Why is it so common to fall through video game maps?
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Date: 2022-03-21
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Comments and reviews: 10
cubu
wouldn't it be potentially possible... that since objects are capable of interacting with your character when designing a game say in the Unreal Engine... to create say some form of safety net as an object that follows and stays under your character at all times... with some blueprint events set up in such an order that if you cross a certain area -the edge of a cliff- the item disables and you still fall like normal but if your not in those defined areas this mesh follows your character around and is at all times directly underneath them to keep them from falling through the map... this mesh could be just large enough for your character and set it up with a few events so that if it detects your characters touch it automatically lifts you back up to map level otherwise it follows you around under the map of course... and the other event of course the cliff event or falling event if your actually falling off a cliff or jumping yes OK so that's a lot of excess programming but potentially couldn't this be done to prevent falling through maps?
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wouldn't it be potentially possible... that since objects are capable of interacting with your character when designing a game say in the Unreal Engine... to create say some form of safety net as an object that follows and stays under your character at all times... with some blueprint events set up in such an order that if you cross a certain area -the edge of a cliff- the item disables and you still fall like normal but if your not in those defined areas this mesh follows your character around and is at all times directly underneath them to keep them from falling through the map... this mesh could be just large enough for your character and set it up with a few events so that if it detects your characters touch it automatically lifts you back up to map level otherwise it follows you around under the map of course... and the other event of course the cliff event or falling event if your actually falling off a cliff or jumping yes OK so that's a lot of excess programming but potentially couldn't this be done to prevent falling through maps?
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TARINunit9
Mario 64 had such an elegant solution to this crap. In theory you could fall through the floor, but only if there was another floor below you -- meaning, you could NEVER fall through the map.
Unlike most games, floors in Mario 64 aren't 2D planes. They have a pseudo-hitbox below the surface of the floor, and if Mario ends up inside that hitbox the game snaps him to the surface of the floor instead of letting him fall through (this code was originally designed to make walking up stairs and curbs more natural, so the devs didn't have to make ramps with -stairs texture- over them [except for the one time they did but that's another story]). In addition, if the game detects that Mario is about to drop in an area that has no floor below it (which includes below the grass) the game will just flat-out refuse to let Mario go there at all. The end result of this refusal, is that where most games would have you fall through the map, Mario 64 will trigger the floor's pseudo-hitbox and Mario will end up safe and sound on the ground
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Mario 64 had such an elegant solution to this crap. In theory you could fall through the floor, but only if there was another floor below you -- meaning, you could NEVER fall through the map.
Unlike most games, floors in Mario 64 aren't 2D planes. They have a pseudo-hitbox below the surface of the floor, and if Mario ends up inside that hitbox the game snaps him to the surface of the floor instead of letting him fall through (this code was originally designed to make walking up stairs and curbs more natural, so the devs didn't have to make ramps with -stairs texture- over them [except for the one time they did but that's another story]). In addition, if the game detects that Mario is about to drop in an area that has no floor below it (which includes below the grass) the game will just flat-out refuse to let Mario go there at all. The end result of this refusal, is that where most games would have you fall through the map, Mario 64 will trigger the floor's pseudo-hitbox and Mario will end up safe and sound on the ground
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hiQer
As a game dev, I salute this explanation. The moments it happens the most is when an animation (like rolling or getting in a car) clips past the collision boundary of the floor. Because the animation does not get canceled when going past the floor, it finishes it and you end up below the floor and so; falling forever. -
Of course, we also have this problem in our game, and it can be addressed by applying a -respawn above ground- trigger volume (which triggers the respawn when falling past it) just below the ground. This way you won't fall far and can play on immediately. It's totally not hard to implement and enough games fix it this way, there is no other way. I hope this helps anyone designing games or anyone trying to understand how it can happen because that was not explained here.
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As a game dev, I salute this explanation. The moments it happens the most is when an animation (like rolling or getting in a car) clips past the collision boundary of the floor. Because the animation does not get canceled when going past the floor, it finishes it and you end up below the floor and so; falling forever. -
Of course, we also have this problem in our game, and it can be addressed by applying a -respawn above ground- trigger volume (which triggers the respawn when falling past it) just below the ground. This way you won't fall far and can play on immediately. It's totally not hard to implement and enough games fix it this way, there is no other way. I hope this helps anyone designing games or anyone trying to understand how it can happen because that was not explained here.
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Elias
There is one more reason, I think. Collision could be detected only then object coordinates are equal to surface coordinates. Then object coordinates suddenly become beyond surface ones (due inaccurate increment or inter-thread lags), collision would no more be detected. That is pretty common beginner range check bug (using value = range, instead of value < range). For mature projects that could be caused by optimizations or hardware limitations.
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There is one more reason, I think. Collision could be detected only then object coordinates are equal to surface coordinates. Then object coordinates suddenly become beyond surface ones (due inaccurate increment or inter-thread lags), collision would no more be detected. That is pretty common beginner range check bug (using value = range, instead of value < range). For mature projects that could be caused by optimizations or hardware limitations.
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cubu
why not create a second floor maybe that only generates within range of the player, have the ground always ask -is there a collision in this floor? if no proceed, if yes re-spawn at floor level in same x-y coordinates- just a backup to prevent this... the chances of an error 2 times in a row like this would be way lower and would put the players back on the floor preventing the drop of no return.
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why not create a second floor maybe that only generates within range of the player, have the ground always ask -is there a collision in this floor? if no proceed, if yes re-spawn at floor level in same x-y coordinates- just a backup to prevent this... the chances of an error 2 times in a row like this would be way lower and would put the players back on the floor preventing the drop of no return.
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Weedle
Ur argument is good only for not open world games with glitchy auto save. I can't count how many times accidently went behind the map and it auto saved. Omg this is always frustrating even if i have a previous save to go to. I've lost all the progress. Argh I'd rather have a boss that takes me a week to beat. Or a puzzle that does the same. Don't take away my progress-
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Ur argument is good only for not open world games with glitchy auto save. I can't count how many times accidently went behind the map and it auto saved. Omg this is always frustrating even if i have a previous save to go to. I've lost all the progress. Argh I'd rather have a boss that takes me a week to beat. Or a puzzle that does the same. Don't take away my progress-
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Kenny
I realized this about 2 days after I watched this but thus explains why game dev tutorials tell you to make ground check collision circles more than like a single point. Means you can fall through the ground a bit and still be fine cuz instead of 1 false negative isGrounded, you need about 60 in a row which is SIGNIFICANTLY less likely.
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I realized this about 2 days after I watched this but thus explains why game dev tutorials tell you to make ground check collision circles more than like a single point. Means you can fall through the ground a bit and still be fine cuz instead of 1 false negative isGrounded, you need about 60 in a row which is SIGNIFICANTLY less likely.
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lokiprime2054
Me: watches video
My brain: remembers that time when i was playing the forest and fell through the map losing 12 hours of work at the very end of the game after killing the boss on a multiplayer world losing all progress and getting stuck in a room permanently
Me: gets salty
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Me: watches video
My brain: remembers that time when i was playing the forest and fell through the map losing 12 hours of work at the very end of the game after killing the boss on a multiplayer world losing all progress and getting stuck in a room permanently
Me: gets salty
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Red
This is probably why voxel based games stopped popping in, if you place a voxel big enough to make your character clip out of a surface you can encounter this, i remember clipping out of caves in landmark, was fun, but yeah i can see this being a problem on final release games.
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This is probably why voxel based games stopped popping in, if you place a voxel big enough to make your character clip out of a surface you can encounter this, i remember clipping out of caves in landmark, was fun, but yeah i can see this being a problem on final release games.
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LOST
I remember falling through the ground sooo much on TouchGrind Skate 2 and I remember when touch grind BMX 2 came out and if you ride off the path, there were soooooooo many surfaces to the sides that didn-t have a collision so you would just fall straight through it
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I remember falling through the ground sooo much on TouchGrind Skate 2 and I remember when touch grind BMX 2 came out and if you ride off the path, there were soooooooo many surfaces to the sides that didn-t have a collision so you would just fall straight through it
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