Milestone 2 question (Vehicles)
by Stefan Lundmark · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 02/11/2005 (5:08 pm) · 13 replies
I know the milestones change alot and that they have been restructured. But I just recently noticed this:
Now, what makes me jump in the air is actually the vehicles. Since I got TGE there was nothing that irritated me so much as the flying vehicle (and the other vehicles, to some degree as well) physics integration and the rigid class. It's very easy to crash the engine and, for instance, pierce the terrain or an object and head into a loop crash.
I know Ben has looked at this once and thought it would require an rewrite, or something along those lines.
My question is: Is this something that you guys think you will have the time to fix? That would be so awesome.
Quote:
2. Milestone 2
1. New Terrain
2. New Water
3. Vehicles
4. Documentation
Now, what makes me jump in the air is actually the vehicles. Since I got TGE there was nothing that irritated me so much as the flying vehicle (and the other vehicles, to some degree as well) physics integration and the rigid class. It's very easy to crash the engine and, for instance, pierce the terrain or an object and head into a loop crash.
I know Ben has looked at this once and thought it would require an rewrite, or something along those lines.
My question is: Is this something that you guys think you will have the time to fix? That would be so awesome.
#2
02/12/2005 (6:25 pm)
Just a port. No fixes or additions. 
#3
TSE already looks awesome. It just keeps getting better.
02/13/2005 (7:16 am)
Oh yes, I can't wait to see how vehicles turn out. We're going to be doing ground and air combat.TSE already looks awesome. It just keeps getting better.
#4
You don't have to wait to see how the vehicles will be if no functionality changes will be made...
02/13/2005 (10:31 am)
Quote:Oh yes, I can't wait to see how vehicles turn out.
Quote:Just a port. No fixes or additions.
You don't have to wait to see how the vehicles will be if no functionality changes will be made...
#5
02/14/2005 (1:34 pm)
What a shame.
#6
02/14/2005 (3:27 pm)
Quote:Just a port. No fixes or additions.Was this in reply to the first or second post?
#7
02/14/2005 (5:29 pm)
@Wysardry Good point. Didn't even think about that. :)
#8
02/15/2005 (11:48 am)
The vehicles have just been ported from TGE. Any improvements in the future to vehicles will likely be ported to both platforms.
#9
02/15/2005 (3:43 pm)
Myself, I'm not hoping for improvements.. more like bugfixes, rather. I couldn't for the life of me get the collisions fixed and neither could anyone that I spoke to either. It would be so perfect if we finally could use flying vehicles (and the others) without crashing and having to ALT-F4 to desktop. Other than that, Torque is such a masterpiece.
#10
EDIT - Stefan is correct in his comments below - The crash above a certain speed goes away, flying through terrain and buildings still hangs.
02/16/2005 (7:19 am)
@ Stefan - If you change integration to 4 (instead of default 1) for flying vehicles and add in some clamps on the rigid body motions then the crashes go away. http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=17384 - look for Akios postings. It doesnt fix the collisions properly though. Also, if you do get a freeze, get the console window up (ALT-TAB and a bit of clicking on the right window) and then a couple of CTRL+X (if I remember rightly) after clicking in the console window will exit gracefully.EDIT - Stefan is correct in his comments below - The crash above a certain speed goes away, flying through terrain and buildings still hangs.
#11
The changes we did was more than (and including) setting integration to 4 in script. It does not solve the issue. If you head fast enough into the terrain, you WILL get into the crashloop. The fix Akio posted does lessen the problem to some degree with terrain collisions, but as soon as you fly into an interior and touching more than two polygons at once (brushes, whatever it is called) you will fly trough one of the surfaces and end up in a crash.
This is something I and others (I'll let them step out themselves, if they want to) have put months into and it simply doesn't work properly. Having the user to press CTRL-X, clicking the console window, and all that - is just not a nice way of releasing a product which depends much on these vehicles. They are very essential to our gameplay. On top of that, the CTRL-X solution doesn't get the user out of the crash, it just exits the program, and they might as well be dead when they get back the connection to the server.
This is a problem with clients. But it does crash the server as well, which is even more fatal - as we can't sit around and monitor the servers all the time. Maybe for a single player game, you could get by with the suggestions you posted, but with a multiplayer game (and even worse: A persistant world), it does not.. I'm afraid.
I understand this might be very difficult to recode, but it does not negate the fact that the crashloop is there. =/
02/16/2005 (9:45 am)
David,The changes we did was more than (and including) setting integration to 4 in script. It does not solve the issue. If you head fast enough into the terrain, you WILL get into the crashloop. The fix Akio posted does lessen the problem to some degree with terrain collisions, but as soon as you fly into an interior and touching more than two polygons at once (brushes, whatever it is called) you will fly trough one of the surfaces and end up in a crash.
This is something I and others (I'll let them step out themselves, if they want to) have put months into and it simply doesn't work properly. Having the user to press CTRL-X, clicking the console window, and all that - is just not a nice way of releasing a product which depends much on these vehicles. They are very essential to our gameplay. On top of that, the CTRL-X solution doesn't get the user out of the crash, it just exits the program, and they might as well be dead when they get back the connection to the server.
This is a problem with clients. But it does crash the server as well, which is even more fatal - as we can't sit around and monitor the servers all the time. Maybe for a single player game, you could get by with the suggestions you posted, but with a multiplayer game (and even worse: A persistant world), it does not.. I'm afraid.
I understand this might be very difficult to recode, but it does not negate the fact that the crashloop is there. =/
#12
I retract my comment above about crashes going away - I have just tried persistently flying through/into a building and got the crash :(
02/16/2005 (11:31 am)
Stefan - The Ctrl-X suggestion was just to exit gracefully from the crash - not a release suggestion :)I retract my comment above about crashes going away - I have just tried persistently flying through/into a building and got the crash :(
#13
When I do fall trough, it seems that it keeps distance to ONE of the faces but not to the other.
Let's say I enter collision with Face01, then Face02. I will collide with Face01, but not Face02. As soon as I stop hitting Face01, Face02 starts to collide instead and it crashes when it should correct my position.
The collision breaks somewhere. I've thought about adding some sort of really dirty collision detection with castray's that tell where the object is and how far, then adjusts the range. But it doesn't sound like it would work practically, anyway.
Oh well.
Edit: Grammar.
02/16/2005 (2:35 pm)
Yeah interiors and shapes are the worst. Don't know why. AFAIK it has something to do with hitting more than one face at a time on an interior. I don't have a clue about shapes. But if I set up a box and try to hit it's sides, nothing happends if I have integration set high. But if I make it a sphere or something where I can hit one side and another at the same time, the collision breaks and I fall trough.When I do fall trough, it seems that it keeps distance to ONE of the faces but not to the other.
Let's say I enter collision with Face01, then Face02. I will collide with Face01, but not Face02. As soon as I stop hitting Face01, Face02 starts to collide instead and it crashes when it should correct my position.
The collision breaks somewhere. I've thought about adding some sort of really dirty collision detection with castray's that tell where the object is and how far, then adjusts the range. But it doesn't sound like it would work practically, anyway.
Oh well.
Edit: Grammar.
Torque Owner Mike Stoddart