Destructible Regenerating Wall for EP2 - Alpha

Hey there!

A long time ago, I created this for Prey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-FJM9H1a0

I am now trying to do the same for the latest installment of a Half-Life 2 episode, but since there is no scripting like that in the id Tech 4 engine, I had to fall back to other tricks. Unfortunately, a wall twice as big and high needed too long to copy around, so for now I am sticking with the current size.

Drawbacks:

• I disabled bullet holes, since they always respawn on solids created with the entity maker
• direct explosive hits don't seem to cause damage exactly as one would expect, but that is due to how the source engine handles this
• cells can float in mid-air, as I found no efficient solution to determine such unconnected areas
• there are no respawn animations and sounds yet, but that is planned

Download BSP+VMF

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Shrinker @ Beyond-Veils, InterComm

DAYUM! All that for a simple breakable wall.. guess its not simple after all.

Might have to DL this just to see what the different attachments do.

Yeah, it is not that simple after all, as all the cells are connected. For each cell, there is a timer that polls the adjacent cells, so no cell is spawned if there are no others around. When you just blow away the thing with a rocket launcher and watch the whole wall grow from the four seed cells at the bottom, you'll see. To optimize performance a bit, I made sure that in "blank" areas, timers deactivate themselves until there is work to do.

This illustrates it:

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Shrinker @ Beyond-Veils, InterComm

Dam! How vary pointless and how vary cool... Nice one.

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Reality has become a commodity.

Wow, very interesting. Nice!

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Aaron's Stuff

Interesting experiment indeed! Have you a particular use for it in mind? Seems like something tricky to fit into a level. I imagine it would have to be in a level where it played a big part in order to pull it off. You'd need to have at least 2 or 3 of these, perhaps acting as "doors" of sorts, or else people are just going to go "errr...wtf?" at the sheer randomness In the right setting though it could definitely impress and act as a nice memorable moment that sets your level apart, particularly if you can create some nice visual/sound effects to make it a more polished sight to behold

What sort of hit does it take on framerate however? Could you get away with having a few of these in an area? Perhaps increasing the size of the blocks to 16x16 or something could make it more manageable while still retaining the effect's wow factor.