For example, a car might be sandwiched between another vehicle and the environment, where the desired result would be total car concertinaing, twisting, buckling or even splitting.”Ĭoncertinaing is when a car is squashed-up in a single axis – for example, if it is rammed against a wall. “During the crashes, as well as general panel damage and pieces coming off, our system had to be able to cope with massive impacts to a car. “None of the other tools met our standards, so we engineered a bespoke one, which really simulates the buckling of metal – but does so fast enough to work on a console when six cars are being smashed up all at once,” he says. In the end, the programmer decided the panel damage algorithm needed to be written from scratch. BUILD IT UP, BREAK IT DOWNĬloth simulation and physics-based destruction has come a long way since 1997 so, to begin with, Buckland researched off-the-shelf tools and solutions that might benefit Max Damage. “By mimicking this basic structure, we could better simulate what happens when the car was subject to impact,” Buckland explains. Car models were built up from individual pieces in a manner similar to the construction of actual cars, and then virtually welded together like a monocoque. Replicating real car damage meant the team had to design the vehicles as realistically as possible. Looking back at that specification document, we ended up with at least 95 per cent of what was a very ambitious wishlist, all now present and functional in the game.” “A lot of reference material was taken from actual car wrecks, with the target of replicating everything that happens in real-life. So right at the start of the project we took a step back to spend time specifying the ‘ideal’ car damage system. These were obviously woefully inappropriate for a top-flight game in 2016. “The techniques used in the original damage system were written for a prototype in 1994, and so actually predate Carmageddon. “As the programmer who developed the original car damage system, I took on the task of both specifying and developing a state-of-the-art car damage system that would make the most of modern multi-core hardware in current platforms,” he tells Develop. Patrick Buckland ( pictured), programmer and co-founder of Stainless Games, reveals the studio has held true to its tradition of using in-house core technology – a practice that dates back to 1994 – and relished the “big, juicy technical challenge” of taking things forward with Max Damage.
0 kommentar(er)
