[Bri_Dog]

How hard would it be to implement geo mods to FS2?

[LtNarol]

very hard

[Bri_Dog]

That much I gathered. But I know almost nothing about it. Wouldn't the models need segments that can be destroyed built into them?

[IceFire]

Lets put this another way...geo-mods on this engine I think would be damn near impossible.  At least for the likes of us.

Red Faction's engine was designed from day one as far as I know to have geo-mod....FreeSpace 2's engine is much much older and not at all designed for that.  Geo-mod I consider to be essentially useless to us in actual fact.  I'd rather get stuff like damage decals and more expandable live debris than geomod.

[Fineus]

If we ever try it I think we'll have implemented everything else first, although it would be cool.

But first, damage decals on ships

[Kazan]

we'd be violating a patent/copyright

[Inquisitor]

Possibly, but lots of engines implement deformable or even modular meshes. That would probably be the start of something like geomod in the fs context (look at bridge commander for instance, they do a convincing job of punching holes in starships).

It's only a problem if you reverse engineer the tech (and or call it geo-mod).  If you come up with the effect without doing that, you're probably ok.

Anyway, simple stuff first, damage decals before anything like geo-mod

[LtNarol]

wouldn't geomod for FS2 litterally require rebuilding the engine from the ground up?

[Kazan]

yeah

[Inquisitor]

Yeah, but something approximating it might not.

But, as was said, simple first, lets see about decals

[IceFire]

We've already got live debris.  Its not as fluid as geomod but I think we can make better use of that perhaps.

[Bobboau]

hows this sound,
place two transparent texture bits (a hole) on any point that the beam would hit and generate a cylinder that goes inbetween them

we would probly need multi-textureing or texture blended decals (wich would probly also need multi-texturing) before we could do this though

[Nico]

would look odd: you can see throu the ship, ok, but don't forget polygons aren't double sided, so basically, you'd feel like looking through a ship painted on a big plate, you wouldn't see the opposite polygons of the ship.

[Bobboau]

place a few polys with a partly transperent debris texture in the cylinder and a exit wond texture for the far end.

[LtNarol]

Bobboau's idea could work, although how would we generate the damage texture inside the cylinder and what would we project it onto?  Can we have the engine generate new polys within the pof and glue them to the pof?

[Kitsune]

I already had a similar idea about that...  

Re-model the ships with "blast holes" for when they take a lot of damage they get large chunks knocked out of them.  Keep hitting that 'chunk' area and it'll blow up another piece inside.

Technically you could 'burrow' through a ship.  But the problem lies in keeping it from being a true 'subsystem' that anti-subsystem weapons would do outragous damage to and have half a ship missing but still at 99% hull.

[Vasudan Admiral]

how many polys would a ship like that take up? and i think it may drive modelers insane if they have to make hundereds of separate objects into one, not to mention getting them to fit together perfectly.
another idea i just thought up is if we had 2 or more versions of every texture, first one is the normal one, second sort of ripped open third wide open and any after that completley decimated. as a ship is hit more, more textures are replaced/added and the ship is in effect, torn into.
this might be a bit wierd for large polys, you shoot the corner and the centre is damaged, plus it may be a bit hard for uv maps to be done plausably. it would probably look good on smaller polys. the damage textures wouldn't even have to be that detailed. just blur a debris texture or somin onto a copy of the original.

hmmm, is this what a damage decal is, or is a decal stuck where a weapon hits? i dunno.

[Rampage]

GEO MOD should really be kept withing the realm of 3D Action - Shooter games, such as its original engine in Red Faction.  It would be cool if QUAKE 3 ARENA gets implemented with GEO MOD, not Freespace 2.

NOTE:  It should be possible to add features from Homeworld into Freespace 2 quite easily, such as 3D planets and thruster trails.

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Rampage
GEO MOD should really be kept withing the realm of 3D Action - Shooter games, such as its original engine in Red Faction.  It would be cool if QUAKE 3 ARENA gets implemented with GEO MOD, not Freespace 2.

...How do you figure that - you can blow a hole in some rock but not in the side of a starship?

[LtNarol]

I think craters and dents are more appropriate for FS2, actual holes could cause some problems, just imagine what would happen if a ship got carved into 4ths by a couple of slashers, yet remained at 20% hull, it would look very very bad if all 4 parts continued to fly in one direction at 1 speed, and otherwise working together.  The poly count would also be crazy.