   Destructible Environments
  My definition of destructible environment: Buildings/walls/doors that can be razed/torn down.  If/when a powerful spell hits the ground, makes a lasting crater that has altered the ground.  Or if the spell hits a tree (a la Crysis) or even a rock, it shatters to pieces.  A couple questions about implementation of a destructible environment:Is this possible in an online FPS game of 6-12 people?  What limitations are presented in programming a destructible world?Do different players see different debris, as in if I destroy a wall, will they see the same bricks laying about?  Is it possible to program the debris to be interact-able and be used as well?Why do most games not utilize this feature?Is it easier to say, program buildings/objects with health points and when it reaches a certain percentage, the object deteriorates to a new model that is slightly destroyed (rinse, repeat)?  Is it easier to make certain walls have holes in them and if a player shoots the wall, it makes an opening; instead of programming entire destructible buildings~ a la Zelda-Bombing holes/cracks?Any other comments or advise is highly appreciated.  Much love - thank you for your time.Uraeus   
  Being fairly new to game development and programming in general I can't give definate answers... but being someone who LOVES destructable environments, and can't wait for the day dynamic destruction becomes the norm I can give some info. Quote:Is this possible in an online FPS game of 6-12 people?  Yes... its been done in Red Faction Guerrila (3rd person, not 1st) and the online game Breach coming out this summer seems to have some form of physics driven building destruction. Quote:What limitations are presented in programming a destructible world? Well, having never done anything nearly this complex Im not totally sure personally... but I would imagin you would run into hardware/performance limitations before anything else. Having a large "lego" world that the player can destroy dynamicly, fully driven by physics, requiers a ton of system resource....Quote:Do different players see different debris, as in if I destroy a wall, will they see the same bricks laying about? Is it possible to program the debris to be interact-able and be used as well? Well that would all depend on your design of the destruction system. RFG made it so all players generally saw the same thing. How hard was it for them to do? Couldn't tell you, but it is possible. As for interactive debris, Im sure it would also be possible... but again we go back to system resources. Will you be able to have enough debris/physics objects laying around to make it worth while? In RFG, debris vanished quickly, and very little ever lasted after a building was destroyed. Was that simply a design decision... or was it because of limitations? I don't know for sure, but Id imagin its a limitation. Quote:Why do most games not utilize this feature?First of all, Red Faction Guerrila is the only game I have ever seen with true, 100% physics driven destruction. The developers have said that it took the team at least three years just to develop the physics/destruction engine for the game... and thats a fully staffed professional development team btw. They have also made comments about how much money it cost them to develop the technology. Both the time and cost are very likely the reasons you don't see more games using such systems. And since RFG actually wasn't that popular, and many felt the destruction was simply a gimmic... it seems dynamic destruction might not be a huge seller to be honest. Hard for most developers to justify the time and money on a system that might not help sell games. Quote:Is it easier to say, program buildings/objects with health points and when it reaches a certain percentage, the object deteriorates to a new model that is slightly destroyed (rinse, repeat)? Is it easier to make certain walls have holes in them and if a player shoots the wall, it makes an opening; instead of programming entire destructible buildings~ a la Zelda-Bombing holes/cracks?Is it easier to do pre-staged/animated destruction, or model swaping (Battlefield Bad Company series) when compared to dynamic destrcution? Again Im no expert, but Id have to say with confidence that yes, it would be far easier. It probably wouldn't be easy, but there would be a hell of a lot less issues to deal with, as opposed to a dynamic system. Especially with such a small team... this would likely be the way to go if you want destructable environments. One thing you might want to check out is Havok Destruction. Its a tool from Havok to make destruction it games easier. However Im not really sure if its intended for large scale destruction, or more for small game objects. Still tho, worth a look. Hope all that helped.  