A whip?

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Leo(T.C.K.)
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A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

Hey guys,
Are you aware of any UT mod in existence that utlizes a whip as a weapon?
Say, Indiana Jones like or Castlevania?
Because I just watched a video about Castlevania Simons Destiny on the Doom engine and I'm wondering about mods with whips...


EDIT: I think I should have posted this in Download Search? Does that count if it's such a vague request as this?
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Re: A whip?

Post by papercoffee »

"Download search" when you have a particular mod/skin/sound/whatnot you are searching.
But your request is more vague and uncertain.
So, I would say it counts as a general question if something like a whip exist for UT.

And I've never seen one.
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

Well if there isn't one, someone should make a whip mesh, I mean that's something seriously lacking from UT isn't it?
Hold on, there was that Thievery mod, It didn't include any whips did it?
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makemeunreal
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Re: A whip?

Post by makemeunreal »

Was thinkin' 'bout whips as well. Strange you just came up with it.
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Re: A whip?

Post by nogardilaref »

Whips belong into a category of physics which even modern games struggle with to either keep stable or have a good performance, so you don't see them very often.

Therefore, while it's possible, its level of difficulty depends on how realistic you want this whip to be.
If you just want a whip mesh and pre-defined animations with fixed points it can hit, similarly to a hitscan weapon, it's no different from any other weapon ever made.
Now if you want to manipulate the whip into actually making contact with everything and acting accordingly, physically speaking, that's a lot more troublesome to do, and requires some computing depending on the precision you're aiming at.

Plus, if you want it to work online from there, you cannot either do the physics like many engines do (including UE1), or the physics of the whip has to be updated at a constant time rate and not at "tick" rate.
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Re: A whip?

Post by JackGriffin »

You could fake a convincing whip pretty easily. If someone wants to model the animations I'll code it. I just need a carried whip and at least one whipping animation. I'll cover the effects, sounds, etc.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

nogardilaref wrote:Whips belong into a category of physics which even modern games struggle with to either keep stable or have a good performance, so you don't see them very often.

Therefore, while it's possible, its level of difficulty depends on how realistic you want this whip to be.
If you just want a whip mesh and pre-defined animations with fixed points it can hit, similarly to a hitscan weapon, it's no different from any other weapon ever made.
Now if you want to manipulate the whip into actually making contact with everything and acting accordingly, physically speaking, that's a lot more troublesome to do, and requires some computing depending on the precision you're aiming at.

Plus, if you want it to work online from there, you cannot either do the physics like many engines do (including UE1), or the physics of the whip has to be updated at a constant time rate and not at "tick" rate.
Dude, a normal "whip mesh with pre-defined animations" would do. Not so0mething hyper realistic. Think all those castlevania games. Yea just like that.

Or anything that could go for a whip mesh. I almost found something but it's not good enough to pass for one. On a second thought a joined mesh made by multiple meshes could work, like part using the chaos grappling hook?
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Re: A whip?

Post by nogardilaref »

Leo(T.C.K.) wrote:On a second thought a joined mesh made by multiple meshes could work, like part using the chaos grappling hook?
That's the sort of thing I meant as being something more difficult to do depending on how realistic you want it to behave.

Essentially, the category of physics I was talking about is what people commonly refer to "rope physics".
The physics in itself is not hard to do (all you need to do is verlet integration to approximate to it), and it's quite fast to calculate, so it's highly used for ropes, ragdolls, cloth, etc.

However, the problem comes from the fact that to simulate anything close to a rope, you represent it through several parts (joints), like multiple meshes in the grappling hook as you referred.
The more parts you add, the more parts the algorithm has to check, and the more iterations it has to do.
Therefore with a few parts, the algorithm works without a problem, with too many and it will become slow.

So, generally what games do is to use this for ragdolls using CPU, but leave things like cloth simulation (which is a grid of points) to the GPU instead if possible, since only the visual effect is desired in the latter.
When you want the rope to actually affect the world in some way, that's when things become a little more serious: in the case of the grappling hook, it doesn't care about how the rope itself interacts with the world, there's no interaction, it has only 2 points to care of: where it is attached and what it is holding (the player), so no problem there.

While in the case of a whip, collision per part would be required, and would become a new constraint the algorithm has to account for, so things become a little harder from there on.
Also, a whip is meant to be rather "elastic" and not just a rope, as it has some springiness to it, and when you have springs with constraints (like in ragdolls) that's when you have to choose between the stability of the algorithm and its performance (this is mainly why sometimes ragdolls get all borked in other games).


Having that said, stuff like ropes, springs, and who knows, even whips, is actually something I want to personally tackle in the future, since I have seen games where they actually work as actual gameplay elements, and they're awesome. :mrgreen:
It all goes down to the amount of work and testing you're up to do with these.
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

Well, we already had something more complex going on with codex like the gunturret mod, which was made of multiple meshes if you count the "base" of the turret which is optional.

But I'd like to see some better suited meshes than for example the grappling hook in chaosut.
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Re: A whip?

Post by nogardilaref »

Leo(T.C.K.) wrote:Well, we already had something more complex going on with codex like the gunturret mod, which was made of multiple meshes if you count the "base" of the turret which is optional.
I am sorry, but unless I misunderstood what you meant, the multiple meshes part is easy, there's actually nothing complex about it. It's the physics which is the not so easy part, and a gun turret doesn't really have any physics of its own, and it's something relatively easy to do.

With this, please do not misunderstand me, not trying to demotivate anyone into doing this, I am just informing where you're getting yourself into in case you go with the more realistic, and actually more fun, challenging and unique, way. And if a mod like that is your baseline for complexity, you're in for a big surprise.
The grappling hook is actually the closest thing being done in this direction.
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

That turret was very complex and didn't even use the basic collision methods...

Of course, multiple meshes get even used in asmd etc...and most trace based weapons in the first place.

EDIT: What about that "physics" gun I remember seeing? That stuff could bend out of place etc, that would be a good thing for basing a whip mod on, if a proper mesh wouldn't be found/made.
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Re: A whip?

Post by nogardilaref »

Leo(T.C.K.) wrote: EDIT: What about that "physics" gun I remember seeing? That stuff could bend out of place etc, that would be a good thing for basing a whip mod on, if a proper mesh wouldn't be found/made.
I think I know what you're talking about, but it runs a different physics model. But yeah, might be close enough to do a whip from, and it's perhaps a good middle ground between just a mesh and an actual realistic whip.
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

Of course I'd still prefer the simple mesh. Even if I'd use something like grappling hook, how would it really work? I mean the problem is, the first person mesh, if I'd do it the rappling hook style there would be no hand to whip it and it just wouldn't be so convincing. But perhaps a mace would do? I mean I could modify an existing mesh, remove some polygons etc. Any kind of weapons like this could be useful actually.
I'm not so well versed in all these mods out there so...
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makemeunreal
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Re: A whip?

Post by makemeunreal »

Here's an example:


Simple but nice enough. :gj:
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Leo(T.C.K.)
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Re: A whip?

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

That video actually inspired me to post this in the first place, mmu. lol
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