The Doom Physics Code

Slasher · Post by **Slasher** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:08 pm

I wasn't sure if this should go in general or in Off-Topic. It has to do with ZDoom but it's generally useless at this time.

So apparently the physics code in Doom is extremely complicated or otherwise really difficult to work with. So my question is, supposing the developers could either suddenly figure it out and be able to alter it, or if they could build their own physics code from scratch while still being able to support vanilla maps and other important features, what kind of things would be different? What might be added, what limits would be removed, what problems or annoying things would be corrected?

I've always been curious about where things could go with this.

Imagine ZDoom with a full ragdoll physics engine...

jallamann · Post by **jallamann** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:57 pm

it'd probably be way easier to customize hl2 to resemble doom.

Slasher · Post by **Slasher** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:43 pm

But that would be HL2, not ZDoom.

Post by **esselfortium** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:00 pm

I think you may have missed jallaman's point by a little bit.

Slasher · Post by **Slasher** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:11 pm

He's saying it would be really hard to create that kind of engine capabilities in Doom, right? I got that much, the point of this thread was what kind of things could be done to improve the physics in Doom, if the physics code was able to be fixed up.

The ragdoll engine was just a silly example, I wouldn't expect anything like that would happen for a long time if at all.

Da_maniaC · Post by **Da_maniaC** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:31 am

Even though its an example you do realise that ragdoll physics actually need a ragdoll (read: 3d model) to work right?

Lioyd_Irving · Post by **Lioyd_Irving** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:54 am

Da_maniaC wrote:Even though its an example you do realise that ragdoll physics actually need a ragdoll (read: 3d model) to work right?

Maybe not. By linking some actors so they keep strictly the same distance between each other, you could get something pretty close...i guess.

phi108 · Post by **phi108** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:54 am

It could use a sprite, if the engine could detect what part of the sprite was closest to the force, it would rotate accordingly, if sprites could rotate. Hypothetically.

And I guess it would be easier to do a rewrite than an entire cleanup, though a rewrite may miss some features. Though what the hell do I know?

Lioyd_Irving · Post by **Lioyd_Irving** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:09 am

phi108 wrote:It could use a sprite, if the engine could detect what part of the sprite was closest to the force, it would rotate accordingly, if sprites could rotate. Hypothetically.

It isn't forced to rotate...

He also wrote: And I guess it would be easier to do a rewrite than an entire cleanup, though a rewrite may miss some features. Though what the hell do I know?

Well, in fact this thread is useless...since Randy and Graf (Graf for sure, Randy is too dead to tell us what he thinks

) will never redo the entire work just for FOUR guys,

.

Slasher · Post by **Slasher** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:12 am

It's not just for us, it's for everyone.

And the ragdoll idea was a joke. Seriously, it wouldn't happen in Doom. However I'm sure there are many things about the game physics that could be improved, if the devs knew how to work with the physics code. I've never seen it and wouldn't understand it anyway, so I don't know just how difficult it may be.

bungholio · Post by **bungholio** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:19 am

Da_maniaC wrote:Even though its an example you do realise that ragdoll physics actually need a ragdoll (read: 3d model) to work right?

Ever played with Phun? All 2-Dimensional, lots of physics (It's fun with physics). http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/News

skadoomer · Post by **skadoomer** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:36 am

the doom physics code has been describes by the developers as a black box you feed information into and information comes back out. nobody dares touch the contents of said black box, and so it has stayed for a decade. in all seriousness, its a pain to figure out. Since doom code 'works', why spend months/years breaking and fixing something so big for minimal change (aside from all the odd instances with slopes and such)?

Slasher · Post by **Slasher** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:27 pm

It'd be one more aspect that makes zdoom more advanced than doom.

Penguinator · Post by **Penguinator** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:34 pm

bungholio wrote:Ever played with Phun? All 2-Dimensional, lots of physics (It's fun with physics). http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/News

That is different, but yes, Phun rocks(could be a bit more complex though).

Post by **TheDarkArchon** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:13 pm

bungholio wrote:
Da_maniaC wrote:Even though its an example you do realise that ragdoll physics actually need a ragdoll (read: 3d model) to work right?
Ever played with Phun? All 2-Dimensional, lots of physics (It's fun with physics). http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/News

Conversly, not all 3D models can be ragdollised: Ragdoll physics generally need skeletally animated models and not vertex animated ones (e.g MD2/3).

ZDoom

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