Arcade Vehicle Explosions Graphics

[9.Pz-Div. Günther]

Am I the only one who finds the explosion graphics very arcade? Whenever a tank is hit and destroyed it explodes violently with three flaming strokes in the air, it looks great but this isn't always reality. It would be nice if tanks would just take a hit and be disabled without it turning into a complete black wreckage as if it burned out from every possible angle. And on top of that, it explodes in 6 large pieces in a terrible arcadish vanilla style. All the effects look magnificent except for vehicle explosions. Instead, it would be very nice if the tank would have a random wreckage and partly burned, very often the tank doesn't explode violently and just sits there as the crew was killed but the outer part of the tank was remained intact. Or if it was moving it remained stuck in its gear and keep rolling for a few more metres. Now that would be realistic AND awesome!

Now just hoping someone will look into it and see what's possible.. thank you!

[Yustax]

Yeah I was going to post a thread about the same thing. I would love if the tank when hit will continue a few meters and then stop and start to burn violently, just there burning. I mean they dont need to blow up when you kill a tank honestly; unless they are there for a minute or two burning.

[VonMudra]

The reason the wrecks "blow up" is because if you have 50 wrecks littering the battlefield, you have ungodly lag ingame.

[9.Pz-Div. Günther]

I mean you wait for that beautiful Panther for 5 minutes, finally drive it up to the front and get taken out from an ambushing, say, M10 or something. You thought to be all mighty and dangerous, but instead your tank turned into a black-bleached deepfried piece of low textured metal which a few seconds afterwards violently explodes in 6 pieces that immediately sink and disappear into the ground. Like that Panther was made out of 6 pieces of painted plastic. It just devalues the tank as an object and everything it stands for, and quite frankly is horribly unrealistic. The wreck model and destruction of the tank is almost as important to me as when it's in one piece. I hope they can make something nice out of it, d*mn those BF2 arcade graphics!

P.S. VonMudra, as clever as that remark sounds, I'm not suggesting keeping them there for the whole round. It should be around a minute - 1,5 minutes or so, that would be nice. Also, I didn't ask why they blew up, we all know why.

[VonMudra]

Its low textured because texture on charred out remains isn't important.  Most players don't exactly spend time loitering by destroyed tanks.  Its only as textured as it well as it needs to be.  And even a minute and a half can be agonizing on a server, especially on massive tank maps, where you might have 10 or more tanks brewing up in that minute and a half.  Also, of course its gonna be unrealistic.  Its a GAME.  You're talking about realistic damage models in a game where people headlong charge whilst hopping around and spraying aimlessly.

[9.Pz-Div. Günther]

Who are you anyway? Are you with the devs? Because you always try to sound like you are. Seems more like you're always out to "win" a topic using sarcasm rather than discuss it.  

Also, don't forget we're all just regular players who try to IMPROVE the mod because we LOVE it. If you get ticked off then that is your problem, but please, if it cannot be done you should be a 100% sure and not answer for devs who's business it really is. I'm just making suggestions to make the mod even greater and if it is not possible, then that is all you need to say. And if you're not a 100% sure, you should say nothing.

Sorry but your replies often seem to have an unnecessary hostile tone and not focussed on the actual discussion/suggestion. And that greatly annoys me as it prevents people from making new and fine suggestions no one wants to miss out on, or at least, if you love this mod as I do.

[Yustax]

Who are you anyway? Are you with the devs? Because you always try to sound like you are. Seems more like you're always out to "win" a topic using sarcasm rather than discuss it.  

Vundra show your badge of Chief of the Research Department.

[Captain Pyjama Shark]

Who are you anyway? Are you with the devs? Because you always try to sound like you are. Seems more like you're always out to "win" a topic using sarcasm rather than discuss it.  

Also, don't forget we're all just regular players who try to IMPROVE the mod because we LOVE it. If you get ticked off then that is your problem, but please, if it cannot be done you should be a 100% sure and not answer for devs who's business it really is. I'm just making suggestions to make the mod even greater and if it is not possible, then that is all you need to say. And if you're not a 100% sure, you should say nothing.

Sorry but your replies often seem to have an unnecessary hostile tone and not focussed on the actual discussion/suggestion. And that greatly annoys me as it prevents people from making new and fine suggestions no one wants to miss out on, or at least, if you love this mod as I do.

Jesus Christ.

[VonMudra]

Who are you anyway? Are you with the devs? Because you always try to sound like you are. Seems more like you're always out to "win" a topic using sarcasm rather than discuss it.  

Vundra show your badge of Chief of the Research Department.

Well, it is member of the Traction Wars Research Dept, we don't really have a chief of it  

(http://www.twmod.org/ shameless plug)

And no, I'm not "with the devs" as it were (they don't really have needs for another historical researcher) however I am a long, long, LONG time forum veteran, with years of experience with the game and with people like you.  I'm callous, I don't have time for braggarts, and I especially don't have time to deal with people who whine and bitch about the most obtuse stuff, especially when I've seen this countless times before.

Could it be done?  Yes, it could.  Will it?  Probably not.  I could see maybe extending the length of time to 10, maybe 20 or 30 seconds, but no where past that.  And I apologize if I have a hostile tone, but I tend to get that when dealing with a topic that has been discussed many times before, and gave up long ago with being nice, as I find too often that being nice doesn't get points across.  There's a reason my real life friends have referred to me as the "Dr. House of History"

[djinn]

I think its a worthy title considering your past run-ins with everyone else :-) Jk...

I get what the OP is saying though - But he's kinda lumping serveral pet peeves in one. Why black charred remains? Good point, it would be nice to have blown out tanks as they are, mangled, on fire, parts blown open or off, but NOT black - Some tanks have this a bit better than others, others.. MOST don't.


Can they stay longer - Will be nice, even Lobo agrees on that fact - WIll it, probably not, sadly - Too much lag-possibility, like Mudra said.


Can tanks be hit, move a while and then just stop and die quitely - DOn't think the engine will allow moving a while unless you apply a complex health system as per my suggestions on advancd health in some long-since  dead thread. Will the devs do this, probably not - Why? Because they've said they wont before - Again, why Mudra is answering so

Can tanks NOT blow up in their fancy way. Personally, I'd say... Why would you want to do that?! FH2 IS a balance between realism and fun so since that explosion IS realistic in some instances, it stands in to represent all explosions since, A, you cannot have variants in explosion - BF2 engine doesn't permit random - And B, because replacing this with a tank simply smoking will be depressing and not satisfactory to any tanker or AT gunner who manages to blow a tank up (Think of an 88 hitting a PZII, how depressing is that!) and C, it will be exploited by those with.. nefarious intentions, to deceive others that they've been killed when they start smoking, only to start moving thier turret onces more for a surprise shot.


Mudra was actually pretty polite with his responses - Cold, brief (There's a better word I can't find here), but polite althrough... What stings is not having your requests met the way you would want. I would have said, use the search, but I smile when veterans say this, since it would have made sense on the FF forums, but many of these suggestions ARE infact brand new on Warumdarum.de. Like Mudra, we vets have seen almost all the questions that can be asked so oiur responses tend to be conclusive. Sorry. We just know what the devs will say and don't need a thread to be 5-pages of discussion already-answered stuff before the devs come in and say the predictable answer.

Sure some of us have a more sympathetic way of going about our answers, and a wistful wish that it would be possible, but we've heard it all before. If a fresh suggestion was to surface, trust us, we'd be the first to say 'hey, what a lovely idea'... but till then, these answers should suffice

[Josh094]

I support the Idea of tanks not instantly turning black and burnt out. I too would also prefer it if there was just a flash and sparks when A tank is hit and that the wreck looks just the same as it did before hit. Maybe have some smoke coming out of the hatches of hole where it was hit.

[Natty]

Plain and simple. We have one model, intact tank. the only way we can manipulate that model while the game is still rendering this model, is to add effects to it. Sparks, Smoke, Fire.. could also put baloons sailing away from it or a sound of burning crew inside - still, it would be the same model, with same textures.

This game, when an object reaches hitpoints 0, replaces the mesh with a wreck mesh. this happens instantly, we can not for example, just replace the turret with a destroyed turret. or just replace the tracks and wheels with wrecks, leaving the rest of the tank intact. So.. when you lose a tank fight against an enemy, you and your tank dies. Wrecks stay x amount of seconds (1min? cant recall) and then it explodes when the server removes the wreck from the game. Why it explodes? a coder must tell you this, I have no idea tbh. If you played bf42, I think they just "faded" away, that is not more realistic.

Actually, there is no way a game can realistically remove a 20ton wreck metal heap from the map in a realistic way, and since you allready know why we dont wanna keep the wrecks forever, we dont need to discuss that.

I think what you are getting at is not actually the switch from intact/clean/nice tank to lowpoly/black wreck but more the communication that you got hit. This is a problem, and we are looking in to this. I also find it hard sometimes when you're rolling around in your überpanther in FH2 and suddenly you are down to red health   this is something we want to make better, indeed but again, this is the coders territory and I dont know what we need to communicate this better (sound, camerashake, effect, blur shader)

If you have played BadCompany2 you might (or will) see an awesome getting-hit effect inside tank, there is no mistake you just got hit when in a tank there  

Last; in FH2 tankduels are not as much back-n-forth as in other games, tanking in fh2 is a patience game, position your tank good, outflank, know the enemys vision and when to strike at him. this is more ww2 and tbh can be very exciting. I agree it is annoying to be in a freshly spawned panther and then be down to red health without knowing who shot you, true.

[9.Pz-Div. Günther]

Who are you anyway? Are you with the devs? Because you always try to sound like you are. Seems more like you're always out to "win" a topic using sarcasm rather than discuss it.  

Vundra show your badge of Chief of the Research Department.

And I apologize if I have a hostile tone, but I tend to get that when dealing with a topic that has been discussed many times before, and gave up long ago with being nice, as I find too often that being nice doesn't get points across.  There's a reason my real life friends have referred to me as the "Dr. House of History"

Apology accepted, but as I suspected, you might be knowledgable about WW2 and be a long time player (like me) but it doesn't earn you the right to be an *sshole. You can also choose NOT to respond and save yourself the aggrevation.

Anyway, I'm glad more people would like to see better wreck models. I'm not sure but didn't FH1 had static wreck models, non-black-bleached? Perhaps this would be a great example in exchange for the current black one.

Also, the wreck going transparent isn't realistic either, I know, the wreck has to disappear somehow, but surely we can think of something more creative, though the wreck model itself is the priority. I just hope I gave the devs something to think about and make this game even more beautiful! 

[djinn]

Yer, i think fade is alot more subtle than exploding - Don't know if its hardcoded in BF2 that way though - I do know that SOME wrecks fade away... or at least simply dissapear, that too isnt bad if it could go for vehicles.

I personally HATE the 2nd blow-up. I always fearing hiding behind a wreck for fear of being killed by that. Already sucks you can't have wrecks long enough to use as cover, then THIS.

[Yustax]

Also, the wreck going transparent isn't realistic either, I know, the wreck has to disappear somehow, but surely we can think of something more creative, though the wreck model itself is the priority. I just hope I gave the devs something to think about and make this game even more beautiful!  

You still havent include engine limitations here. I dont know if its entirely possible for example to make the tanks not blow up, but rather than advance a few meters, and then stop abruptly while turning a bit to the right and then burn up. That would be my way of how tanks should die; but I still dont think its possible because of the engine limitations. And also when a tank its hit and knocked out, it doesnt blows up; there's a flash and then a lot of smoke but thats it, it will only blow up if its burning and the flames reaches the ammunation or if the engine is burning.