Physics Improvements

I was just wondering if the physics of the game will be improved, or rather ironed out as the game progresses? I'm referring to things like random jittering or bouncing of damaged parts, and how vehicles excessively warp/stretch instead of break apart. At excessive speeds, vehicles literally explode into pieces rather than turn into a flattened pancake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnK-TovPgrc
I wanted to use this video to show how I think that beamng has the main crash appearance correct, but there are some more details like the small front grill flying off, the car door plate bending off of the door, or particle behaviour, that beamng seems to lack. I understand that there is a physical limit to computation, but I'm just wondering how much more accurately crashes can be depicted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70
This video shows what some people have mentioned with the roof coming off, and if you skip to 1:31, you will see that the A-pillars on the malibu have been severed. On beamng, there would instead be excessive stretching.

Additionally, the inside of the car warps/stretches unrealistically in high speed accidents too, so I was wondering if the physics will be improved for things like the dashboard or seats.

 

Sry, didnt bother to watch the videos, but if the cars act like that for you, then something is wrong on your side- the physics i have is quite spot on and rarely stretches at all, and if it does stretch its only a few CM.

 

He's talking about the parts not dynamically breaking. Run into something about mid-windshield height at a very high speed. Nothing breaks, the pillars just stretch and so does the windscreen.

 

That currently cant be done because of most pc limits, it would require a ton more j-beams and a ton more polys on the cars to be able to do that in the most basic way. For it to be realistic it would require a very modern gaming pc, so currently its mostly not possible.

 

Well yea, but like the guy said above me, the game is limited to hardware

 

Yeah, no. For that kind of simulation power, in real time nonetheless, were talking about cpu intensity that would make an i7-3970X cringe. That cpu ​alone is $1200, mind you. So that kind of simulation technology is something we'll have to wait for. But if technology keeps advancing at the rate it does, this could ​be viable in the next decade or so.

 

Moores law, number of transistors you can make in a certain area doubles once every 2 years. Apparently the last decade we have fallen ever so slightly short, but in general it has held true.

 

I think the stretching can be fixed with clever coding with little performance hit, but they are busy with other things. I don't think it would need excessive j-beam'ing.

 

But then what about that random bouncing and stuttering of metal pieces that happens? I think they said this would be fixed as they improve the beam technology? I'm just not sure. And then will any kind of improvement be made in order to allow vehicles to break apart?

And with regards to particles (the dots that appear when a vehicle collides), will this be improved over time? Right now of course, the particles look kinda cheesy and all that, but I'm wondering if certain parts of the vehicle would release more particles than others (ie the engine part), or if the particles will appear more realistic and even stay in the environment the same way bumpers do.

Also even glass. I know that glass on cars will generally shatter instead of break into large pieces because its been tempered, but will any kind of improvement on this system be made?

 

I do believe particles will be improved over time. A lot don't get seen for more than a fraction of a second due to a certain issue (see the latest dev blog for details) and as hardware improves, I'd expect the physics simulation to also improve. Compare some of the earliest features and vehicles in RoR to newer stuff like the Gavril Bandit and you'll see what I mean.

 

I didn't watch the video but here are my best guesses as to what you meant by each point.

Bouncing body parts: Very ridged objects don't absorb much energy when they hit the ground, so they bounce back up again until kinetic energy is removed from the vehicle. Think of dropping a ping pong ball vs a bean bag. I imagine this is fixable, its just no one seems to have came up with a working solution yet. Could be fixed by creating the main structure and then surrounding it with a soft absorption structure, but expect an fps hit if you do that.

Juttering at slow speed: Wheels in this game are not round, Therefore at slow speeds they will jutter. This can be fixed by making them more round (extreme example: hexagon -> decagon = smoother wheels) but i believe that wont happen until the make the wheels more stable as they have a tendency to fold in on themselves when you have lots of "sides". As far as i am aware we shouldn't be hardware bound here, hell someone made a ridiculous trailer in ror with over 50 wheels. So i am assuming that making them just a bit more round wont hurt performance, its just the wheels break if you do.

Stretching: This occurs when 1 to a few nodes get caught on something while the rest of the car is still moving, causing part of the vehicle to stretch. In reality this wont happen because things will slide/scrape of the object. But thanks to the node beam system vehicle creators are working with lots of dots that can collide. Therefore no sliding of bodywork. I highly doubt there will be a good solution to this part of the issue any time soon, the fact that it is as good as it is at the moment is a miracle. But it will be possible to limit how far each node will stretch without to much issue, this can already be done with bounded beams and/or support beams. But i believe they use a bit more cpu power than normal beams which is why you don't see that. But even then it isnt really a proper solution

Cutting pillars etc.: Could be done by adjusting the beam strength so that they snap more easily. But if you do that then you will find that your car will fall to pieces as you drive. Especially over some of the [sarcasm]smooth,pothole free and well maintained[/sarcasm] roads you will be driving along in this game.

Particles: should be working better in the next update! Its one of the things that have been improved.

 

Thanks, aljowen, that actually answered my questions really well. I understand what you are talking about, and I realize that hardware is a limiting factor for a lot of the things that would be nice to include.

I actually never realized that the reason vehicles bounced up and down like that was because the wheels aren't circular, thanks for making that point.

I will also agree that it is extremely great how well the game works right now, and how versatile it is at the same time. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what kind of improvements and additions are going to be made to this game in the future.