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Do you do damage models and textures?

PaK
polycounter lvl 18
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PaK polycounter lvl 18
Hi Everyone,

Long time since I've even come here, nice to so see it's still lively :)

I was wondering how many of us have experience making damage models and textures. I wanted to spark a discussion about the do's and don't. The idea behind this is that I want to build a toolset for Remi, but he and I discussed gathering some info from the community before we do anything too serious.

My goal is to take the tedious parts out of the workflow and unlock the excitement from busting up your shit.

So peeps, give it to me raw and uncut!

-R

Replies

  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 16
    This could be interesting. I remember marvelling at the damage textures for cars the guys from BugBear in Finland made for the FlatOut games, I still do because I wouldn't be able to do it as well as them.
    Hardest thing I think would be getting the scratches and bruised spots of the metal to align with the dents and bumps in the model. I can't think of any other way than using some sort of 3D painting tool to at least mark them beforehand?

    I've only played Forza very shortly (to be honest, I prefer less realistic racing games), and since it's console only I can't look at the texture files like I do for PC games, but I bet you have some tips, PaK ?

    Personally I've done it a few times, but noticed while doing it that I lacked brushes/techniques to do convincing scratches and bruises, and ended up stamping a damage template texture over it :/
  • TheWinterLord
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    TheWinterLord polycounter lvl 17
    This could be really intresting but I think it should be moved to the ''Technical Talk'' sub forum.

    Damage models depends on what kind of game it is and a bunch of stuff so there might be some intresting points comming up here i hope :P
  • dejawolf
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    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    i've been doing damage models for a tanksim for 3-4 years. does that count?
  • Mark Dygert
    Ahh Ross awesome buddy!

    I hope this reaches farther than damage models for cars, there could be some cool tools put in place for damage to buildings and environments.

    I think one really cool feature would be slicing a mesh based on a projected pattern. A bit like the Topology features in polyboost/Graphite modeling tools but centered around making damage patterns instead and localized to specific areas defined by the user. Being able to project those damage patterns onto sections of your models would be great.

    It could also be helpful if these patterns could be defined with a simple quick B/W image instead of a predefined heavily scripted pattern.

    Also being able to take your UV layout, paint a quick b/w damage mask a bit like a opacity mask and have the script hack up your geometry. So lets say I have a brick wall, all UV mapped and textured and I need it to destruct 3 times each getting progressively worse. It could be amazingly fast if I black out the bricks in a quick mask.

    It would be great if it also bent metal based on a grayscale pattern.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 18
    Ahhh good idea for discussion. I'm gonna move this to Tech Talk though. I have done a lot of this for Singularity and will try and write up what or how I did it using Unreal and the tech side of things like shader setup, etc.
  • dejawolf
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    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    for the future, its probably going to be voxel-based clouds for buildings, where the mesh is automatically cut up according to a voxel cage.

    a sim with some insane damage modeling, is rise of flight:
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQtBV73ofM[/ame]

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDFZcNZ-HpY[/ame]
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe8OOw5tRcY[/ame]

    its insanely detailed, shooting out links of the airframe will cause it to weaken, and if you put it under too much stress, like doing a hard turn in a dogfight, it might break.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    I do it manually but I'm working on an mmo, that's like 6 years behind the times right? Also, you dont talk to me anymore, don't you love me!?
  • PaK
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    PaK polycounter lvl 18
    Some awesome suggestions here. Vig I'm especially interested in your ideas. This just goes to show that there is no substitute for good, motivated stakeholders. Man, If I could only kidnap you guys everyday *sighs* Technically, I guess I could :P I can always post my concerns here.

    Anyways, The idea of driving the deformation with heightmaps is a good idea. I hear mudbox ships with max 2010, and I already know Maya has a viewport painting utility. The plan is to make it first in Max (that thats what my studio uses) and then mirror the tech in Maya. I have an itch to learn python for real, and not just tinker like I have been for the last year.

    It's going to be an interesting challenge, cuz wood cracks differently than how metal bends, so my tool will need a mark-up feature for polys with surface properties in order to behave correctly. Oncde I have thr props I will have to find a way to mimck the splintering of wood, the bending of metal, and some other surface types. i wont be able to do them all, but i can def experiment with some general parameters and expoise those to the user.

    It's gunna be one hell of a project, I can't wait to start :)
    -R
  • dejawolf
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    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    wasn't there a voxel demo a while ago, where you could cut and tear a zombie apart?
    it was some sort of softbody physics simulator.

    oh here it is:
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDXiBYSNKg[/ame]
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Making damage states is a pain in the ass. The method I've used for sims and stuff is always canned: You just hide the swapped mesh with lots of smoke, debris and flames. Also the "shatter" and break mels I have found over the years ALWAYS kill the UV's, and if it doesn't kill the first UV, it kills the second UV or the UV map that's not current in the UV window. I end up doing a lot of tweaking by hand.

    Now my DREAM method would be to have it like this:

    Things either bend, shatter or splinter. Things that bend have weak points that will give before other parts do. Shattering objects have 0 give, just a tolerance for the force to cause the shattering. Things that splinter have a bending tolerance, but shatter at the weak point.

    An example would be a car. Glass and metal. You wrap a FDD or something around it and use that to deform the mesh. Your mesh has weight maps for stress tollerances, maybe some blind data for the mass/physical attributes (even a pull-down for presets). In your material editor you have your destroyed state texture and your normal texture. Deform the mesh, hit the generate button and it will deform the mesh and generate the fragments keeping them in the group or combine to one mesh based on material. It would be badass if the user can define if they want the fragments to have centered pivots so the engine can handle throwing the bits out. This should be defined on a per-object basis (like the frame stays one huge chunk, while glass and small bits can be shot out).

    A bonus would be to define the end state and say "I want X in betweens of this", and hit the button. It will kick out X amounts of deformed states in mesh form.

    For objects that blow up you can put in the detonation point in/around or on the mesh. You have your burned texture and your clean texture. Define the properties and hit "GO".

    Something like a brick wall would be hard, bricks break by the mortar first, then the bricks themselves start to go.

    This was just really quick ideas thrown out.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    this is interesting, Im trying to find a nice way to bust up a ticket machine I made

    http://www.gd3dart.com/images/ticketrender2.jpg

    Im still working on the textures but the scratches and damage Ive done so far is all 3Dcoat painted. The highpoly was clean with no damage at all. Now I might do a few versions of this machine and just bust up some stuff in 3D coat, a few tears and big dents perhaps.
  • Eric Chadwick
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    The tech I used at my previous job allowed you to make multiple states. So if I had a pillar, I'd give it HP, then as many states w/fragments as I wanted. I think it came from Epic and was modded in-house. I was pretty bumed when I installed UnrealED at home and it wasn't there.
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