Pouring water

Actually, this issue hasn't arisen yet, but will soon enough. I also want to pour hot liquids not water.

As you know, I am currently inspired to create a castle map. I want to have caldron's of hot stuff to pour on unsuspecting fraggers below. I was curious, since the engine supports falling objects, would it be possible to pour hot tar/stuff and have it actually pour?

if there is no solution, please feel free to delete this but, I wanted time to work out any possible bugs in advance, before i built a section dedicated to a stunt thats impossible.

thanx in advance.

Im pretty sure their isn't. You would need liquids that would rely on pyshics for that and the source engine either doesn't have it all, or doesn't have enabled.

Make half a million physics brushes that are reallllly small. Have them
ontop of a func_door so when the door is activated it pushes them down.
Then maybe have some red steam and some smokestacks ( or whatever the
entity is called ) ?

Just an idea :razz:

I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E ... the way you're thinking.

The water and liquids in HL2 don't use physics at all (They're might be some initial values though). In fact, it's just a sine wave. (I said this in another thread where someone was asking how to make a waterfall) It's a pretty old trick, actually. You map out this wave function and then apply shaders, alphas, textures and maps to the surface (0 or 1, top or bottom) and BAM real looking, sitting, water.

That's why there's no "falling" water or anything like that in HL2. The reason why they didn't implement it is the same reason they don't implement REAL lighting. Far too complex to run in real time.

However, the rumored PPU's will help. I think there was an article about it and how it can calculate liquid physics to a much higher degree then the CPU (because the CPU is being used for many things and this processor would be dedicated) and apparently it looks more realistic then anything else that's been done in real time before.

However, in HL2, I don't know why they didn't do a small collision system with the water and a player or objects that would change the properties of the sine waves that is the water. If they did about 3 waves and molded them together you'd at least have things like ripples and force in the water (making the starting intersection axis where ever the collision point is). THAT I know they could have done, but they just used 2d sprites instead (for splashing and ripples).

Oh well.

Anyway, I'm sure you can do something like this, but it'll be simulated. As to the specifics I'm not sure. Mess around with what you can and let us know what you come up with :smile:

COuldnt you just make alot of brushes with water texture and tie them to func_physbox?

Perhaps this can be achieved with an entitie that spawns two pools of
water (distance adjustable, like with the func_usableladder) of certain
proportions; one being the source basine and the other the
destination, and have particles act like pouring water. And, to make
the thing nicer, a special transparent "looping" model could be used to
simulate a waterfall by making something like a tankthread effect. If they had only cared...

Hah, only here can you have Crono's incredibly detailed technical post followed up by one of the most ridiculous suggestions I've heard this week :biggrin:

I would think that a reasonable looking effect using sprites/beams could work- a recent map had a sprite waterfall in it that didn't look too bad, and if this was adapted to show a stream that started when the cauldrons were tipped...

using sprites/beams

Sprites and beams? Primitive, yet efficent! :biggrin:

This would be a good question to possibly ask the team that made the
Source engine.. as far as i know i hanvt heard of anything like this..
but it is possible in other game engines.. (unreal, atleast i think) so
why wouldnt it be available here...

good luck...

and i know u dont want to hear this.... but u might want to post this question on VERC

there is a lot inside the source engine yet to be enabled, so it may be in there we just don't know it yet.

there is a lot inside the source engine yet to be enabled, so it may be in there we just don't know it yet.

Realtime fluid dynamics are way too much for your average
gamer/consumer grade CPU. Especially when that CPU is already
running a game as complicated as HL 2. The only physics that are
modeled in HL 2 are basic newtonian things, IE, things hitting other
things and bouncing back, momentum being conserved, etc. Even
these "simple" physics are only applied completely to physics objects
(everything else just provides normal forces to bounce these physics
objects back/keep them from falling forever..).

An animated texture and some brush (or maybe displacement maps, I'm not
sure if they support animated textures, though) work would be the best
way to go about creating any kind of moving water.. Apply alpha
maps if you want it to look like spraying water and it might look ok..

Couldn't you make a cloud of fog, but really really dense and red (or
whatever color)? Then you could give the sprites some downward velocity
and hope it looks like a liquid. Plus, it will look like it's covered
in vapor, giving the illusion of being really hot, when really it's
just a cloud hiding a cheap liquid effect.