A Question of Technicalities.
So I'm curious about something, and the internet isn't immediately vomiting answers, and I figure maybe someone on my Flist may know or know who would know.
Now, obviously I'm not an engineer or a programmer, and about all I can do as far as video games is play 'em and possibly draw pretties for them. But I do understand a lot about how video games work, so far as the engines and what they're capable of. But playing Reach a lot lately has reminded me of something I've wondered about for years, and I haven't ever been able to find a decent explanation anywhere.
I understand how ballistics work in real life. And I understand how collision detection works in games (well, insofar as the concepts go; I suck at the actual math). My Question is, do games (PvP really, since this is never an issue in PvE situations) like Reach actually register each bullet that is fired as a separate object that can be collided with?
To be even more secific, let's say you're playing 4v4 Slayer in Reach. Each person counts as an object (or a series of smaller hitboxes, I guess), the map is an object (or various smaller objects), any vehicles or interactable items count as objects, etc. People begin shooting each other, emptying their assault rifles. Do any bullets that don't hit people count as collidable objects that keep traveling? If so, how long/far?
I suppose the question boils down to, are the bullets we see actually there or are they just visual effects? If the bullets are "physical" objects i.e. something people can collide with, that seems like an awful lot of junk data that has to be translated every second of gameplay, not to mention constantly uploaded/downloaded to/from every single player in a game. It seems inefficient.
In some games (like S4 League) if you point at someone and pull the trigger, I believe the client just reads whether or not your reticle was over the target, and if so it reads a hit... no complicated ballistic objects flying through the air. Taking for granted the netcode in S4 sometimes makes this take way too long, I don't recall "stray shots" ever being an issue in S4... just horrible, horrible lag. Halo games FEEL different in that regard... hence my wondering, are the bullets in Halo actual objects that temporarily path through the map and can be collided with?
Now, obviously I'm not an engineer or a programmer, and about all I can do as far as video games is play 'em and possibly draw pretties for them. But I do understand a lot about how video games work, so far as the engines and what they're capable of. But playing Reach a lot lately has reminded me of something I've wondered about for years, and I haven't ever been able to find a decent explanation anywhere.
I understand how ballistics work in real life. And I understand how collision detection works in games (well, insofar as the concepts go; I suck at the actual math). My Question is, do games (PvP really, since this is never an issue in PvE situations) like Reach actually register each bullet that is fired as a separate object that can be collided with?
To be even more secific, let's say you're playing 4v4 Slayer in Reach. Each person counts as an object (or a series of smaller hitboxes, I guess), the map is an object (or various smaller objects), any vehicles or interactable items count as objects, etc. People begin shooting each other, emptying their assault rifles. Do any bullets that don't hit people count as collidable objects that keep traveling? If so, how long/far?
I suppose the question boils down to, are the bullets we see actually there or are they just visual effects? If the bullets are "physical" objects i.e. something people can collide with, that seems like an awful lot of junk data that has to be translated every second of gameplay, not to mention constantly uploaded/downloaded to/from every single player in a game. It seems inefficient.
In some games (like S4 League) if you point at someone and pull the trigger, I believe the client just reads whether or not your reticle was over the target, and if so it reads a hit... no complicated ballistic objects flying through the air. Taking for granted the netcode in S4 sometimes makes this take way too long, I don't recall "stray shots" ever being an issue in S4... just horrible, horrible lag. Halo games FEEL different in that regard... hence my wondering, are the bullets in Halo actual objects that temporarily path through the map and can be collided with?