Hi Forgehub Community. I made a thread on b.net about an idea I have for the next big thing for Forge and Forgers. Forgable Water. I won't bother to repost the entire thread here because my goal is to have people that really like the idea, to save the thread on b.net to get it pinned into the top topics section. It is a large thread, but avid forgers need to check it out. Without reading all of the thread or at least the FAQ I provided, there is room for skepticism. Some of you from Forgehub have already responded and I appreciate that a lot, but if you haven't, I encourage you to do so. Thanks so much. Here is the link to the original post: Bungie.net : Halo: Reach Forum : Forgable Water. A DLC Dream [Update 19 - Pics + FAQ].
If you read my post on b.net, you'll find that my design for Forgable Water does indeed allow for water to be created as objects. It's very cool. Check it out. I forge constantly. I know I'm not the best at it, but I am always thinking of ways to make it better. This design would allow for a huge variety in maps created by the Halo community. I know it's ambitious, but I'm just trying to push the bar. If you don't agree with it or like it, that's totally cool, I just want people to check it out.
I saw this awhile ago on the Bungie Forums. I have to say, the amount of detail that you went into is just spectacular and I think it should be created if it is possible.
I did read you post and i saw that you put a lot of effort into it. The only problem is that water is not an object with physical properties it is an animation that does things when it is scripted to do so, such as being shot.
Water is VERY hard to animate, so it would be VERY hard to make it an object. Water and fire are the most expensive things to make in a video game.
You're both right. Bungie's water is just an animation ontop of a volume that has characteristics of water. Cameras entering the water are subjected to a lens distortion effect and sound effect filter. The required wave simulations of bullets being shot into the water/grenades going off are pre-cached and triggered. This makes it more complicated than the simple particle/sprite generation FX that goes on when you shoot dirt, but given how streamlined Bungie's water is, I'd find it highly unlikely that any of those animations are based on surrounding geometry- that wouldn't be smart or efficient. Rather, it's likely a point based modifier that changes the very simple sin-wave animation around it. None of that precludes the possibility of having "blocks" of water objects. Many of you are making Bungie's water out to be more complicated a system than it is- Bungie's water is NOT water in the Unreal Engine. They have never wanted it to be that complicated and have stated so. However, I'd say it's highly unlikely to see water objects of the type described being released. Not because it's hard or impossible, but because they have better things to do.
Bungie stated that the tree was to hard to make a forgeable object, and now you are telling us there should be water? Of course water will be easier then the tree! Its all over forge world! (sarcasm)
My design of implementing forgable water isn't the only way. There are really a large number of ways that this could be implemented, granted a team of developers decide to make it happen one day. I'm definitely not claiming that my way is the only way, or the even the most efficient. I decided to approach it the way I did because I wanted to keep it within the scope of object editing. Which is what Forge is, an object editor. So it logically made sense to start with thinking about how water could be created as an object. I knew water takes up volume. I then thought about how other volumetric objects are created in Forge, and said hey, that's how I could do water. So I reused lots of concepts that are already found in Forge, possibly to speed up dev time. But the real nuts and bolts come into play with implementing buoyancy, graphics considerations, the other physics elements etc. I know that water is tough to do in games. I agree wholeheartedly with all of you. Regardless of how it gets implemented, water is one of the next objects that I would personally love to see added to the Forge palette. I know that water is not an object. But that doesn't mean that it can't be an object. I'm not saying it would be easy, but we can only place objects in Forge currently. Some objects require a volume to be defined in order for it to exist. My version of forgable water would be no different.
Seriously, when would you ever use water in a map? They would have to put in wayyyy too much effort for a feature that would get very little use. It just wouldn't make sense. And guess what, the game's already out, they wouldn't go around messing with Forge; That's not DLC, that's a patch. Bungie would not make a patch to add features, they make patches to improve existing features in the game.