UDK destruction WIP
polycounter lvl 6
Why hello there,
i have this posted over in the WIP area as well because i didn't know there was a section dedicated to UDK which is why im posting it up here as well. hope thats okay.
so for my dissertation for college i decided to dive into the world of in game destruction using the UDK. inspired by games like Battlefield 3 and gears of war: raams shadow I have been working on attempting to replicate the effect of realistic destruction.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhix8esKfxI&feature=plcp"]UDK Destruction demo progress - YouTube[/ame]
please disregard the actual building as for the dissertation i am solely focusing on the destruction. When this is finishes in a few weeks time i will continue to creating a proper environment in which i will implement all the things which i have learned via this specialisation.
the reason ive made this my first post on polycount is, eventhough im very happy about where this is going i am very sure that there are some people out there that can point out the things that still need a lot of work and maybe even give m some pointers on how to fix them.
Kind and I appreciate you taking your time to come look at this.
i have this posted over in the WIP area as well because i didn't know there was a section dedicated to UDK which is why im posting it up here as well. hope thats okay.
so for my dissertation for college i decided to dive into the world of in game destruction using the UDK. inspired by games like Battlefield 3 and gears of war: raams shadow I have been working on attempting to replicate the effect of realistic destruction.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhix8esKfxI&feature=plcp"]UDK Destruction demo progress - YouTube[/ame]please disregard the actual building as for the dissertation i am solely focusing on the destruction. When this is finishes in a few weeks time i will continue to creating a proper environment in which i will implement all the things which i have learned via this specialisation.
the reason ive made this my first post on polycount is, eventhough im very happy about where this is going i am very sure that there are some people out there that can point out the things that still need a lot of work and maybe even give m some pointers on how to fix them.
Kind and I appreciate you taking your time to come look at this.
Replies
1) The smoke impact particle system is really dense and is working against you. It almost looks like you're using it to "cover up" the transition, but in the end all I want to do is look past the smoke. It lingers way too long and could use another pass regarding opacity and lifetime.
2) You have good weight with the initial "big" chunks, but there's too much bounciness with your smaller pieces. They start to feel like basketballs bouncing around. There should be much more settling and friction.
3) Your destruction is very uniform and doesn't look organic enough. I see lots of repetition as well (every section starts to look the same once destroyed).
4) If you're going to be a destruction specialist, know that destruction happens often in multiple stages. Think about having a 1st impact that begins to reveal cracks in the wall, and maybe a smaller hole. Then the second hit completely obliterates the wall. Maybe even a third that brings down the interior floors.
Can you go into more details on the tech you're using? I'm assuming you're using PhysX Lab for destruction? Hope this all helps!
first of all thanks for the reply.
the smoke seems to be a delicate balancing act as ive had feedback on this from some different areas and the previous person to look at it said that the smoke needed to be thicker. But i think that i agree with you at the moment that it is too thick as it is indeed taking away from the scene in stead of adding to it. I shall definatly have to give it another tweak.
the smaller parts are indeed giving me some problems. they are currently spawned in the same particle system as the smoke using a physx mesh data to give them the dynamic ability to fall differently depending on which blocks have been blown out at that time (the larger blocks are pre simulated skeletal meshes which are triggered to start animating on impact). The problem is...i cant for the life of me find out how to make them less "bouncy". Ive made a custom Physx particle system and tweaked some of the values to make the particles come to a halt sooner in stead of simply gliding across the floor. However, nothing i do seems to make them bounce less...any help would be great on this.
i agree with you again on the third point and am looking to add some of the side wall to the destruction so that the silhouette changes as the building falls apart. i think this should be a solution to that problem, however i am not sure whether i will have the time to implement it as it isnt a necessity at the moment. the goal is function over aesthetics at the moment. when i start the graduation stage that is when everything needs to start looking really pretty and shiny.
to the last point again something which i took into account, however the instant destruction is inspired from Battlefield 3 which happens in a similar way to what i have done here. I might change this for the graduation stage however at the moment i am happy with the chunks blowing out on 1 hit.
again thank you very much for the feedback.
[ame="
also it seems to perfect, every explosion looks the same,
- the particle effects could be improved, to have more form, motion, and be less distracting. It'd be nice to see a burst off effect out from the explosion, and some falling dust and masonry as the environment crumbles.
- Could the destruction be halved? At the moment the entire facade crumbles and falls, it may be nice to have the left half acting independantly from the right. Not sure how possible this is.
- There's a nice variation in size to your debris, but I feel like they all fall at roughly the same speed, it would be nice to see some smaller bits crumbling off the larger ones as it falls.
- If your brief is instant destruction then it's pretty successful in terms of animation i think. I'd really like to see more of a preliminary destruction and then followed on by an aftermath of debris crumbling, but this wouldn't fit that brief.
Taking it further, it's normally really great to see internal structuring and more detailing on the meshes themselves. Maybe some dry-wall on the inside of the building, with wooden struts poking through the brickwork to help break up and add more detail to the silhouettes.
- It'd also be nice to see some material work done on the destruction, leaving scorch marks and rough normals around the edges of the destruction to help sell it's impact on the environment.
I think to really smash this out the park, it'd be great to see it on some more final, production-ready building assets. Not only will the superficial image look better (which i recognise isn't what you're trying to show) but it'll help get an idea what production problems might arise. How to break the glass/deal with different surface types, how to balance it with texturing/shading.
thanks!
If it's the 1st, that isn't possible with modules alone. You'd need to use kismet.
If it's the second, it sounds like you're trying to use 5 separate emitters? You could just use one emitter with an initLocation range for randomness. That would be your "source" emitter/5 particles. Then you could have a second emitter using the emitter initLoc module to trail behind those.
I hope that answered your question.
what i have is a particle effect and in this effect there are currently two systems. one of these creates five sprites in random locations and the second system is the puff of smoke. What i want to do is use the five sprites as emitters for the puff of smoke system. however at the moment, when i use the emitter initloc module in the "puffs" system it is spawning the puff of smoke on only one of the five sprites in the other system in stead of spawning it at all five sprites.
hope ive been able to make it a little clearer.
thanks
As a side note: You are confusing the term system with emitter. A particle system comprises of a set of emitters (or a single one). The more you know . . .
i was getting confused because i had the particle count turned on and it said there were 100 on screen and i had the burst set to 100. so i figured it was only doing it once. however, it appears that it evenly divides that 100 amongst the emitting particles.
thanks!
https://rapidshare.com/#!download|432p5|3330777125|Specialisation_Dissertation_Chris-Redshaw_080186%20.pdf|786|0|0
to download.
EDIT: changed the link as the previous appeared not to be working.
its been 4-5 months since ive posted anything but i wanted to share my progress on my graduation project which was a followup on my previous work. Didnt want to start a new thread as i still have this one but would like to offer my apologies if this is considered to be necro posting.
[ame="
So what ive done is built up the environment and baked out animations for over 70 skeletal meshes which make up the outside of the building. When these are hit with a missile they play their animations just like in the other videos. Im currently working on adding the particle effects which will simulate the smoke, debris and glass.
C&C is always appreciated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZjYjfqChR8&feature=youtu.be
my apologies for the embed not working
Added in the smoke and debris particles.
I am having a little trouble with my lighting at the moment though.. my problem is that the skeletal meshes which make up most of the building are not recieving any shadows from for example the trees or themselves. I was wondering if someone could explain to me or give me a link to a good tutorial where dynamic lighting is explained. I would greatly appreciate it.
Kind regards,