Game Material Physics

[SWFGestapo]

I was thinking about game physics while playing CS: Source (the physics bear absolutely no relation to gameplay, though, and I'm starting to suspect that will be nearly the case in HL - aside from 'tossing' random objects) and it seems to me that a much more accurate simulation of materials could be achieved by having three basic materials and interpolating the 'amount' any object had of each material.
You have, basically:
Crystaline (High-carbon steel, glass, CDs)
Plastic (Iron, ropes)
Elastic (Springs, erasers)
In short everything, when struck by a force would do some combination of 'fragmenting', 'bending' and 'bouncing' according to these properties. For example shooting a wooden door would have a crystaline effect (shatter a portion of the door), while shooting a filing cabnit would have a plastic effect (the location would be ruptured and dented inwards). Shooting something extremely tough, like a light steel door would maybe dent it but mostly just cause it to bounce around.

This is really just a combination of glass fragmentation and arbitrary terrain deformation effects combined with the half-life 2 collision physics, everything here already exists and I would think one could implement them all in a general engine and have it run on the higher end machines.

[jAkUp]

Well I was reading one of the Half-Life 2 reviews, and I remember it saying that the physics engine will play a large role in the game, and alot of puzzles force you to use physics to overcome them.

[FierceDeityLink]

There's a lot more materials in Half-Life 2 than the ones you named, but I don't remember ever seeing one for rubber/springs (although ropes could work a little like them).

Personally, I don't like the physics engine in Counter-Strike: Source. You can't barricade halls just by pushing objects (you have to frag grenade them into place). I don't like running around and accidentally running into a bucket and being pushed back. Barrels are equally useless. Tables, cabinets, etc. break the same way every time, but the wood in chateau causes massive slowdown when it explodes (by frag grenade). I'm hoping that all of these problems won't be in Half-Life 2, and that most are probably caused by synchronization pains regarding the net-code.

The physics in CS:S are bugged, you should be able to push oblects but right now you get pushed back. In the beta you didn't so im guessing we have to wait for a fix.

[Edge]

The physics in Half-life 2 appear to show examples of all the physics models you described. Have you seen the HL2 tech videos? They show wood fragmenting when shot (and it's dynamic based on where you hit it), and things like matresses bend and conform to what they're set on (though I'm not sure what happens when you shoot it). Reviews have said that the physics play a big part in the game, so I think your theory that the phyics don't affect the gameplay of HL2 is unfounded. The Havok engine is very robust, and the Meqon engine even moreso. Modern physics engines allow for a huge number of effects, they just haven't been exploited yet. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing physics-driven animations being used in games, which is even used in one of the Meqon tech demos but so far no game has even used that engine. If noone else does first, I'm going to try to get a mod togeather to see if that effect can be pulled off using the physics engine that HL2 uses (which is basically a version of Havok 2.0). If it works, well, then I have more than a few ideas on how to use it.

[jAkUp]

Duke Nukem Forever will be using the Meqon physics engine.

Meqon is glad to announce that 3DRealms have decided to buy our Meqon Game Dynamics SDK for their upcoming title Duke Nukem Forever.

Meqon’s product strategy has always been to create the most easy to use and flexible physics engine on the market, but without compromising the computational speed. George Broussard, CEO of 3DRealms comments – “We evaluated several physics SDK's and Meqon was really fast, had the cleanest interface and integrated into our game very quickly.”

The Meqon Game Dynamics SDK does not only handle basic rigid body simulation but also contain highly advanced character and vehicle modules. Mr Broussard comments – “With its advanced feature set, we feel confident that Meqon's next generation physics engine can help us create the next generation of action games.”

www.meqon.com

[SWFGestapo]

Originally Posted by egbtmagus

The physics in CS:S are bugged, you should be able to push oblects but right now you get pushed back. In the beta you didn't so im guessing we have to wait for a fix.

Someone at Valve informed us that this is because the player is not modeled to physics the way NPCs and objects are: He is not a series of joints, but rather a 'force' field with a ball for movement. This is why explosions push you 'back', and you bounce collide with objects rather than flying about ragdoll and having impact calculations for your body as a series of related objects. The crowbar, on the other hand, is a real-world object which collides (from your view, and the outside) with objects in actuality - something can strike one or another portion of the crowbar, and if something is in the center of your screen it will not be struck until and unless your crowbar physically transverses it (as opposed to the effective reticule spread with a range limit of the original HL).
HL2s physics are neat, and Havok2 seems even neater, but there's nothing that's really 'reactive' in the sense that I could go outside and just start breaking anything I wanted, and pick stuff up and beat other stuff with it. Still in the world of Aristotlian or Kantian objects-in-themselves and catergories rather than arbitrary, on-the-fly calculation of properties with regards to one another.