Bashiok shared some details straight from Lead Tech Artist Julian about what they are doing with the Havok Physics engine. This is a clear sign that Blizzard is listening to fan feedback this early in the Diablo III development. Big kudos to Bashiok and Julian.
Bashiok: Our lead tech artist Julian and I talked a bit yesterday about some of the effects and fading, and he gave me some more insight as to how they're working and being changed. We also went in to some of the questions you've all brought up, and so I'll hit some specific points too (with quotes!).
Q u o t e:
or just disconnecting corpses from the physics engine when they come to rest, and have them fade out
Bashiok: Aside from my previous comment of this not being nearly as fun (it would also look/feel kind of lame), Havok already knows when an object has come to rest and so they already have a lower cost when they're still. Additionally with the proposed method there is no reliable way to determine when or even if a body will come to rest. In a single player game with a class that maybe doesn't use a ton of skills that interact with corpses in a significant way this could work, but in a multiplayer game there could potentially be hundreds of corpses piling up as they've never come to rest due to all of the player skills firing off.
We're also taking extra care to minimize the ability of a player to impact the performance of another player, as was sometimes maliciously done in Diablo II.
Q u o t e:
I am wondering why you just use an object's age and don't specify a complexity and priority attribute for each object. By combining these two with the age method you would be able to fade out highly complex physics and low priority (tiny) objects earlier.
BashiokI'm just going to quote Julian from an e-mail at this point so I'm not rewriting his words and acting like I know what I'm talking about here - "Because most objects in the game that use the age method aren't different enough in anatomical complexity for this to yield significant benefits. The size of objects generally isn't a factor. It is the number of unseen physics meshes that the technical artists add to these things that matters and they tend to be pretty similar from actor to actor. This is largely due to the anatomical similarity of living things in nature..."
Most things have appendages, a back bone, head, etc.
Julian also made the point that while we have our new system for determining the number and age of a physics actors, we still have the old tried and true "disappear after n seconds" method. We can actually choose which actors use which system, so our intent is to make sure that a destroyed table won't make a corpse disappear, for instance. The corpse probably being the more important of the two to keep around.
Quite a few of you were discussing options, sliders, ways to control how long something takes to disappear, etc. and that may be a possibility. The current setting, which is around 20, is just our initial implementation. There's always the possibility for that number to change, or for it to potentially be variable by the player. We do want to keep the game options uncluttered and consistent as much as possible though. -- source: Battle.net
It is encouraging to see Blizzard address fan feedback. I would love to see corpses stick around longer and to allow classes to use skills that affect corpses, but I'd rather play a game that is not laggy. I'm satisfied with their approach to this point.
Ok.. still not satisfying in my opinion.. I wish bashiok would have register here and reply for some of the threads about those thing.. like my thread here..
I think this forum is way better than the B.nett forums.. this is much better and mature forum with bigger contents..
Ok.. still not satisfying in my opinion.. I wish bashiok would have register here and reply for some of the threads about those thing.. like my thread here..
I think this forum is way better than the B.nett forums.. this is much better and mature forum with bigger contents..
Anyway thx for the news.
Like everyone else here, we all want more answers to our questions. However, if Bashiok or anyone else from Blizz were to post outside the B.net forums, for example in these forums, then you would eventually get people who are not 'mature' flooding into these forums. Better they stay in the B.net forums. Plus Blizzcon is right around the corner.
I keep reading that Blizzard should be able to keep blood much longer, as it's 2D brush. . are these people crazy?
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D3 Pros: Outdoors environment, night time environment, female Barbarian, rune spell system, the Wizard class
D3 Cons: Fantasy architecture, fantasy armor, fanstasy weapons, no shaders.
I keep reading that Blizzard should be able to keep blood much longer, as it's 2D brush. . are these people crazy?
No they are not. Having a river of blood is AWSOMES!!! :thumbsup:
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
This is great feedback, exacly what I'd like to hear. Not necessarily that this is how I'd like the system to work, but that we get an explanation for why they've made the more technical decisions. Awesome.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
It looks like they are focusing on a balance between performance and playability. It's really great that they are addressing the fans... power to the fans!
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_______________________________________________________________________ ____________If the best things in life are free... then Diablo 3 will be free!____________
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Thanks, Djinn_690
http://www.blizzplanet.com
I think this forum is way better than the B.nett forums.. this is much better and mature forum with bigger contents..
Anyway thx for the news.
Like everyone else here, we all want more answers to our questions. However, if Bashiok or anyone else from Blizz were to post outside the B.net forums, for example in these forums, then you would eventually get people who are not 'mature' flooding into these forums. Better they stay in the B.net forums. Plus Blizzcon is right around the corner.
D3 Pros: Outdoors environment, night time environment, female Barbarian, rune spell system, the Wizard class
D3 Cons: Fantasy architecture, fantasy armor, fanstasy weapons, no shaders.
No they are not. Having a river of blood is AWSOMES!!! :thumbsup:
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Methinks you missed his point...
Methinks (definition)
Speaking from the 90% this morning, are we?
____________If the best things in life are free... then Diablo 3 will be free!____________
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]