Gore Mod / Wound effects

[icewindo 29]

Hey,

here's my take on a gore mod for ArmA2 which I had some ideas about when I scripted the knights for my medieval mod to lose their heads and I got asked on YT if that could be added to standard ArmA2 units.

I currently have two different kind of techniques. Keep in mind I base the gibs based on effects I've seen in games and movies. However if there'd be comments on how to improve it, I'd be happy to hear them.

Techniques

1. The original soldier model gets deleted and gets replaced with custom gibs (helmet, arm, body parts)

- All the gib models are spawned as "things" so they are physiqued, so you could roll the parts over and move them

- I could texture the gibs further so there'd be gibs for the US Army, Civilians, Marines...

- the executed script could then use a iskindof (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/isKindOf) to create body part gibs according to the model of the unit like I've seen from Rydgyiers scripts for my medieval mod

2. The original soldier model stays, additional gibs are added

- This can only be done with mlods as you need to add some selections, parts...

- this however allows to custom hide a body part part of your choice (see example video)

- e.g. a unit could walk over a mine and lose it's legs while still staying alive gamewise (hiddenselections)

- this could be combined with some stock ArmA2 animations

Video with some examples

Large Test with Technique 1

I've also added Gaias EW blood hit effect to a little extended eventhandlers addon to work with all units (even animals). Works OK but last time there was some lag and I didn't had time yet to check if it really was the addon.

[Sealife 22]

Hahaa love it ,

There's a third way perhaps , with mlods you can un stitch arms and legs and animate maybe flying arms etc using rtm ? For death only obviously .

So far my favourite hidden selection lol I like you can still take some ammo :)

[ardvarkdb 104]

If your hidden selections are part of the shadow LOD (same names as in Lod 1.0) they should hide the same way

[mr burns 131]

Option #1.

Mostly because of the shadow still being present on method #2 which looks plain silly.

Another reason: huge explosion tears body apart, but leaves equipment unharmed? I don´t think so.

[blackmamb 2]

But... but... that's horrible!

:D

[ProfTournesol 956]

Brilliant. I'll vote for #1 too. There was a similar mod for OFP, i loved it but it caused CTD from time to time (i guess because of the deletevehicle command issued on the dead unit).

Edited September 14, 2012 by ProfTournesol

[Rydygier 1302]

:)

Saw first presentation - effect of #1 looks slightly better. I suppose, there is also a question of adjusting level of dismemberment and spread vectors according to kind and amount of damage and direction of hit vector (this shouldn't occur too often, unless we want some... grotesque here).

[bigpickle 0]

#1 for sure looked the best. I think though you need to have the limbs/torsos/heads etc have the ability to rotate or spin when they detach to make it look more real.

I'm loving that someone has finally attempted this. Icewindo, congrats. If ever you want any beta testers I'm definitely willing to help out.

[chrisb 196]

I used to use the SLX dismemberment, but all the body parts are fried/burned, which is a shame. The dismemberment anim is pretty much the same as SLX, only the results are far better in yours. I too would say number ‘1’.

Nice to see a better dismemberment type addon/mod, it happens a lot in real life in combat, so why not have it shown in-game..

[onlyrazor 11]

Interesting concept, I like technique #1, though the total dismemberment of each unit is a bit repetitive. Then again, I'm no coder, so I shouldn't be telling you how to do it.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

I'm already a fan, soon as I've seen the videos of the system at work. Not because of "oh wow, gore!!11oneone", but for the simple fact of getting a little better picture of how horrible combat can be and perhaps also getting us--within ArmA 2's limitations--a bit closer to VBS-like wounds where if you step on an explosive or something you can lose a leg and have to be dragged and evac'ed out instead of getting hit and flying all the way into another galaxy. I heard that BIS has no plans on such a setup for ArmA 3 (a shame), but hopefully if this works out enough and come ArmA 3's release, perhaps we'll be able to get at least somewhat close to something along the lines of this perhaps?

I really hope you keep at this, it has a lot of promise. I also throw my vote in for #1 as well. :)

[icewindo 29]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys, I didn't have time to read all through yet but I'll do soon. As for the scripts, I'll try to create them myself first and hopefully learn some more stuff.

I also have some other modding stuff so no worries if I don't check in as soon. ;)

[metalcraze 290]

Just make sure to add screams while the wounded soldier is still alive and it will be 100% grimdark

Because ArmA lacks that 'war is terrible' bit for a war simulation.

Kinda like ECP mod was adding it back in OFP.

[Moerderhoschi 106]

i prefer method #1. If a RPG hit you or your body ripped apart from a explosive charge there won't be any usable equipment left (except AK47, this thing work always :D)

nice work so far ;)

regards

hoschi

[twirly 11]

Nice job man. Also like # 1. Don't like the shadow and there's other ways to introduce weapons... so no biggie if there's no weapons.

[Choki 10]

Nice!

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Some nice work Icewindo.

Since it sounds like you're reluctant to view images of war-porn that are readily available online (and I don't blame you for this), here's my advice...

I had several of my high school friends participate in our re-invasion of Iraq in 2003, one of whom opened up to me and we spent many a night discussing the horrors of war. My feedback here is in light of what he's told me, and what I've viewed online.

I prefer Option 1 - I don't mind that none of the equipment is available/nonfunctional since the target's been struck by an extremely powerful explosive device.

The torso's lack of movement stands out the most to me. Its placement would be more convincing if it had some semi-random inertia so that it's knocked back a meter or two as it's falling down.

Dismemberment from explosions is quite common, although it's never shown on TV or in the newspapers. My friend said that the remains that catch fire tend to curl up in the fetal position, as the fat gets cooked out of the flesh and that causes contractions of the limbs. The hands show this the most, being bent severely downward/inward at the wrist, oddly resembling the stereotypical positioning of a rabbit's front leg.

SLX did a decent job of getting the charred look right, but it's perhaps too plentiful as the entire SLX-corpse is thoroughly cooked. The SLX-corpse is perhaps best for those caught in exploded vehicles/structures, and those whose bodies were totally engulfed in WP and napalm. Human flesh that's cooked is pale gray in color, like pork. Surfaces of the body should be blackened and split (with the deeper portions of the body still being raw and bloody). Clothing and gear that's high in synthetics should show melting. Perhaps the damage would reflect more real world conditions if only 1-2 major limbs were blown off, with smaller decapitations also being present (the lower jawbone, fingers gone, entire hand gone, forward chunk of a foot, etc.). Limbs are also frequently broken and bent into an unnatural direction.

For rocket, mine and grenade hits, ideally the charring would be the most prevalent in the direction that the explosion was received. I don't know how much coding would be required for this though. Perhaps 3-5 separate decapitation models could be pre-made per side, and then randomly spawned?

In regards to spawning corpses based on the faction - my only caution in regards to this is that there are a lot of custom-unit mods out there, and if they're not covered by your mod, then it might be strange to see a mismatched corpse appear after an explosion. Perhaps this is why SLX's charring is so complete, as it eliminated any chance of accidentally spawning the wrong uniform type. Maybe you could write up the code so that if the unit's faction can't be identified to a pre-defined uniform type, that a "generic," too-badly-charred-and-dirtied corpse is produced instead.

My stomach's turning just writing this up. Perhaps it'd be easier if I were picturing video-game and movie carnage, but I'm not. In any case, I'm all for a truly realistic gore mod. Thanks to the propaganda machines that rule our planet, our people don't have a clue as to how awful war can be. They should know, as doubtless this would lead to fewer wars, which would be a good thing in my opinion.

[Hoffinator 1]

This would be hard to code, but I agree with Kyle_k_ski. Maybe add a hit-mapping of a sorts? because a grenade that landed at someones feet would most likely not blow them into a million pieces. The whole thing about grenades is shrapnel. Modern grenades do have a bit more of a punch, but to plop someones body into 10 different pieces? No way. So a hit-mapping of sorts, there is a video I could link to you that shows what happens when someone steps on a landmine. Its gross and gruesome, and you probably wouldn't want to see it, but maybe. Also, certain gunfire can rip someone into shreds, like an M60E4, or an HMG like that. they wouldn't explode.. they might have their arms ripped off, etc. this would probably require re-making the ArmA2 skeleton, but possibly not. A realistic gore mod would be fantastic, I'm sick of all the games now being like: when you shoot someone, a little puff of red mist comes out and they fall over. Adding the ability to be cooked inside of cars (body roasted after death) or compatibility for the ACE white phosphorus would be great. And small things like the body is intact, yet and hand was missing would be great. Also, it would be fabulous for mission-makers. To show acts of violence against civilians in their briefings, would possibly inspire the player to kill some baddies and add a more somber ambiance to the scene.

If you could do this, I would love you forever.

:459:

[EDcase 87]

My vote would be for option 1 (should not be able to loot blown up soldier & removing original model will help fps a bit)

Only note would be to make models have less original body shape.

Torso should be more like a mound of flesh with a few shreds of clothing visible.

[noubernou 77]

Hey Ice, I was looking into this a couple months back but I ran into some issues and I am wondering how you solved them.

For the hidden selections is it an animation or are you using setObjectTexture to hide the parts? I was using setObjectTexture and ran into an issue where the hidden selection that was transparent would just turn black seen here: http://raceriv.com/arma2/wound_material_problem.jpg (sorry the image is over 100k so I have to link it).

I am really interested in this effect, keeping the original model, for advanced wounding effects and medical systems and any insight would be much appreciated.

[slightlyawesome 1]

Imo option 1 would be the best. Great job Icewindo, looks pretty awesome so far. I love gore, feels like it's allways more realistic if a game has things like limbs which can be blown away.

Love it when I'm playing Red Orchestra 2 and suddenly my friends legs get blown off :D

[AmericanFAC 1]

My suggestion would be to make it procedural and have a range to it.

For example, hitting someone with a grenade launcher blast isn't going to blow them up completely into meaty bits. Sure, it would be nice to have that as a setting, and yes there is firepower that would do so, but it should be. Situational. A guy should be able to get his arm blown off, leg blown off, and as a result need serious medical attention. It would add a completely new dynamic. If you were to take it a step futher this could very well become a health modification. Where it not only features dynamic gib effects but also drastically change the game. But first, I would suggest trying to get procedural damage. As in, broken leg, shattered leg, leg blown off.

[blackmamb 2]

A quick thought about the looting bit.

In my opinion it wouldn't be too complicated to add some cargo room to the dismembered model, and copy/paste the late soldier's gear inventory into that, right?

Another way would be to have him drop all his equipment (or part of it, due do explosion damage?) right before being deleted? (i guess the issue here starts when he goes flying around: where's the gear gonna go?)

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

.

.

hitting someone with a grenade launcher blast isn't going to blow them up completely into meaty bits

That's right. After my veteran-friend opened up to me about his war experiences, I became a voracious reader of real war stories. I was trying to understand him better, and part of me just couldn't believe that war could be so atrocious and horrible and abominable. After all of the frantic research I was doing, I could come to but one conclusion: it is just as bad as he described to me.

I read "Black Hawk Down" a couple of times, and one portion that I kept rereading over and over again, was how they got several direct hits on a Somali woman with a UBGL, and she was still alive, trying to get up. Perhaps she was hyped up on khat and/or adrenalin and/or rage? What's interesting about the differences between the film and the book (and the History Channel's documentary) is that Bowden (the author) describes in detail how U.S. forces routinely went out of their way to flare their helicopter's descent to generate enormously powerful winds that blew the clothing off of attractive Somali women's bodies, and destroy their poorly made showering facilities apart while they were using them (which also took out other buildings too in the process). On top of that, appeals were made to get the U.S. troops from hunting the game in the region (something only briefly hinted at in the film), as the people were hungry and it was highly insulting to them to see their lands "violated" by foreigners hunting down their precious wildlife. The long and short of it is that the Somalis were sick and tired of the abuse. How different the film and documentary would've been had these two "little" facts been detailed!

In any case, if my memory serves me correctly, the woman who was hit repeatedly by the M203 rounds, she quickly looked like ground up hamburger, and had portions of her body blown off, but the terrible state she was in doesn't match what I've seen using the SLX mod, or what I've seen featured in the videos supplied here for this mod.

In regards to maintaining access to a corpse's gear: I don't see much point in it. Odds are high that if the said equipment is not outright destroyed, or badly damaged, it's coated in human tissue - as mentally "tough" as soldiers seem to be, their first inclination to getting more ammo is not to loot the most blown apart body. My friend described to me just how frequently chunks of flesh and gelled up blood clots were found - frequently looking like soft and filthy bread dough. He saw a lot of action, and it was always revolting to him.

I wouldn't devote the time to trying to script accessible blown apart corpses. There will doubtlessly be other dead, yet intact, corpses to loot.

[blackmamb 2]

That's a good point. Well, i was just saying, technically it's doable.

Now i would probably not be a frequent user of this addon, so, what's best is what you guys think is best.