Dynamic, destructible buildings? Will they ever come to DayZ?

[rickyriot 1009]

A bit of a holy grail this one. While they have been introduced in some games (BF4, Red Faction, for example) it's not been on the scale that would be required in DayZ. For those unsure what I mean by this, think of lobbing a grenade at a wall (in real life) and seeing the damage it does. Ok, it's unlikely to bring the whole house down, but it'll have some effect. 

 

I don't know how much processing power it would take to monitor all the changes to the map, it may just be a step too far for the size of map while dealing with all the rest of the environment. There is also the question of how granular you make it. Should bullets make an indent in a wall, and if so should they be persistent?

 

However with the future inclusion of base building/barricading it would be nice to see if the devs could work a way to some level of dynamic change to the buildings.

[DeatHTaX 1217]

I highly doubt it. I don't know much about the new engine, but I'm not holding my breath for any kind of destructible environment. I feel like that would be a whole 'nother set of demons that would delay this game's completion.

 

Don't get me wrong though, some sort of even SEMI destructible environment would be awesome. Battlefield 4 has spoiled me, as well as BF 1943. I mean sometimes I have wet dreams about what DayZ would be like on the engine that Tom Clancy's The Division runs on...

Edited December 29, 2014 by DeatHTaX

[comikz 218]

I really like this idea, being able to damage your surroundings would make it very interesting, as when someone is in a building, tossing a nade at the wall and having it blow a hole in the wall, would allow people to overtake that person or people inside, but then again, places like elektro and cherno would be piles of rubble...

[rickyriot 1009]

...but then again, places like elektro and cherno would be piles of rubble...

 

And that is a bad thing? After all we all agree that DayZ is a touch sterile at times with the same buildings repeated. Not that I am complaining I understand the limits and remit the devs have in terms of improving the game.

 

However what better way to create a unique world than have those who inhabit it do that modelling in an ad-hoc dynamic fashion?

 

I don't see the introduction of tanks or even high explosives so I wonder just how much damage you could do? It would be nice to have the place all shot up rather than looking like an earthquake hit it.

[SFRGaming 718]

VBS3 (a simulator from Bohemia) already has destructive buildings. So there is a possibility of seeing it in DayZ.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLwMzr-hBII

[rickyriot 1009]

VBS3 (a simulator from Bohemia) already has destructive buildings. So there is a possibility of seeing it in DayZ.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLwMzr-hBII

 

I could be wrong here, but isn't the VBS3 engine is considerably different to the one initially forked for DayZ SA and development since then has taken it even further. 

[SFRGaming 718]

I could be wrong here, but isn't the VBS3 engine is considerably different to the one initially forked for DayZ SA and development since then has taken it even further. 

VBS3 uses significant parts of the ARMA 2 engine, the engine DayZ SA is based off of

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Currently you can level buildings in the engine but it requires alot more fire power then ingame i.e. satchels etc.  As for location based building destruction grenades to take out a quarter of a wall or the like I do not mind the idea but I'm not sure how task breaking it would be or how beautiful it would look.  The VBS3 destruction concept is awesome and I do support the idea on a minimal scale for breaching etc.

[JayBiggs 16]

You won't see any blowing holes in walls in this game. Guaranteed. They'd have to pretty much slice up every building in the game for predefined damage states. Destruction on that level really has to be in from the start of development.

I did always wonder about the complete destruction of buildings which was in ArmA2(afaik). I thought perhaps the DayZ devs removed the tech for that for some reason or another(performance, pathfinding, loot spawns, etc). Hopefully we see it return in some form one day.

[igor-vk 909]

You could destroy buildings in mod with satchel charge. There were predefined objects and they would respawn on server restart.

[SFRGaming 718]

You won't see any blowing holes in walls in this game. Guaranteed.

"Even though I'm not a game developer, I am going to guarantee that you won't see something get put into the game."

[The-MCV- 149]

Would be great, but I think it would stress the server too much.

[CJ_14 105]

Yes it will be a thing. Not at BF4 scale, but...they will be better than in ArmAII, at least...Rocket said so

[pilgrim* 3513]

This happened in the Mod - it was possible with legal DayZ weapons and no cheats, to cause damage/destruction to buildings.

Anyone remember the M136 Rocket Launcher ?

And the famous satchel charge? According to the Mod Wiki "able to destroy anything in Chernarus"

 

As we still have many of the same original buildings imported from the Mod, I guess the 'damaged/devastated' versions are around somewhere.

 

BUT I agree with ricp though - it would be much more interesting to blow a hole in a wall, or take out a whole door and the frame and brickwork, or bring down the wall of a single upper room, rather than having a whole building become 'a ruin'.

 

It would be great to work close enough to lob a grenade into a window sniping-position, and see the window and the wall blow out into the street.

Also would be wonderful for house clearing, you throw in a grenade, and when you move in - the furniture is wrecked, walls pitted, windows gone, and splintered doors hanging off the frames.

 

I know I'm exaggerating the possibile (for the MOMENT).. but

 

1) "Simple" skin changes could give that 'battle damage' look, either inside a room or on the outside surface of a building, after explosions or sustained fire.

 

2 ) Key standard objects such as doors, windows, ladders - even if the undamaged objects were not completely similar - could be replaced by a standard destroyed window, destroyed ladder, destroyed single or double door. That's only 4 new skins to cover a whole range of damage to visually different objects - different colored doors for instance.

 

After all, you're just removing the undamaged object and replacing it with basically a ragged edged hole, so details of the original don't have to be reproduced in individual cases. It doesn't matter what color or exact shape it was.. its blackened and rough edged now.. but technically it's still the same object instance in the same place, with the same characteristics, just skinned differently. If it was a door, you can still walk in and out through the totally wrecked door-hole, you just cant close it any more. If it's a window, you can still see and shoot through the smashed window hole and broken bricks where the frame was..

 

3 ) Sooner or later the game is going to have to deal with windows, the forums have already brought up the need for more realistic window frames, for shooting and observing, resting a weapon on a window ledge, climbing in and out of windows, barricading them.... so I guess those upgrades will come sooner or later. Therefore Include window damage in that.

Doors are already in 2 states - open or shut.. Bring in a third state - doorway with ragged edges. this gives: [1] open, or [2] shut, or [3]empty frame 'open' with a different skin. Looking blown out of the wall is is a third 'door state' and not an enormous change (it's graphics). Processing power to store that info would be tiny (it's a 1-bit change). Same for windows, have2 states - [1] whole with a frame or [2] blown out leaving just bricks.  Same for ladders, 2 states - [1]whole or [2] wrecked, twisted.

 

These ideas are serious (so far). And the points above can be implemented, depending on how far down they are on the list of stuff the developers are looking at. I think ricp's idea could bring together several useful development elements that have already been called for in different places in the forums, scattered through the game-play, and we could make a single package of them.

 

*

 

[  I'm on a roller, up to now was simple - so now maybe I'm going too far here.. Explosions and heavy fire that cause the kind of environment damage I talked about, should not only injure you in the standard ways (e.g. breaks, bleeding, unconsciousness, or death)  but should add the chance of getting a big splinter of wood or torn ironwork through your thigh or your shoulder. Blast shatters all kinds of stuff, not only the player.

This penetration injury, something stuck in your body, needs one more type of medical treatment to remove it (pliers and morphine?.. pliers, no morphine, and shock? , heh, be a man, do it yourself). And you can add military shrapnel to that (what do you think of this ricp?). Something jagged is embedded in your chest?, you can't just bandage it, you need a friend, a knife or pliers, or you just bandage and crawl around not bleeding too much and shouting "medic"  

 

Also, nearby explosions can not only mess you up totally (death, or stats dropping right down  ) but they can also leave you completely 'unhurt' and not wounded (all green stats), but cause temporary unconsciousness, confusion, inability to act (loss of motor control for a short while, you cant walk) deafness, vomiting, you drop or loose your gun, you get your clothes torn up.. all this can happen without permanent physical damage of any kind..... This would be ... interesting ... a number of the effects that normally reduce your stats could happen without reducing your stats at all. After a while you recover enough to find out if you're really OK ]

 

SO, Back on topic - the effect OP states comes down to;

- building or room 'surface' damage - that's a change of skin,

- OR, the other interesting thing:  making holes in places where there was no hole before the damage happened.

 

At the moment visual bullet strikes against objects (walls, ground) have been taken out of the game, which has driven all the sharpshooters crazy. I don't know the reason for this, except maybe to reduce the processing cost, so I hope and expect that they will return with optimization in the future. Many folk consider it an important part of the game (see the forum comments).

 

My idea is - together with visible bullet strikes, some permanent indication of fight damage would be very impressive.

The easiest way to do this is not to mark each real strike position until server reset, but instead to 'patch in' a skin of that building (or street, or ground) with bullet and battle damage showing. A partial overlay in fact.

Why? - Because in an area of intensive firefight, the server is already calculating if a player is being hit for every shot fired- and by clocking a certain number of those calculations, the server could overlay bit-by-bit a texture depicting fight damage. - general pock marks, dust stains, bits of street rubble..and put them close to the strike points (it doesn't matter if they are exactly right, just so they are spread around fairly close to the focus of attack).

 

This is a texture overlay. To avoid boiling the server's brain, only use it after fighting has gone on for a good while in that area.. the server is already calculating bullet trajectories all the time, it already know where the player are.. so add a counter to the bullet->player calculation and if that action goes on in that place long enough, drop in a bit of new texture..It just has to be 'close' not right where the player is.

To slightly modify a small texture region from 'standard' to 'damaged' is about the same as opening or closing a door, not more difficult. - like those transparent strips with bullet holes that folk stick on their car boots. Without optimization you could loose maybe one piece of loot somewhere on the map every time you did that, so keep it  'infrequent'.

 

OR (and this is quite nice IMO, but not nearly so immediate).. just distribute firefight damage randomly - from time to time - on city streets, just for atmosphere.. so one day you turn up at the supermarket and it has smoke stains over the door, bullet chips out of the cement, and some minor rubble on the steps..

 

I think either of those can be done (sparingly).  But its not as good as emptying your mag at the dude and seeing the bullet holes walk across the wall behind him as he dies. Now that would be cute.. er.. but very difficult to implement.?? Still, battle damage (either version) as suggested above is feasible in my opinion.

 

Lastly, blowing a hole in a wall .. stone wall.. or wooden house. or wasting the cupola on the police station roof.. Those things would be nice.. But let's start with simple flat surfaces (no corners etc).

Can a door be 'placed' anywhere in the ongoing game, where there was no door when the server started.. and the door would be in state 3 - It would be a destroyed ragged edged hole? Technically can that be done ? (yes! - we just don't know how yet.. right?)

 

I can't tell you now if a "new" opening can be placed in a flat surface during a server run, without alterations so far back into the code.that would be a massive project. So I think it's not on - same goes for craters). BUT wall surface damage, impact damage, burned or torn ground, as well as the exploded doors, blasted windows, a room's internal wall damage after a grenade goes off in there, and general street battle damage (random each restart, somewhere in an obvious combat zone) or the specific battle damage based on a local firefight intensity count... that stuff CAN be done. And would not need 'much' processing power. Needs developer brain power, but we've GOT that.

 

As a dumb example - In the Mod, one day someone linked all the clock towers to the server real-time, so the hands moved and told the server time of day. Sounds silly, but that was very cool. The clock face is a skin.The server time is a counter in the code. Same idea here in this thread - you link the shots to a counter, and when you have enough shots, you put battle damage on flat walls near where the shots are going.

 

I'd really like to be able to blow out half the side of a room, leaving the wallpaper on view and bits of rubble on the ground beneath, maybe a chair or a cooker too, when we get interactive objects and barricades? We've all seen that type of photo (Saving private Ryan, right?)

Everything else mentioned here can be done, and I'd REALLY like to hear from someone with better knowledge than me, how 'holes where there were no holes' could be implemented without starting from scratch again.  Anyone?  Suggestions?

 

Thanks ricp for bringing this up. Seems to me it ties together one or two things we are supposed to be moving towards, and by gathering them into one general subject - gives more impetus - brings the players together who each want just one aspect.. maybe if we stack them together we will GET better windows, door damage, room damage skins, changing outdoor wall and street battle damage, broken ladders, temporary medical effects of blast, shrapnel and splinter wound treatment, kinetic furniture, smoke, rubble, movement through partly damaged buildings  - this is GOOD stuff.

 

It can be done.

Now if someone has an idea about HOW (in the game code) TO partly break down walls of buildings  - grenades or sledgehammers, I'm cool either way; PLEASE join right in, because this is the way to go. ricp is 100% correct, (also IMO it's NOT a holy grail). 

 

ALL you people who want city street battles, and house to house fighting, go read the books see the vids, about Stalingrad, D-Day and Mogadishu, see about smoke, splinters, snipers in holes in the wall, rubble, injuries, grenades, bullet holes in masonry, lost your gun, ladder to the roof is wrecked,you break out through the back wall, your ears ringing from the last explosion so you can't hear your mates, window and bricks blast out right over your head, and now your leader can't move, lying with three inches of twisted metal sticking out of his neck, and you're still coming under more fire ...

 

IRL this is what it's can be - DayZ is not there yet. The programmer's don't need more work - they got plenty work - what they need is  a bunch of keen fans and experienced hard assault fighters to inspire them. You want more realistic house to house.. like REAL hell... convince the developers, they'll tell you what can be done. Suddenly they'll know how to DO it. Just let them know you're on their side and you don't want to die clean, you want to die all messed up in the worst place on this mother earth.

 

How do we make holes in walls??

 

xx pilgrim

Edited December 29, 2014 by pilgrim

[rickyriot 1009]

Bloody hell Pilgrim, I'm not giving you beans for what you said but for the amount of it! :lol:

 

I think I might take all that in over a few sessions.. ;)

[DeatHTaX 1217]

*snip*

 

xx pilgrim

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jk :P

 

 

 

I don't disagree that it CAN be done...I just don't think it will. I mean...I don't want to sound like a cynic here, but my legs are still breaking randomly upstairs in buildings. I don't see a destructible environment coming down the pipe anytime soon

Edited December 29, 2014 by DeatHTaX

[pilgrim* 3513]

I don't disagree that it CAN be done...I just don't think it will. I mean...I don't want to sound like a cynic here, but my legs are still breaking randomly upstairs in buildings. I don't see a destructible environment coming down the pipe anytime soon

 

Your legs are already part of the destructible environment

 

*

 

edit : seriously -if you read what I'm saying I'm NOT talking about 'destructible environment'

 

I suggest different 'states' for doors and for windows. I mean 2 different door and window skins, that's all. When you use the 2nd skin it 'looks' like they've been destroyed, but they are still in place, like they always were.

I suggest skins for the insides of rooms so the walls can look as though a bomb has gone off. The photo of grandmother is cracked for instance, and there's a dead cat stuck to the wall, and the wallpaper has rips in it showing damaged bricks.. ya know.. just a different skin. You change the skin after a grenade has gone off from the 'nice' skin to the 'messed up skin'

Same for outside walls. You have a nice outside wall skin you can change for a skin that looks like someone has been shooting a heavy machine gun at it (or whatever). When theres a big fight there, you change the skin to show there's been a battle.

 

and so on - I'm saying how you can get buildings, rooms, places, streets, to look damaged WITHOUT having anything destructible. I give some other examples in my first post,

 

The only thing I asked that I don't know about - and might be called "destructible" is - Does anyone know of a way of putting a new door in a wall while the server is running, when there was no door there before?

Because if that can be done, we can make "holes" in walls without having destructible buildings at all. - by locating a new door in a wall, then skinning it as a destroyed door. This gives you what looks like a a ragged hole in the wall. However I do not know how difficult it is to introduce a new door into a running game, given (for instance) the path structure. As long as the 'destroyed' door skin was wrecked enough, you'd have the effect of an entry/exit hole in the building facade. But this will only work if it is possible to place doors during the game. I'd be interested to hear ideas apart from the first reaction "impossible".    

 

That's about it. I'm not talking about destructible environments, and up at the top of my post I noted they used destructible buildings in the Mod, but I'm not interested much in that fully "destructible" thing, because I've worked out a way of doing interesting minor "damage" that can be immersive/strongly scenic and useful in game-play WITHOUT "destructibility".

 

See how cool I am? So screw "destructible" I have a better, easier, lower-workload way of doing more interesting stuff that looks good... 'destructible' is.... just old..

ps I'm cool because I'm super intelligent and also very attractive. "Destructible"... who needs it?

 

Id just like hear about doors that can be placed during the game, if that is in any way possible without writing a year of code. Someone will find an answer. There is a workaround to this placement problem, maybe the devs or others already know what it is.. if not already, someone will come up with it.

 

xx pilgrim

Edited December 30, 2014 by pilgrim

[DeatHTaX 1217]

Your legs are already part of the destructible environment

 

 

[JayBiggs 16]

"Even though I'm not a game developer, I am going to guarantee that you won't see something get put into the game."

I am a 3D artist. It is no small task to do what is proposed here and there has never been any inkling that I'm aware of that says they will, or even plan to implement this huge feature. Look at the development roadmap.

 

I guarantee they won't add even a BF4 level of destructibility to buildings. Guaranteed.

 

Destructible doors on the other hand should totally feasible I would think.

[rickyriot 1009]

I am a 3D artist. It is no small task to do what is proposed here and there has never been any inkling that I'm aware of that says they will, or even plan to implement this huge feature. Look at the development roadmap.

 

I guarantee they won't add even a BF4 level of destructibility to buildings. Guaranteed.

 

Destructible doors on the other hand should totally feasible I would think.

 

I am a developer, although not a game dev however development is development, so I have a handle on the amount of work that would be needed. However its interesting that Steak and Potatoes says that there still is some level of physics in the game that could cope with dynamic damage rather than it being entirely ripped out. 

 

The main reason I mentioned it in the first place was with the upcoming introduction of barricading (or base building) which will require some level of dynamism. It would be lovely to have a true dynamic environment allowing you to, for example, make a motte and bailey but that would be just too much for the server to deal with imo.

[pilgrim* 3513]

Bloody hell Pilgrim, I'm not giving you beans for what you said but for the amount of it! :lol:

 

I think I might take all that in over a few sessions.. ;)

 

I do my best to keep it simple .. :P

[-Gews- 7443]

It's a nice idea but destructible buildings like you are talking about will not happen. Would have to redo or seriously alter all buildings. Right now almost none of the buildings and objects even have parameters set and tweaked to allow bullets to pass through materials. Even V3S, for example. Some legacy buildings should be able to be destroyed, although it's not dynamic.

[irl-calibre 744]

I think everything nearly is destroyable already just not sure the means exist in game yet to do it. in the mod. castles, hospitals, churches, the A.C.T. jails etc etc could all be taken down..

Edited December 30, 2014 by Calibre