I think this is the final word on the topic (water in CC that is). Now we can all point the next person to suggest dynamic water here.

I've already been doing this for as long as I've seen dynamic water threads.

This has been tried at least a million times, throughout cc's history.

And p3lb0x, thanks for that trolling ban.

Exactly. The problem is that it isnt dynamic, which makes you automatically think "hey man, this isnt water". If there was a few tricky things done (like bouyancy based on radius and mass, splashes whenever something was at the surface, etc etc) that would go closer, but I think maniac has a pretty good idea, if someone wants to try it (god i wish lord tim were still about <_<)


What I was doing was showing why particle water wouldnt work in CC unless implemented by data into the engine. It looks pretty (oh god whitty that screenshot) but all in all it rapes your CPU for no real gain.
The above implementation would be a really nice workaround. My only concern would be each of them performing comparisons to everything in MovableMan.Actors, but i suppose you could make a quadtree and define boxes from that or simmilar to prevent too many lookups.
This doesn't mean I'm going to try it, but if someone else did it would be nice to see just how much lag it takes away (and then if we can put the bouyancy and pretty effects in or not)

Right now water wont work, because your calling something, that doesn't act a damn bit like water 'water'. the particles overlap, and do not repel eachother, or anything else. from what I've seen the particles don't interact with anything. what you've done is made something that works like a particle/pixel, act like a MOSR. It doesn't act like water because it does not act as a body of water, and has none of the same properties other than 'it goes down hill, and sometimes between gaps' but guess what, every object in CC does this, without your lua.

you can't say 'water can't work in CC, here is proof, NOTWATER lags'
[/rant]

I recall a long ass time ago, suggesting doing it as... polygons I think it was? I think you could actually do this as particles to define a shape of a polygon.

Lets say you have 8 particles, scattered about. starting with a random particle, draw a line to the 2 nearest particles, and draw a line between those 2. of those 3, pick two of them, and connect them to the next nearest particle (that isn't the other 1 of 3). do this for all 3 combinations. that gives you 6/8, the other 2, each connect to the nearest 2 others... this gives us a sort of blob.

calculate the total volume between them. (them here being collections of 3 particles) If the volume is greater than X they get moved closer, if the volume is less than X, they move away... this would make it sort of pulse. if you set up how fast they move, it will eventually reach an equilibrium. then all you need is for them to all be affected by physics in game. so the force to move them has to be something like added velocity, rather than just 'move to coordinate' that means if the force of an object hitting it, is greater than the force of pressure (by volume) then...well... you get the idea. (yes this means if they get 'tangled' it would have to check for 'is another particle closer than the ones already attached?' and if so, re-connect them. it would also have to only do this if that's true, or else it would be disconnecting and reconnecting them every step O_O)

it would only need as many particles per body of water, as is required to get physics collisions. which could be 1 particle every... 30-80 pixels? oh yes, and if the distance between particles is greater than Z, then it won't count them, IE multiple bodies of water, that can connect and disconnect, and it would also have surface tension.

TL:DR
Pretend its World of Goo, except gooier. I seriously think that would work better than using the same methods traditionally used in 3d physics sims.


-edit
I just saw the screencap, and I honestly don't think it looks pretty or like water, I think it looks like glowing super-balls bouncing around in CC... super balls =/= water... Glowing dots in CC = done to many times and has lost all value.

Cortex Command doesn't allow for polygons. As well, the math that it would take to calculate said polygons as well as soft-body physics like you described would still lag just as bad. Geti is showing here the only feasible technique to implement dynamic water, and has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that water cannot be implemented into Cortex Command as we know it.
Get over it.

Hey Hey Hey kids, I think this thread has presented its point very well, and to keep it from falling into jhonny cash's ring of fire so It should probs be locked. Thanks muchh for disproving rikis pointless
arguments Geti.

Sounds like an AWESOME idea.

Final word: We appreciate ideas on what to improve, but some are just not going to work.