Call me an idiot for saying this, but wouldn't the water clip through the actor? Besides, I doubt anything could float in it. I picture it mainly like the goo that drips out of the brain when you shoot it...Sure it looks all liquidy, but you can fall through it rather quickly.

Here would be my idea:

There would be a new material property called IsLiquid. If set to true (1) then the engine would handle it as follows:

In groups of 20 particles or less (maybe a variable could be made to set that) it would calculate the material as any other. However, once you started getting pools of the material, it would change the method it calculated physics. Based on proximity to non-terrain entities it would adjust the size and amount of particles. At the bottom of a pool, for example, it would use several large blocks instead of smaller ones. Once an entity (rocket, actor, weapon shot, etc.) came close it would make the particles smaller and increase the number of particles there. This would allow water that functions correctly but doesn't take much processing power when there's nothing in it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not making any sort of bad comment about falling sand. There are some crazy things you can do with that stuff. I play the games myself. (BTW; thanks for pointing those out to me XD)

I would love to see a game with Falling Sand style reactions betweem MOPixels, I just don't expect it to happen in CC. It's already a mystery when and if Data is going to put in water (although I'm pretty sure he'll find a way), and real, burning fire is a dream at this point (but that doesn't mean it won't happen either). My biggest concern about adding reactions like that is that it would add an entire new level to the physics simulation. Even Burning sand slows down when you get too many particles on the screen, even on the smallest window size you can use.

My biggest concern however, is that to create effects that would be able to fit the cleanness of CC would be very difficult. I expect Data to use another method for these things.

Like I said, Data could (and I hope it happens somehow ) make a secondary game that uses MOPixels and Falling Sand interactions. It would be very cool, and would allow for nice things like explosions and such. Craziness.

Metroid48; that could work, but how would the game fill in the gaps created by the blocks at the bottom? With small pixels? I think a simpler way of doing what you said (or maybe just a simpler way of explaining it) is this; pixels beneath the surface would not resize, but would simply be grouped together. so it would group the pixels into squares that it couuld easily keep track of and render until the water was disturbed.

What do mean by clipping through the actor? Which method are you talking about, because we've mentioned several. The problem with this is that the brain fluid doesn't pool. it acts like water to a point, but as far as pooling, it doesn't. We're looking for something where you could actually fill up a pond or something with this water and it wouldn't lag the game. That's the hard part. Brain fluid solidifies, and when you fall through it, it meltsback into MOPixels. If we used that to make a pond, then if you fell into the pond you would make a tunnel in the pond that wouldn't fill in. I will agree with you that floating probably wouldn't be possible, but you could posibly "swim" around using the jetpack.

BTW, is MOPixel collision possible in this build?

(Also, Grif, is the Burning Sand forum permanently shut down? I was a member, although I forgot about it at one point. I checked back and the forums seemed to have been locked. I read something about a flame war?)

I mean...You know when you push two actors together one starts to bleed and you look over, you find his arm severed? Well, imagine that with water.

I think I explained it wrong but yah, grouping is a better way of putting it. The end result is it does less calculations for water that isn't close to anything aside from scenery elements. Or maybe it could also factor if it hasn't moved much for a while it does less calculations.



Do you mean the method discussed of replacing the lower part of the ocean with a sprite? Because I agree if just that was done then you would clip through it after falling through the top part.

So a wierd sort of octtree(I think that term works for what you guys are saying).

It's more like a quadtree, but it's not really like either. Quad and Oct trees are tree data structures, meaning there are sections with subsections with more subsections. What we mean is more like "When all people and non-terrain objects are at least ## pixels away, group 15 water pixels together and calculate physics as if they're one block". Basically, as non-terrain objects get farther and farther away the water particles are grouped together, more being grouped as non-terrain objects continue to distance themselves.

That could be fixed rather simply. Just make sure that HitsMOs is set to 0. Then the actors would affect it, but it would not effect them much except for a slight sort of pushing (most likely; we can't be sure how the physics would work with such high particle numbers, but I've messed with a few things, so I think it might work).

Just wondering, but couldn't you get a fairly decent simulation by patching the ragdoll physics to a a giant blob that perfers to stay in a fairly oblique circle (surface tension) and is affected by incoming objects ? I mean, the 'clones' seem to jerk when shot or when interacting, so would this be much of a jump ?

I'm new here, BTW, so I've got no idea (clue<1) how your physics or particle system works. I'm actualy here fresh out of Soldat, so playing a beta is something new for me .

Perhaps this would work, since the pixels will constantly be loose and therfore possibly wrapping around anything that touches it? But I don't know.

EDIT: Damn, I tried it just now, as soon as anything hit the body it just obliterated itself.

I think that was a bonified bump.

Anyway, water is easily made with a -friction lower than -1.

It auto-accelerates. Forever. I think thats what you wanted.