(just for fun) "Alternative" methods of doing things in-game

[sjg]

Thought I'd share this as someone might find the topic interesting or even useful. My project includes a random terrain/flora generator which creates the game area on the fly from a bunch of functions. However, I'm inexperienced with mathematics and don't know how to calculate the distance from say, the bottom of an entity to whatever brush is below it, so I did things the way they would happen in the real world: with gravity. I simply spawned a bunch of ents & props in the air, and let them land. Then, I added a hook to each entity so that when they hit the ground for the first time, it marks the time. After a certain period since marking, the collision hook is removed, the entity's mass is set to 0, it's rotated upright and to a random Y rotation, shadow mode to static and the collision type set to Collision::Scene. A brush is then created at the bottom of the model, is given an appropriate shape, and then its material is set to one with a 16x16 texture of alpha-transparency, giving the illusion that the scene prop has a solid body, but without calculating any gravity. Or something like that. It was a few days ago and I didn't document exactly WHY I had to use a brush with an invisible texture but it made sense at the time. I must have tried it with a pivot + shape and had no luck for whatever reason.

 

Anyway here's a video of the terrain generation in action, over and over again. Usually I hide the loading and falling behind an opaque splash screen, but I also put together a simple fade in/out system. Much like the splash screen it's mostly there to distract the eye; the duration is easily changed but I haven't altered it recently so it's still pretty obvious.

 

 

So, what MacGyver-y "hacky" tricks do you pull? I'm always fascinated by others' creativity when it comes to solving problems.

 

 

 

Edit: Just realised I posted this in General Discussion and not Off-Topic. My mistake!

[Jazz]

In the title screen of my tournament game Rick Powers he's 'falling' and it looks like the wall behind him is endless but I actually just created a huge cylinder and am rotating it.

 

[mdgunn]

This is actually an interesting topic and I bet people have quite a few things they could be mention but I've got nothing coming to mind right now! Sorry!

[AggrorJorn]

In the title screen of my tournament game Rick Powers he's 'falling' and it looks like the wall behind him is endless but I actually just created a huge cylinder and am rotating it.

That's how I used to make waterfalls. They were just planes with water textures that spawned and moved down.