[Edwin]

When will we get to see beams that punch holes in ships and carve out chunks(and the holes and chunks actually stay)?  Is this planned to be done?

[Fry_Day]

Most likely never.

The most that will be is damage decals, and that isn't too far off.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Edwin
When will we get to see beams that punch holes in ships and carve out chunks(and the holes and chunks actually stay)?  Is this planned to be done?

Thats not even really properly possible with most engines TODAY...nevermind a hacked upgrade of FreeSpace 2's engine which is about 5 years old now.

[Galemp]

Unless everybody wants to go all Boadicea with armor plating on their capships, but I doubt that's going to happen.

[diamondgeezer]

GEOMOD!







What?

[IceFire]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
GEOMOD!







What?

I'm pretty sure even RF2's geo-mod abilities are stretching the limits of that engine and the hardware at the moment and Red Faction's engine was build ground up for that ability in mind.  FreeSpace 2 is not such a beast.  

There are other effects more worthwhile.

[diamondgeezer]

Ah come on. You know you want geo-mods... admit it.. you want them

[aldo_14]

Actually I though RF's geo-mod (albeit it no seen the sequel) was both ugly and monumentally pointless.

[Terorist]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Ah come on. You know you want geo-mods... admit it.. you want them

It seems you have lots of good ideas on how to implement it then, let's hear them...



Geo-mods have been brought up many times, and every time the answer that has been repeated is that it's beyond the current engine. It would require some fundamental changes and total rewriting.

Sure, it would be mildly fun, but it's not something that would really add much to the experience.

[Liberator]

Here's a really twisted thought on how to implement carved up capships with out a major remodeling effort.  Feel free to smack me down, I know this would require months of coding.

Have where when the beam peirces the ship, like it already does, simply( ) connect the two closest vertex points.  The problem is how to texture something like this.

[Black Wolf]

Taint that simple. That might give the visual effect in a very messy way, but you'd still probably need mou ntains of code telling the game what to do with turrets, subsystems etc. that are affected by the geo mod, plus you'd need new sorts of debris, and you'd need a way to allow the game to change the model spontaneously so that the geomod actually affected the gameplay (ie. ships and weapons would be able to pass through it

Twould be difficult.

[Fry_Day]

Geo-Mod WON'T happen. Get over it.

Seriously, FS2 uses the BSP data for collisions. if you change the model, the BSP is no longer valid, and needs to be rebuilt. That is not a real-time operation. (Technically, I know you can do BSP-tree merges, but I wanna see anyone who volunteers to program that)

[Bobboau]

ya, the way FS holds it's poly data isn't like you may think, it's basicly a list of sortnorms and polygons, there is no way to alter this in real time, hell in fake time it's prety hard

[diamondgeezer]

You lot are just jealous of geo-mods



*runs*

[OldMan]

When of the T&L implementation will already need a larger rebuild of engine. If we can leave space to vertex shaders, then with it we can generate some damage effects (not hard after VS is up)... not very complex..but enough to make the ships look like  damaged.

[CptWhite]

if you could figure out stable live debris then ships could possibly be built with this in mind, but its a very limted solution, alas its the best you could hope for :thepimp:

[Bobboau]

live debris is stable, it always has been, you just have to know how to do it

[Fry_Day]

When of the T&L implementation will already need a larger rebuild of engine. If we can leave space to vertex shaders, then with it we can generate some damage effects (not hard after VS is up)... not very complex..but enough to make the ships look like damaged.

You just won't get 'No' for an answer, will you?
The way FS2 stores geometry makes it impossible to do geomodding without massive changes that will most likely break backwards compatability. Vertex shaders have nothing to do with this. They are just flexible ways to transform vertices, and nothing more. They do not let you, for example, add or substract vertices. I'd love it if you'd bother to back up your statements with facts, instead of commenting on something you do not know the inner workings of.

[Bobboau]

changeing the code for a more flexable geometry format will defenantly break bacwards compatability for models

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Fry_Day


You just won't get 'No' for an answer, will you?
The way FS2 stores geometry makes it impossible to do geomodding without massive changes that will most likely break backwards compatability. Vertex shaders have nothing to do with this. They are just flexible ways to transform vertices, and nothing more. They do not let you, for example, add or substract vertices. I'd love it if you'd bother to back up your statements with facts, instead of commenting on something you do not know the inner workings of.

Fry_Day my friend, you are right, but take it easy!  You're going to blow out your aorta if you keep up like that.  People are just asking and making suggestions.  Do like Goober and I do in the SEXP thread: let the not-so-feasible ideas ride.