Realistic Terrain Damage Effects

I dont remember the mod so im hoping somebody else will. I think it was for garrysmod. What it did was it reshaped the terrain when it took damage, like creating craters and such. I think at first it was a shitty mod cuz the ground shaping was glitchy but the idea of Empires having realistic terrain is just awesome. More strategy would come into play with how you use your tanks. You cant randomly shoot all over the place because you potentially create a gap your tanks cant cross. Also trench warfare would be better.
If anyone knows of that mod Id like to know, I want to hardcode it into my empires server and test it. Thanks

 

That would require changing/rewriting engine.

 

The only way I can think to do it would be editing the BSP on the fly (with a plugin), and reload the map (which doesn't really make sense). The events needed to find where shells hit a part of the map don't exist anyway, so...

 

There's an entity that morphs displacements, but it doesn't update collision. That makes it purty useless.
Altering collision could be slightly more possible to implement since displacement behavior was changed, but I'm guessing that's a bit deeper into the Source engine than mods are allowed to go, and so it's probably still nonfunctional.

 

That's very interesting.

 

So could we have deformation only move like 6 inches up or down... wait the poly's on the displacements are huge in empires!
No there is no way for this feature to look good in empires with out use of paralax decals.

 

So could you define new displacements, perhaps write something that creates new displacements based on a series of events, like a shell hitting the ground?

 

I'm pretty sure that a mod can't create displacements on the fly, but only because I've never seen it even attempted.

Parallax decals? You're funny. =P

 

Well there you go I've inspired an idea. Now for somebody to go do that and we'll be all set. You heard it here first, Displacement Mod!

 

I'm pretty sure you can make breakable brushes (like the bottom of the blimp in tropicvendetta falling out), but I'm not sure if you can connect it to tank damage. Also, it would be hard to make realistic looking terrain out of brushes.

 

its easy but is a nono to do due to heavy system load and crappyness looking

 

Dynamic collision alteration for displacements is located in the engine, so it's not possible unless valve fixes it (it was a planned feature), or releases the engine code.

 

I'm pretty sure that not a single of you knows what he's talking about.

 

hahaha id show you all up but im too busy nowadays. Oh and mods may only be able to dip so far into source engine, but whose to say u cant write a separate engine that responds to source. That would entitle you to do whatever the heck you want with the new engine as ur outlet per say. I might just be crazy rambling but it may be possible someday.

 

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Morphing_Terrain_Issues
This is what I was referring to. (More specifically, env_terrainmorph.)
As far as I know, this is the only true terrain morphing in Source, and I'm absolutely certain that whatever you might have seen in garrysmod was using this through gm's LUA implementation.

And making a new engine... That's funny too!

 

You can't create displacements for another engine in hammer, and writing a seperate tool to do just that is too much of a hassle.

 

...
I
I
I sadden.

 

i was, from the part i talked about

 

What Brutos and MOOtant said.