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Integrated physics

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Integrated physics

from JoeUser Forums

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In Elemental there is no such thing as a knight or a wizard or an archer.  Instead, players design their own units.  If you wanted to call a unit a knight, you might take a man, equip him with some armor, give him a helmet, arm him with a sword, and pair him up with a horse.

The armor, helmets, swords, etc. are things you manufacture and thus have some control over how they look. Normally, customizing an individual unit falls only in the realm of role playing games. And what they tend to do is called texture merging. That is, they simply blend various textures together.

In Elemental, what we're doing is actually giving each item its own heft with its own physics.  The trick is to find a way to do this that still lets it run on lower end hardware so it has to be done smartly. At the same time, you want the guy with that new Core i7 with the latest nVidia or ATI card to look at it and go DAMN that's cool. ;)

The example we have going is a knight that we've equipped with armor, a sword, a helmet, along with a horse with its own armor.  When they move, each item moves as if it were real. That is, the armor on the horse when the horse is running moves like you would expect.  The knight riding the horse moves on the horse as you'd expect and even the sword dangling from the side moves as you would expect. 

Normally, to get such an effect, you would have to model/bone/rig/animate the entire unit together.  The breakthru here is that these elements are all independent and created by the players and they just work together.  I'll try to get a little video or something to show this in action next time.

This will really make the tactical battles really compelling. Since so much of the game revolves around the premise of massive unit differentia, you will see some really breathtaking battles I think.

157,408 views 76 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

This is going to be a revolution in turnbased gaming! If Civlization V doesn't get released to close near your launch you should be golden.

I really like the idea of "creating" you own units with a custom look. Going to feel so much more personal when they'll do battle! Aplha Centauri also did this a bit, but I think the technology wasn't avanced enough yet to pull it off back then. Of course GalCiv II also implemented the system, but for spaceships it I think its a bit easier to do and make it look good, then for people. Must say I felt far more offended though when people destroyed one of my designs then when they blew up a random "stock" design. Made taking revenge so much sweeter. :) Funny how designing your own units affects gameplay!

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

So fantasy warfare, with significant scale differences between troops, plus a good physics engine. So, a dragon breathing flame on an army of spearmen, for instance, might look like...?

A question that might best be answered with a video.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, please post some video soon!  I'm all in for breathtaking battles, too!

Quoting lamperti, reply 13
One of the issues I have with games where you design units (Usually space ships,) by putting together things you have researched and/or built is that you find yourself needing to create a new design everytime there is an incremental change in technology.  I.e. I have just researched shields that are +5 instead of my shields that are +4, so I need to design a new ship type, (Or multiple ship types,) with the new technology.  This can lead to micromanagement, a difficulity in unit uniqueness and a naming problem.  This is something that could be an issue here.  Of course it could be managed well, but these are potential difficulties I think might come up.

The shipyard in GalCiv2 can become very cluttered for this very reason.  Hopefully the devs will think of something creative to help streamline upgrading units better in Elemental.

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Nights, reply 2
So fantasy warfare, with significant scale differences between troops, plus a good physics engine. So, a dragon breathing flame on an army of spearmen, for instance, might look like...?

A question that might best be answered with a video.

Yeah Frogboy, convince the doubters like me with a shiny video of such a happening. ;)

 

Quoting NelsMonsterX, reply 3


The shipyard in GalCiv2 can become very cluttered for this very reason.  Hopefully the devs will think of something creative to help streamline upgrading units better in Elemental.

Totally agree. It wasn't that bad in GalCivII, since I usually didn't had that many designs anyway (there wasn't that much different options in the end). But in Alpha Centauri it was horrible. I had dozens over dozens of different designs that were cluttering up its (bad) interface and I groaned each time I had researched a new item, since it meant changing a dozen plans. In the end I didn't really bother upgrading my designs by hand, since often it didn't really matter that much. Same in GCII, Laser II or Laser V was pretty meaningless and I hope we don't get such a system in Elemental. I'd rather have fever but more diverse options than gradual increases that don't change much.

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Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 22
We're using Havok for physics.

Good to know.  Sounds like this will use the processor to handle the physics rendering, then, based on what I've read.  It would be cool if the video cards could help to off-load some of this processing- can they?

Looks like the Havok site will need to include Stardock on their list of customers now.

I also didn't realize Intel bought Havok.  Does that mean anything for AMD customers?

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

Havok only uses the CPU for physics calculations and probably will continue with that trend for the foreseeable future. However Intel's acquisition of Havok should translate to better performance since it will obviously be optimized for Intel CPUs opposed to AMD. If I remember correctly Havok tested there physics engine predominately on Intel chips anyway so unless Havok managed to come up with some new tricks that favor Intel CPUs I doubt any significant differences could really be noticed using an AMD chip. Now if you throw Larrabee into the mix things in the CPU/GPU/Physics battle become a bit more muddled and interesting at the same time. I'm very enthusiastic to see how Intel's GPU stands up head to head with Nvidia and AMD GPUs. 

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Vandenburg, reply 4
Totally agree. It wasn't that bad in GalCivII, since I usually didn't had that many designs anyway (there wasn't that much different options in the end). But in Alpha Centauri it was horrible. I had dozens over dozens of different designs that were cluttering up its (bad) interface and I groaned each time I had researched a new item, since it meant changing a dozen plans. In the end I didn't really bother upgrading my designs by hand, since often it didn't really matter that much. Same in GCII, Laser II or Laser V was pretty meaningless and I hope we don't get such a system in Elemental. I'd rather have fever but more diverse options than gradual increases that don't change much.
I want to 'third' that notion, for both GalCiv2 and SMAC/X. The highlighted section is the reason alone that I usually run Slow or Very Slow research speed. I like to take an extreme amount of time while playing my turn-based games, and this goes doubly for spending time in the shipyard.

I know that a lot of people may not agree with me on this, but I hope that it won't be as much of a hassle to optimize your choice of troops in Elemental. One big step towards this, I think, would be to get rid of 'size' - it wouldn't make much sense in this context, regardless. After all, no matter how many maces you stick to a knight, he'll only be able to use one at a time.

Overall, I think we'll get a more straight-lined upgrade system in Elemental, for our various base troops. But yeah, I couldn't possibly agree more with you.

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rhishisikk, reply 23
pigeonpigeon:  Okay, so how about this: we keep a set of templates.  For example, I have both a holy paladin and a knight template.  I want my paladins to keep their holy sword instead of getting the new flaming swords, but I want my knights to make use of the new technology.  I select UPGRADE on the knight template, move in the flaming sword, and save the template.   New knights will be built with flaming swords.  My idle production goes into making flaming swords, which are caravaned out to the units, and bring back the old weapons.  (So yes, my garrisons will upgrade first, being closest).  When a unit is in town, I can select UPGRADE TO TEMPLATE: [template name] (Or maybe UPGRADE lists the templates that match the unit's current configuration) and have it pop up with X weeks, and stick the unit into the production queue. 

This also melds into the idea of supply caravans, weapon/armor wear and tear, and other automatically supplied field needs.

 

This is pretty much how GC2 works, so I would expect Elemental to work the same way.  It would be nice to be able to upgrade a unit without it stripping everything and starting over again though.  (like replacing just the sword, or just the armor; which should be easier since you can't mount a sword anywhere like you can mount a part anywhere in GC2.)

Reply #59 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Martimus, reply 8
This is pretty much how GC2 works, so I would expect Elemental to work the same way.  It would be nice to be able to upgrade a unit without it stripping everything and starting over again though.  (like replacing just the sword, or just the armor; which should be easier since you can't mount a sword anywhere like you can mount a part anywhere in GC2.)
Not quite the same, though. In GCII you still had to go through and manually change all the designs. What he's suggesting is a button that can automatically upgrade all your units' steel swords to adamantium. If upgrading works like it does in GalCiv, and given the number of different unit types Elemental will allow for, there's a good chance I'd die of starvation halfway through upgrading all my units from steel to adamantium armor.

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

I think unit design should run on templates. That way if you change a template then your industrial base will automatically work its hardest to update all units to the new standard.

You could even get more technical and specify how many units to upgrade per a certain amount of time. This would help if you were giving out equipment that relied on experimental, expensive or just rare materials.

Reply #61 from Elemental Forums Top

I gotta admit I have the same concerns as the other posters.  If you can pull this off, WOW.  If you can't, this should be a chopped feature.  It's not going to be something this game would be remembered for in 10 years.

 

 

Reply #62 from Elemental Forums Top

Hahaha, very good joke, but no sensible TBS would have this level of detail.

 

Oh, wait whats that logo there...

 

Oh... so elemental is a Stardock game...

 

Well, I'm looking forwward to it!

Reply #63 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Torgamous, reply 9

Quoting Martimus, reply 8This is pretty much how GC2 works, so I would expect Elemental to work the same way.  It would be nice to be able to upgrade a unit without it stripping everything and starting over again though.  (like replacing just the sword, or just the armor; which should be easier since you can't mount a sword anywhere like you can mount a part anywhere in GC2.)
Not quite the same, though. In GCII you still had to go through and manually change all the designs. What he's suggesting is a button that can automatically upgrade all your units' steel swords to adamantium. If upgrading works like it does in GalCiv, and given the number of different unit types Elemental will allow for, there's a good chance I'd die of starvation halfway through upgrading all my units from steel to adamantium armor.

Agreed.  Upgrading units in GalCiv2 was always something I disliked as well.  But in GalCiv2, templates weren't included until when, Dark Avatar?  By then, it was more of an add-in feature.  I can't help but think that Elemental will rely heavily on templates and use them in a more integrated, usable fashion.

Along those lines, I also hope upgrading generally is "worth it" more.  Many of the tech advances were so minor that it wasn't worth the level of micromangement to gain a better unit, and the upgrade costs were so expensive, as well.

Back on topic, I'll be really interested in seeing how Havok is used not only for units, but buildings, spells, terrain, weather, etc.

Reply #64 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tamren, reply 6
I once had a discussion on winged humanoids. In DnD and other places humans with wings are a common feature. But in real life you would need a wingspan of over 40 feet, and that is just if you want to glide. Powered flight is probably impossible because we don't have room for any more muscles and wings can't be connected to any of the existing muscles.

Of course of magic is involved all bets are off.

Can't wait till beta


The easest solution to that, is just make the people light, Who says this fantacy world has Right handed DNA as it's basic structure, who says that all the species need to be baced one template,  if you have stone golums walking around they're densities are not going to be the same as humans. so Pegisi and dragons are made from lighter stuff.  doesn't seam to hard to me to solve. ...

Reply #65 from Elemental Forums Top

Nice necropost.

 

People are about as light as people can be.  It takes very little variation in size to go from healthy adult to crippled by 35.  Even just being seven feet tall leads to severe joint problems well before old age, the body isn't built to take that much stress.  If the bones were much lighter without being made of something significantly stronger, you'd break like glass.  If your muscles were less dense, you'd have trouble moving.  The better idea for winged humans and such is to just fuck it and say shit happens.  Rationalizing it only gets you in trouble with the nit pickers, it really isn't plausible.

Reply #66 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting psychoak, reply 15
Nice necropost.

 

People are about as light as people can be.  It takes very little variation in size to go from healthy adult to crippled by 35.  Even just being seven feet tall leads to severe joint problems well before old age, the body isn't built to take that much stress.  If the bones were much lighter without being made of something significantly stronger, you'd break like glass.  If your muscles were less dense, you'd have trouble moving.  The better idea for winged humans and such is to just fuck it and say shit happens.  Rationalizing it only gets you in trouble with the nit pickers, it really isn't plausible.

I agree. It's magic fantasy anyways so if people demand an explanation they can always just blame magic. This is one area I'm happy to say "magic did it," or just ignore the existence of the problem to begin with. Hell, they could even say that the physical laws of the world are different than our own in such away that allows human/pegasus/dragon flight.

Reply #67 from Elemental Forums Top

whee, thread necromancy.

All these comparisons to GC2 don't really fit that well. The whole thing in GC2 was ship component space. You have X space to fit stuff. Laser II to Laser V changed the size, so in some cases it let you fit an extra one (or something else).

Clearly it can't work that way in Elemental, since you aren't going to be able to wield 3 Claymores at the same time no matter what you do to the size of them. Since you can only have a certain number of weapons anyway, it should be easy to automatically upgrade designs from +4 Swords to +5 Swords.

Reply #68 from Demigod Forums Top

Clearly it can't work that way in Elemental, since you aren't going to be able to wield 3 Claymores at the same time no matter what you do to the size of them.

There has to be a spell that lets your human foot soldiers grow an extra arm! Imagine, sword and 2 shields, 2 swords and shield, 3 swords, 3 shields :P

Reply #69 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 18
...There has to be a spell that lets your human foot soldiers grow an extra arm! Imagine, sword and 2 shields, 2 swords and shield, 3 swords, 3 shields

A third arm sounds rather Fallen to me, not something a Kingdom faction would want to do, and also like something that could work well as an extension of MoM's Chaos Channels spell. Which makes me wonder if the Elemental base game will include anything like that swell old spell--maybe a Fallen channeler with strong Life magic could build a magical version of the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist.

Reply #70 from Demigod Forums Top

I actually was just joking. But it would be interesting if there were Mutate-type spells.

Reply #71 from Elemental Forums Top

Would not go terribly well with the new resource system, but mutate potions could be used to provide the same effect, and yet be treated as a resource...

Reply #72 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 21
Would not go terribly well with the new resource system, but mutate potions could be used to provide the same effect, and yet be treated as a resource...

If you're talking about an analog to MoM's Chaos Channels, I don't see a problem here. Producing a unit is one thing, and casting an enchantment on it after it is produced is another.

As for enchantments that are embedded in unit production (the intersection in the Venn diagram view), if anything deserves a 'pure camp 2' treatment, it's mana-only enchantments by the channeler: spend mana up front and possibly also incur an ongoing mana cost. I'd go for production-enchantment special effects like potions if they were linked to specific spell material components and a more-or-less camp 1 system, but I could just as happily do without that level of functional detail.

Reply #73 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 22

Quoting Scoutdog,
reply 21
Would not go terribly well with the new resource system, but mutate potions could be used to provide the same effect, and yet be treated as a resource...


If you're talking about an analog to MoM's Chaos Channels, I don't see a problem here. Producing a unit is one thing, and casting an enchantment on it after it is produced is another.

I would really like to know what resource camp they finally did decide on...

@Swicord: I can't remember, but did the Chaos Channels spell acutally change the graphics of the target unit in MoM? I need a refresher on that game... maybe i'll go do that instead of sleeping tonight :blush: lol

Reply #74 from Elemental Forums Top

... @Swicord: I can't remember, but did the Chaos Channels spell acutally change the graphics of the target unit ...

I think so, but it's been ages since I last played and a Google image search for "chaos channels" doesn't yield any MoM graphics (although it does show several avatars from Stardock forums).

Surely someone around here has been playing MoM recently again. landisaurus made a bunch of MoM avatars; maybe he knows.

Reply #75 from Elemental Forums Top

Chaos channels had the 'swirling chaos energy' animation that resulted when the spell was cast, and from there if you actually opened the units status they gained an ability that was basically a shadow of the unit with whatever special feature.  It however, was nothing spceial since the icon for the chaos channels was just recolors from other ability icons (firebreathing > chaos channels fire breathing, ect.)  It did not "change" any graphics.  (for example, other than on the status screen, you could not actually see units units that gained fire breathing using it in combat, even though the results of combat were very apparent)