Disqus - Latest Comments for P314

Re: Overgrowth Rap - Wolfire Games Blog

Phillip — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:30:53 -0000

Haha, that is awesome John! Bonus track on the OG album?

Re: Going to grad school

Phillip — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:14:19 -0000

Oh yeah, I've heard good things about that, and I'd like to check it out. Thanks for the link! I'll sign up.

Re: Going to grad school

Phillip — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:53:49 -0000

Ah, that's annoying about the non-standard traffic lights. I'll keep an eye out for applications to colorblindness. Feel free to send me a message if you are around some time.

Re: Going to grad school

Phillip — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:48:22 -0000

Haha, that comic is great. This is how I've, so far, been surviving: http://www.phdcomics.com/co...

Re: Going to grad school

Phillip — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:57:02 -0000

Haha that looks neat. Not too long until we can all just be brains in vats! But for real, brain-computer interfaces are getting to be pretty cool... though I think the marketing people might have had a small hand in the intro video on that website ;).

Re: Going to grad school

Phillip — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:32:06 -0000

Haha, will do. I'll miss making the videos too!

Re: Inspiration from fire

Phillip — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:45:14 -0000

Whoa, that's an awesome photograph! I may have to reconsider what I said about colorful flames not looking as hot. There are a lot of ways to create the illusion of brightness and heat, and this photo clearly finds several.

Re: Inspiration from fire

Phillip — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:36:13 -0000

Ah yes, I love the various sounds of fire, especially the whoosh. Would have been a good thing to mention.

Also the smell, the heat, and the feel of the wind are super important to the actual experience of fire. Too bad present technology makes these more or less impossible to capture in a game.

Re: Inspiration from fire

Phillip — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:24:32 -0000

We're considering small fires and point lights, but haven't made a final decision yet.

Re: Inspiration from fire

Phillip — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:11:29 -0000

Thanks for the correction! I updated the post to reflect it.

AvP's explosions looked kind of funny, but their physics were awesome. Haven't seen too many other games do that. Anyone know of any?

Re: Experimental Games

Phillip — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:50:52 -0000

This download works for me: http://www.yoyogames.com/ga...

But yeah, it's too bad the developer's site and a lot of the links are down. Took me a few tries to find a working copy.

Also, check out this page to learn the controls: http://www.gamemakergames.c...

Re: Debugging rotations

Phillip — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:21:20 -0000

Assertions and test cases are great. I often use these as well.

I am actually using a matrix to do the rotation, but the matrix is first generated from an angle and an axis of rotation. This axis of rotation is the vector I was talking about.

Re: Overgrowth alpha 34

Phillip — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:30:43 -0000

Haha, annihilating enemies would be cool.

I had the same idea about the moon popping up on the opposite side of the sun. Might be fun. Phase changing would be a bit trickier, and probably confusing to control with the sun. But it would be pretty cool to make everything astronomically accurate.

Re: Linear algebra for game developers ~ part 1

Phillip — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:41:24 -0000

produit scalaire = dot product
produit vectoriel = cross product
produit tensoriel = tensor product

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:26:19 -0000

It's too early for us to say exactly where these destructive effects might end up in the game, but I like how you are thinking :). For now, our first step will be to use the physics editor to rig up and animate characters.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:23:17 -0000

Yeah this has bothered me too. I think it comes up a lot because physics engines use all sorts of approximations, and most of these approximations deviate from reality in ways that end up making objects seem light weight (e.g. when exploding debris flies too high and rotates too fast, not taking into account wind resistance and a bunch of other subtle factors), floaty (e.g. when a spherical collider approximates a complex, rolling mesh), and soft (e.g. when irregular motion is highly damped in order to make it simpler and easier to handle). We will do our best to avoid these problems as much as possible, and to make collisions feel like they have real force.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:53:54 -0000

Wind interactions and destructible architecture would be awesome. We will have to wait and see how far we can get with these, and how they might work or not work with the gameplay. But I definitely agree, it'd be really cool to win certain battles by using the environment as a weapon.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:42:49 -0000

We are still deciding which parameters to expose. The good news is the underlying ODE system can handles a bunch of these parameters, so there is lots we can potentially expose.

Soft body effects maybe be added at some point. At least for character animations, the meshes should morph.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:16:45 -0000

Hopefully :).

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:15:48 -0000

This was one of those random fun emergent things that come up so often with physics. I had embedded the blocks slightly in the terrain when building the tower. So, when I activated the blocks, the bottom ones were bumped out the terrain and this caused the whole structure to shiver and collapse.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:11:44 -0000

Hard to say exactly how it will turn out at this point, but hotspot triggered physics effects are certainly an intriguing possibility.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:09:54 -0000

This will probably be possible. Would certainly be cool.

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:01:57 -0000

Yeah, that's the basic idea. The plan right now is the animations will be key framed in a first pass. Then, as the game runs, they will morph based on uneven ground, collisions, fatigue, and such. Some of the adjustments will probably be done with inverse kinematics, so I suppose it will be a hybrid solution :).

Re: Physics Editor ~ Part I

Phillip — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:50:12 -0000

Yep, the framerate slows down when too many objects collide at once.

Re: Decals Demonstration Video

Phillip — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:44:29 -0000

:-) I was hoping someone would catch that. Look around you is great.