Fire and Water

[Midnight]

I was playing through Heart of Lone Salvation and No Honour Amongst Thieves and noted a couple things with regards to fire and water that I think could be improved.

 

Fire

When you drop a candle on a stone surface for example, the flame stays lit, whereas it would seem more realistic if it was extinguished.

 

This got me thinking about having certain materials react to fire (either from a flame source, or fire arrow) so that you could have curtains or carpets catch fire. So as an example, say you dropped a candle on a carpet, instead of being extinguished the candle flame would spread to the carpet and possibly other nearby flammable materials. This could be interesting for gameplay, for instance, if there's a room full of AI you could set part of the room on fire and the AI would run around looking for a bucket of water to put out the fire, allowing you to slip by unnoticed. A downside to this idea (apart from the AI scripting that would be required) is that you'd probably need to have alternate 'burnt' textures for many objects.

Water

I don't know if this is something that individual designers could do, but the water in game would look more realistic if it was darker than the world it's reflecting. The water in both the cave and lake areas in NHAT (whilst looking great) were noticeably lighter than you'd expect.

 

Sounds (e.g. guard voices) don't seem to change at all when you're underwater, whereas they should be muffled (I don't know if it's possible to modify the audio when you're underwater or not).

 

 

None of these suggestions are really problems with TDM, I just thought I'd mention them for consideration as possible enhancements.

Edited May 10, 2010 by Midnight

[Avan]

I'd be amazed if what you're suggesting about fire could be implimented, since that is something that in real life could easily get ridiculously out-of-hand. In a game it would need some seriously advanced dynamics systems, controlling how different materials burnt, for how long, how the fire spreads across the materials and onto others. You're basically talking about something way beyond anything that's actually been done in any game to this day! I'd bet anyone who claims to have seen a dynamic fire spread in a game was in fact watching a very well scripted one!

 

I've been playing games for over 20 years and I've only seen anything like that during events where the spreading of the fire was carefully scripted (the burning building scenes in Max Payne for example), the only dynamic one I've seen was very simple, i.e. the gasoline trails in Postal 2, which could only set fire to people not scenery.

 

It should be possible to script a scene we a fire starts and spreads, but it would have to be scripted very very carefully. Unfortunately it would be the same every time you play.

 

It would be very interesting to see the results if someone tried to do it, though!

[Midnight]

The idea of spreading to other materials nearby was really just an afterthought (the main point was being able to set a specific material on fire), I just mentioned spreading throughout a room because I know how the TDM team are just dying for more work.

 

I'm sure I have played games where you could set certain things on fire (Dark Messiah perhaps?) so the general idea would be that you could create a distraction by shooting a fire arrow into a carpet or curtain in order to create a little chaos. Just an idea of course, I understand how this is quite a rare thing to see even in commercial games.

[Avan]

Don't misunderstand me, I'd love to see it as well.

 

Remember that development comes from having ideas and asking 'how do we do it?', someone will find a way eventually.

[demagogue]

If a mapper really wanted to do it, they could use the S/R system to spread a fire. This already works in TDM for lighting candles with another candle flame. What you're talking about is the same system on a massively bigger scale. So it's possible, just (like a lot of things) a lot of work, eg you'd need to make a special particle effect & lighting that fits the environment, not a trivial task & maybe not scaleable to general use, but you never know.

Water is another thing hard to simulate, though just darkening it is relatively easy.

Just remember TDM is open enough for contributors to add their own perks if they are passionate about them. It's one of the beauties of it IMO.

[Fidcal]

Yes a mapper could set up say an area of lots of wooden scaffolding, straw etc and the player could ignite it and divert the AI. There is already a large conflagration flames available and the rest is just setting up triggers. There is no specific animation though so it would just be an alert I guess to draw the AI to the flames area and away from their posts.

 

The 'dark reflection' on water is also a mapper thing. It just needs a murk skin laying on top of which there are is a choice available.

 

Torches already fizzle out if a guard drops one when he dies but for the player it would need a test to see which way up the candle is else it would go out every time you tried to put down the candle.

[Midnight]

Thanks for the feedback. The S/R system sounds like it could be put to good use. I messed about with them in Dromed years ago and they're great for being able to do all sorts of interesting things. I'm very happy this feature has been added to TDM.

[aidakeeley]

This S/R thing is one of the things I've been most interested in too. I am so far from being able to implement any of it though because I haven't even worked my way through the DR "A - Z Beginner Full Guide". Still, it is what I assume makes adventure game type things work. So I am glad to hear you want to explore the possibilites.

 

If you go to the wiki you will be able to read a bit about how the S/R is analogous in theory, maybe, to the Dromed system, but in practice quite different. Here it is (written by sparhawk):

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Stim/Response

[_Atti_]

You're basically talking about something way beyond anything that's actually been done in any game to this day! I'd bet anyone who claims to have seen a dynamic fire spread in a game was in fact watching a very well scripted one!

Alone in the dark 5 had some great firespreading system.

 

I think the idea could work when specialized for an fm, but in general i think such system is beyond thief experience.

[SneaksieDave]

Blade of Darkness (Severance) had a good system. You could hold a torch to a flammable item (e.g. crates) and the particles and light would first spread to the spot on the box touched, then eventually spread across the entire surface of the box, burn for a few moments, and then the box would flinder. Couldn't find any video of it on youtube.