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Lengis

Should the explosions be bitmaps(sprites) or polygons

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Quake 1-2 had polygons for explosions, while Quake 3 had bitmaps(sprites) instead. Which do guys think will look better for Doom 3? I haven't seen any running demos of the game yet that showed any explosions, so I'm not sure what they are using right now, but I'm assuming they will use bitmaps (sprites).

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Quake 1 had sprites/particles, only Quake 2 had polygons as the explosions (which looked quite lame I may add).

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Oh yea, my bad Quake 1 had sprites. Particles combines right with sprites or polygons look good.

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Shaped fog with lens flares!, worked for vice city

There is that movie where he fires a rocket and blows some zombies over a railing...

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Has anyone seen Half-life 2's footage? Those explosions are pretty much done perfect. An explosion caused by a grenade never gives a Hollywood like explosion (slow exploding materials mixed with fuel, causing a fireball to burst out). A real explosion is a lot quicker, resulting in no fireball, some smoke and fragments flying in all directions. I like it the realistic way. I don't like big red fireballs.

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Disorder said:

Has anyone seen Half-life 2's footage? Those explosions are pretty much done perfect. An explosion caused by a grenade never gives a Hollywood like explosion (slow exploding materials mixed with fuel, causing a fireball to burst out). A real explosion is a lot quicker, resulting in no fireball, some smoke and fragments flying in all directions. I like it the realistic way. I don't like big red fireballs.

The funny thing is that smoke and flying fragments ought to be a lot easier to animate convincingly than big red fireballs.

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Well from watching the e3 trailer (the bit where the rocket launcher is fired and the zombies fall down that long pit), i can say it looks very much like sprites (probably bump mapped for a more 3d depth) imo.

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Fredrik said:

The funny thing is that smoke and flying fragments ought to be a lot easier to animate convincingly than big red fireballs.

Well, Call of Duty and Half-life 2 seem to do a good job at it. I can't stand the bright yellow/red fireballs from Doom 3's trailer. They look fake. Same as in GTAIII.

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What's wrong with fireballs? Gasoline explosions results in fireballs, as does nitroglycerine, rocket fuels, ammonium nitrate, etc.

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Zoorado said:

What's wrong with fireballs? Gasoline explosions results in fireballs, as does nitroglycerine, rocket fuels, ammonium nitrate, etc.

Nothing wrong with fireballs, but grenades don't make bright red fireballs. It just doesn't look right. When a car explodes however, a fireball will erupt.

So, I don't really have anything against fireballs, but it seems that it is hard to make them look right, since I don't remember seeing a good looking fireball in any videogame.

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Not all grenades result in fragmentation, though. Incendiary grenades burst into a ball of fire when ignited.

True that fireballs don't look realistic in games, but neither does any form of explosion. Throwing a frag grenade against a metallic wall yields a different effect as when it's thrown against a concrete one. Just smoke and fragments isn't gonna be any much prettier than a fireball made up of sprites and particles.

On the another hand, the flame effects on the new 'Burnie' zombie do look cool.

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Zoorado said:

On the another hand, the flame effects on the new 'Burnie' zombie do look cool.

True, seems like they were updating the fire effects. Hopefully they upgraded the explosions as well.

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Disorder said:

When a car explodes however, a fireball will erupt.

Except that car don't simply explode like in movies.

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Disorder said:

An explosion caused by a grenade never gives a Hollywood like explosion (slow exploding materials mixed with fuel, causing a fireball to burst out). A real explosion is a lot quicker, resulting in no fireball, some smoke and fragments flying in all directions. I like it the realistic way. I don't like big red fireballs.

Depends on what it is that's exploding. Fragmentation grenades don't cause a fireball as you said, but there are other types of grenades out there and then there's rocket launchers.

I've only seen one type of rocket launcher in action in real life - and that was an anti-tank rocket (i.e. doesn't explode, but heats the interior of the tank to enormous temperatures, causing some serious human barbecue inside). It didn't explode per se, but it did cause a fireball-like effect (a brief, bright yellow flash amidst a lot of smoke).
Then I've heard a bit about other types of rocket propelled grenades (there are differences between anti-personnel rockets and anti-armour rockets) and I'd be much surprised if one of these types doesn't explode in a ball of flame.
Hell, the two airplanes that smacked into the WTC on Sep 11 exploded in huge balls of flame and that was real footage - not some souped up Hollywood stuff.

I haven't seen a screenshot of a grenade explosion in Doom 3 (from the scene where the doomguy supposedly throws a grenade at a chainsaw zombie - I read a description of that scene somewhere), so I can't comment much further on that, but I gotta say that the explosion I saw on a different screenshot from a different scene looks shitty, but my guess is that it's probably placeholder stuff. I remember the Quake 2 demo I had (before I bought the full game) in which they used sprites for explosions - looked like crap, so despite the final explosions' crappy looks, I still consider them an improvement.

Doom 3's explosions...I don't care as long as it looks good enough. I've never been too critical about explosions (except towards the shit they had for explosions in Quake 1!), so I'm not overly interested in them making perfect explosions. If they make cool looking explosions though, it's a definite plus.

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id is know for their terrible explosions. I'm not counting on anything good. HL2 looks like it will have amazing explosions. So.... they should use whatever Valve is using.

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Scabbed Angel said:

id is know for their terrible explosions. I'm not counting on anything good. HL2 looks like it will have amazing explosions. So.... they should use whatever Valve is using.


I found the Half-Life 2 (leak) explosions to be (probably) more realistic, but not at all satisfying to create. It sounds like someone thumping a carpet against a wall, and looks ineffectual as hell.

That's not to say I like bright red fireballs, but I prefer non-realistic explosions to their realistic counterparts (if HL2's £5 firecrackers are what a real grenade/rpg explosion is like).

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I thought the huge explosions in the game "SHOGO, Mobile Armor Division" were pretty decent. But I also adore the "Lingering Smoke" effects in "HALO" and in N64's "GoldenEye" were the best yet in games. I'd like to see the "earthquake" effect off Alien v.s.Predator games, after you shoot off that strong weapon. I wish id would've took a page off the game "RED FACTION" when the rocket launchers would make large cratrs in walls and floors large enough for a player to jump in and hide in.

Ah well what can you do.........

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Lengis said:

Quake 1-2 had polygons for explosions, while Quake 3 had bitmaps(sprites) instead. Which do guys think will look better for Doom 3? I haven't seen any running demos of the game yet that showed any explosions, so I'm not sure what they are using right now, but I'm assuming they will use bitmaps (sprites).


quake 1 used spirits. early quake 2 did too, but final releases used polygons

if Id can get the polys to work right then they should be used with particles.

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Volume effects using the light system to get that cool "shining through the fog" effect with the smoke afterwards

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