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Magical Instant Bullets
- giantrobot 2y agoThe content was great but the looping animated gifs made actually reading the page nauseating.
- rtkwe 2y agoIf you're still using Chrome you can right click the gif and show controls to get a pause. Sadly not supported in Firefox it seems. There's a bookmarklet out there I just found trying to address this issue myself but I've not tested it so review and use at your own risk. https://slbkbs.org/jsgif/ https://slbkbs.org/jsgif/
- D_Mil_Realism 2y agoThanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed. Point taken on the GIF, and I'll bear in mind. It's a bit of a balance; I don't like using too many embedded YouTube videos because that can spam readers with ads.
- giantrobot 2y agoThe GIFs were great for illustration, you're describing something in the time domain so an animated example is useful. The problem was those GIFs. The towers level with the camera movement and planet moving in the background was just way too much motion alongside text I was trying to read. Maybe try putting more white space between the images and blocks of text or put several images one after another in a group. Then I could see the examples but read blocks of text with no distractions.
- tempestn 2y agoDo bullets actually fall at exactly the same speed if dropped or fired horizontally? In a vacuum, obviously they do. But my intuition says there would be some impact on the vertical air resistance from travelling 500m/s in the horizontal direction. As the bullet pushes through the air, the air pressure above and below it is increased (you can actually see that in the photo in the post). So wouldn't it effectively be falling through denser air than in the dropped case? Also, of course, it would be falling in a horizontal orientation, whereas the dropped bullet would probably realign itself to vertical. Anyway, none of that invalidates the broader point, and the effects would be comparatively tiny even if present. Just found it interesting to consider.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoFair warning, you are standing on the precipice of a very deep rabbit hole :-). My Dad was a 're-loader' (loaded his own ammunition) and molded his own bullets and had charts and graphs for an amazing set of things. I even built him a chronograph so that he could "know" the speed of a bullet as it left the gun. Given that a 'zeroed in' sight will account for the drop and so points the barrel up slightly, some of the energy in a shot goes to lifting it "up" before it starts falling down. You might think that would make it take longer, but it's small. The sin of 0.5 degrees is only .00873 so less than 1% of "heading up" before heading down. The more 'up' you point it, the bigger the difference. But as the author points out, the impact of various factors varies. Dad was happy he could put three rounds from his 30-06 into a 3" target circle at 200 yds.
- rtkwe 2y agoThat's a bit of a mistaken model, the bullet never rises above the boreline of the gun, the scope or sights are just angled down relative to the bore line to intersect the bullet trajectory at a particular point further down range. [0] The effect is larger if your scope is higher above the bore axis, because it requires you to point down more on the sight line to have the same zero, or if your zero is particularly close or far, for most rifle rounds and gun configurations 100 yard zeros tend to be all drop (the combination of realistic height over bore and bullet trajectories just work out that way). [0] This is a pretty accurate representation: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/40/f3/05/40f30529b94c3d78d973b1c2a734c623.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/40/f3/05/40f3...
- Fokamul 2y agoAuthor clearly never played any simulator games, like Arma. Or he wouldn't ever posted this BS. "Games which use hitscan mechanics might be taking a shortcut, but it’s one for which can forgive them. The effects aren’t likely to affect realism too much, and we take these shortcuts in real life as well." Hitscan is ok-ish for arcade brain-rot games like CoD, where max distance is few dozen meters, def. not OK for any other games.
- J_Shelby_J 2y agoOne time in Arma dayz mod I was trapped on a water tower with an unfriendly player above me for 20m keeping me pinned down. My friend in team speak circled around and took them out with a shot from over 1km away. Good shot!
- Stevvo 2y agoAuthor clearly mentions Operation Flashpoint and how games like it do things differently.
- D_Mil_Realism 2y agoI never played Arma, to be fair. I always gravitated more toward the "brain-rot" games! But you're right of course, realistic games use more realistic ballistic models (and everything else). One reason I never got too into the simulator games was that the line between "real" and "game" is always going to be very arbitrary. No simulator will replicate the experience of slogging over a marshy mountain carrying 100 lbs and a GPMG! The Onion said it best: https://youtu.be/yuTkgi7scKo?feature=shared https://youtu.be/yuTkgi7scKo?feature=shared
- mr_toad 2y agoA real combat simulator would have you polish boots and cleaning latrines for most of them time, and then wake you in the middle of the night with an artillery barrage.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y agoOh come on. This article is peak midwit "ackshually." Like all of the game's weapons, how exactly the sniper rifle works is not described. The bullet's diameter is not described. Its ballistic coefficient is, of course, not described. Most pointedly of all, the bullet's velocity is not described. There are existing guns that can fire projectiles at hypervelocities. These are mostly "two-stage gas guns" that utilize incompressible gasses to accelerate small metal projectiles for NASA experiments -- sometimes to velocities over 32000 feet per second. (10km/s! Roughly 10-11x faster than conventional rifles, but a common velocity for micrometeoroids.) There's absolutely nothing to suggest that similar mechanisms can't be adapted to smaller arms; it's impractical, but it's an engineering problem, not magic. There are other possible mechanisms, e.g. a conventional weapon with a magnetic rail that assists in the acceleration of the bullet. Science fiction? Sure. As is the game. So, anyway, assume the UT gun fires a small iridium slug at 10km/s and there's nothing to complain about. Very fast bullets are very flat-shooting, as any .22-250 appreciator can corroborate.
- genewitch 2y agoHM17 as well, there's a reason you can't legally use it to hunt, in some states. (If you miss, it just keeps going for miles. Even if you don't miss, it can still just keep going for a mile.)
- eddyg 2y agoAre you talking about .17 HMR? That round does have a very flat trajectory, but it’s illegal to hunt deer in some states because it isn’t lethal and won’t penetrate vital organs (just like .22 rimfire.) .17 HMR is primarily used for shooting small game where precision and minimal damage are preferred.
- genewitch 2y agoyes, yes, and yes. my mistake on the name.
- D_Mil_Realism 2y ago
- pimlottc 2y agoNo discussion of the history of ballistic trajectory simulation in video games is complete without including GORILLA.BAS
- hsshhshshjk 2y agoGood memories. My brother and I spent a lot of time trying to hit the sun so that it made a face! And oh, the satisfaction of throwing into the wind perfectly so the it boomerangs back around. ::dancing gorilla:: doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo doooo doooo
- praptak 2y agoMy friend rigged nibbles.bas so that he could beat his brother more often.
- praptak 2y agoThe banana was indeed observably unrealistic. With speed above a certain level it could ghost through the opponent without harming them because the collision detection only checked subsequent positions, not the whole line segment between them. A real banana would not do that.
- uzyn 2y agoIn-game sniper that you have to aim inches above the head is just not as fun, especially for an extremely fast-paced game like Unreal Tournament.
- solardev 2y agoWhy is it not as fun? It's just a different kind of game. There are plenty of tactical shooter or sniper games that go through a lot of effort to model the ballistics (like the Sniper and Sniper Elite series), as well as pretty much every tank and naval game. The Battlefields weren't as fast-paced as UT, but they made great use of ballistics for everything from sniper rifles to RPGs... added more skill to the game. Even Unreal Tournament itself had some basic ballistic guns, like for the alt fire of the flak cannon and biorifle.
- D_Mil_Realism 2y agoIndeed it did, although the flak cannon brings another set of issues as the preceding article talks about (basically it combines two very different types of weapons system). And agree, different types of game need different mechanics. Battlefield games were a very different experience; I think the simple mechanics work in UT.
- evnp 2y agoReally fun piece. > No computer game will ever have the level of sophistication to model shockwaves, fluid dynamic effects, spin9, the Coriolis effect, and the Magnus effect. I'm no superfan, but who can forget the CoD4 "escape from Chernobyl/Prypyat" sniper sequence? https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/One_Shot,_One_Kill/Transcript#:~:text=At%20this%20distance%20you'll%20also%20have%20to%20take%20the%20Coriolis%20Effect%20into%20account. https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/One_Shot,_One_Kill/Transc...
- noitpmeder 2y agoThat was a great mission, but I'd probably guess those "Coriolis effect" sequences were scripted one-off events. Doubt they're simulating that kind of stuff on every bullet fired.
- evnp 2y agoAgreed, I certainly wasn't trying to imply this nuance was present throughout the game. Just feels like a glaring omission for the piece to not at least mention existing attempts to translate these subtleties into engaging gameplay. (though to be fair, it's been at least a decade since I experienced this one and memory is hazy)
- D_Mil_Realism 2y agoThank you, that's a great example! Definitely an omission ;-)
- apt-apt-apt-apt 2y agoEasy solution: Laser gun, problem is now solved up to 100 miles away (0.54 milliseconds). GPT says that 'a car 100 miles away would be far too small to see clearly, even with the best sniper scope. It would likely ... not be visible at all due to the limitations of optics [25x to 35x] and atmospheric interference.'
- bcoates 2y agoApparently GPT thinks the earth is flat.
- genewitch 2y agoI was gonna say this guy's never heard of a hill, but I don't know how far I can see with my drone, but I'm pretty sure it's not 100 miles. I'm not even sure it's more than 20... It is over 8. That's the level of certainty I have without getting scratch paper and a scientific calculator.
- kortilla 2y agoRainier is visible at least 85 miles away.
- andrewflnr 2y agoBut could you see a car on it?
- genewitch 2y agoi can see the moon from my driveway, too.
- bob1029 2y ago> Compared to the rest of the exotic UT arsenal, these seem unremarkable, boring even. They don’t fire bright bolts of plasma or glowing, exploding goo. There is also the lightning gun. I recall using this on newer variants of facing worlds.
- ygra 2y agoIt seems from the other articles as well that they are reviewing the UT99 arsenal, which didn't yet have the lightning gun.
- Zardoz84 2y agoFunny thing is that Unreal had bullet like projectile weapons that don't used hit scans. And many mods for the original Unreal Tournament had this kind of bullet projectile weapons. Of course, this projectile bullets travels straight and don't try to mimic any real life physics effects, beyond to avoid the instant hit or miss mechanic.
- zemo 2y agopeople love to talk about a game being realistic or not realistic without asking whether more realism = more fun. Usually the answer is no. Doing collision detection on every bullet on every frame is a cost that may or may not be worth it, depending on the overall design of your game. "Games take shortcuts" is really flattening the discussion and acting like the game developers don't know these things that the very smart blogger knows, when in reality, game developers know this stuff and make conscious design decisions. Most games are not designed to be scientific modeling programs, they're entertainment products, governed by questions about entertainment value, not simulation accuracy. Plus in real life you're not going to receive a network packet that says "a bullet whose trajectory will hit you in the skull will reach you in 0.7 seconds" and give cheaters enough time to auto-duck with a script. Even if you can afford to do collision detection on every bullet on every frame, there are many other reasons why it might not be a good idea. Hitscan is a design option, not something that's "right" or "wrong".
- somethingsome 2y agoI find the fact that bullets hit instantaneously and precisely way more fun! In the article they say that parabolic math was not available in 1999 computer games, but the bio rifle seems to do it just fine, even at the time ;) For the ones that want to have fun with the maths, this demo is awesome https://youtube.com/shorts/akEGxm5rcC4 https://youtube.com/shorts/akEGxm5rcC4 But this video also means, that you still aim at the player head when he is falling straight, you will just hit him a little lower than expected ;)