Bashiok on Corpses and Web Updates

Posted 16th Sep 2008 01:31 PM by Flux

Bashiok made an informative post about the game’s physics and how they relate to corpses “vanishing.”

Blizzard Quote:
First, touching on the corpse fade timers as they stand, the tech to have them last longer has been in for a while. Pretty much how it’s working is that there’s an allowed number of physics “actors” that are allowed to remain at a time. These actors could be corpses, but they can also be pieces of destroyed tables, or railings, etc. anything that relies on physics. These are corpses and destructables generally. As you ‘create’ physics actors the oldest ones disappear. So as you’re fighting there are always a number of actors remaining in the world, and it works out pretty well. Obviously how many of them can remain at one time will come down to final performance tweaking, but right now I believe it’s around twenty.

On to blood and fading; the “cost” of decals, which include the blood stains, are fairly high. Cost being the relative strain put on the machine running the game. Decals account for blood, but they also account for quite a few other effects, most of which haven’t yet been revealed. In the potential case of a full party creating these decals, blood flowing from creatures, skills that create them, as well as monsters themselves using skills that create them (Wretched vomiting all over the place is a good example), there is the potential to have a large number of decals on screen at any one time. So again, it’s going to come down to final performance tweaks as to how many of them will remain on screen and for how long.


He followed that up when someone asked about separating corpses from the physics, so they’d last forever.

[BLUE=“http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=361956&tmp=1#post361956”]I wouldn’t like that, it’s awesome being able to continue to interact with the corpses. [/BLUE]

Elsewhere, Bashiok revealed that we should see something new (screenshots? concept art?) on the official D3 page later this week:

Blizzard Quote:
I wouldn’t expect any groundbreaking revelations before BlizzCon, but do keep an eye on the Diablo III page for a nifty reveal this Thursday.

...It’s in line with our previous web updates, don’t go too crazy.

Finally, someone channeled Chef and made a joke about Tyrael and Diablo “making sweet love down by the fire.” To which Bashiok replied with sarcasm… and a link to a new addition (by Cowguin) to our fan art gallery.

Blizzard Quote:
Ahm scurrd




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Filed under: Blue Posts, Bashiok

Comments

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Leord
Posted 16, Sep 2008 02:52 PM
(0)
 

That "Dityrael" Shot is really cool =)

Not sure I agree with corpses though. I’d rather they faded from "physics" rather than from view completely. Besides, would it not be possible to leave them without physics, until some effect would happen nearby, recreate the physics in them and show of animations?

I basically want to have the cake and eat it =)

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cowguin
Posted 16, Sep 2008 08:05 PM
(0)
 

Pro stuff! my fav. part was when the barb was fighting on the bridge & the corpses would fly off.

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SSH83
Posted 17, Sep 2008 12:59 AM
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Maybe they should make a toggle to turn off corpse interaction after the corpse has been in existence for x-seconds.  That would be a nice compromise, wouldn’t it?

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melianor
Posted 18, Sep 2008 10:48 AM
(0)
 

...I wouldn’t expect any groundbreaking revelations before BlizzCon, but do keep an eye on the Diablo III page for a nifty reveal this Thursday. ...

The nifty update is the infamous chatgem? smile

Reply
 
stillman
Posted 20, Sep 2008 11:09 PM
(0)
 

I still think the corpses could be made to go away more naturally by having them get eaten by maggots, rats, and other scavengers. So you kill something and some worms plus flies slowly begin to appear all over the corpse. The worms/flies get thicker and thicker and coat the entire corpse. Finally, all the worms gradually die out or crawl away, the flies fly away, and there is no body left underneith because the worms ate it. Of course, this is much faster decomposition than in real life, but you got to do what you got to do, and it looks better than fading out for no reason.

It’s kind of like when Kenny on South Park dies. The rats come in and take him away. They could use that system for d3 corpse removal, but make it more slow and realistic using worms. Plus, hey, this is Sanctuary—a different world. So maybe on this world decomposers are realy good at what they do.

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