretty posible. Although making any map last and hour is not a good idea, the gameplay sounds good but the defence will have many problems. The chance of the atackers doing a back door job is increased with the time, players leave and join so the defnec may lose a few man and lose in a moment of weekness, and also if the defence are owning then its gona be one long spawncamp

so cut down your map, the part about mountains is a bit extream and a base away from the town is a bit uneeded. also since your after a map with lots of movables and stuff the explosives need to be re though, on the test map chunks of building blew up, 4 get in one exploive has to take the front face of it off. May look even better haveing buidlings with masive holes in and wll defo save your entity count

so here is one way you could re make that map

the center of the map is crossroads bettween a raod and a river/canal. There bridge is big enough to get a tank confortably over and to get a small boat under

The buildings in the village and tall, three floors high mostly and the river sinks a futher floor into the ground. Some buildings are acceable but can only get to the second floor for vis reasons while still giving nice spots to defned and have gun fights from

the front side of most buildings can be blow away too so you get your destructive wish. This alows the buildings to form several passageways though the map buy making gaps in betweens some. The road and river are the main gaps but also alows for little alyways for longer more tatical aternative routes

so this is a nice village with a river but still pretty not too big and has a good plan for vis

the allies start with the boat at one end of this village and take it under the bridge and then along the river to a boat yard/mini dock, here the tank oflaods and makes its way onto the road. This goes away from the river than runs parrale to the river till turning back accross the bridge and over it

then the road turns and comes to the buldings used as the axis comand point. The tank alows access into this and then the final objective of ither blowing something up or stealing document can be done

this way with the map folding around in itself you can use the same parts of the map for multiple objectives, this radicaly changes the defnsive and awfensive value or sertain points and cut down on the build time as long as you plan it carfully

Also a spawn point around the bridge in the middle fo the map gives good acces to the hole map and wwould be prefect for a axis defensvie spawn as they will have to move quickly to objectives and multiplae spawn can often confuse this, while this would also add to the entity cound. To slow then down if they have to good access to the map for example when the allies try cross thr bridge with the tank the axis being so close could give then to much of and advantage. so make then spawn ont eh top floor so it takes to to get to the close combat areas

i think the allies need at least two spwan for this map depending on the difficuly you want, they will need one buy the river to start near the boat

and i think one near the boathhouse otherwise the 1st part of the tank objective could be hard, but both spawn could be used to get to the bridge quickly so later more tatical play could come into it

ill make a top down map image of my interpritation of this map…

(Ifurita) #19

No, I will not release the source for Normandy Breakout. I received the original RTCW source file from the author and permission to do the port, but I won’t take the liberty of giving out his source file. I will be upload the source files for all of my other maps though.

(Codename_Ty) #20

Well, maybe the base is a bit too extreme, I’m not sure, what’s wrong with the mountains though? Where can I put the wreck of the C-47? Just have one sinking in the water, along with another patrol boat on it’s side at another point? The mountains would only be for decoration on a couple sides of the map and it would be nice to have a little waterfall in there as well. I’m also thinking that the start point would a stationary patrol boat, that had offloaded the tank and you could use the mg or other weaponry from that point to secure the shore and one end of the bridge (or nearby), while the other patrol boat continued on and attempted to navigate a minefield…

You think there would still be room in there for that? I think I would want to try and limit the time down to 30-40 mins, 1 hr was just a number I threw out there due to the fact that there was the big village, the bridge and then the base beyond it and a lot of things to see and experience (and blow up if you want).

Keep the ideas coming everybody, I appreciate it. Carnage, can’t wait to see that overview :slight_smile:

Ifurita, it’s a shame, but I understand.