Why are there such big issues at the doors for game developers

03/15/2021, 4:30 p.m.

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Most of us rarely think about doors. However, they are a real problem for video game developers.

Separating the interior of a house from the outside world with a door has a long tradition. The first known images of doors even come from ancient Egypt. While doors are not a major technical problem in the real world, things look different in the virtual game worlds. “Doors are really complex objects because they can be opened, closed or locked depending on the game, and they may require more specialized animation and camera behavior. The big problem with doors in sports is that they influence the way you sit in between and find your way, ”explains Berlin game developer Stephen Hewlebrinks via email.

Havelbrinks recently had the title In a tweet in a nutshell And received a lot of encouragement from colleagues. Former Bioware Developer Damien Schubert For example, he commented, “Suck the doors, developers hate them. If your game doesn’t need doors, you shouldn’t put them inside.” Schubert argues that players usually do not even notice the video game when there are no doors. But there are some because players do not appreciate them because they slow down the flow of the game or lead to errors. But what makes doors so complicated in a video game environment?

This is why doors are an issue for game developers

“The game is very complex and involves actions over short distances from one character to another, making it very difficult to push a dynamic object in between. This applies to everything: vision, light and shadow, audio, physical objects and more complex situations such as conversations and fights, ”explains the underlying problem for Havelbrinks t3n. “And the door issue is not even solved because the complexity of the doors can make other situations more complicated or at least create special events, but other changes may arise with each change or with each new feature,” he said of the game developer.

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Provide on Twitter Kurt Margeno An example. According to the co-director of The Lost of S Part 2, the doors are one of the most time consuming issues the winning sports team has ever resolved. “In a stealth situation, we know that the doors will add a certain amount of player creativity to the room and provide more opportunities to escape from the situation,” Margeno explains. “But we have a game that is incredibly sophisticated in terms of animation. If a player wants to open a door, it cannot magically open.

How game developers deal with the door problem

In the end, the board of “The Last of S Part 2” decided to include only the animation for opening the doors. If there are no enemies, the door will remain open. If the soldier is followed, the door will close automatically. “It’s very player-friendly because opening the doors makes the player a little less, we don’t even take control from them, but they block the AI ​​very effectively,” Markeno says. As with many games, the doors of the naughty dog ​​game are always open inwards. Because it was less of an obstacle for the players, it meant that Marcono’s team had to design doors that were beautiful despite the hinges on both sides. The doors created extra work, but not just for the design team. “There is no sector that is not affected by the addition of doors to war,” says Margeno.

Eventually, Hewlbrinks also worked on him Indi-game “Death Trash” The door is arranged with the problem of the problem. In,Death trash‘We have war and non-war situations, doors can be locked, destroyed, opened and closed by NPCs and the game can deal with this if multiple NPCs try at once. We have a number of specialized solutions for specially planned trajectory and graphic display and visual calculations, ”the game developer told t3n. According to Havebrinks, the whole thing took a lot of work over the course of the project, but he believes some complex solutions and parts of the programming code associated with it could be reused in future games.

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